Important Innovations

  Where There Is Water, There May be Life                                                                                          Source:  Moon Stock Image Big Scientific Discovery Push Is Underway NASA's SOPHIA Telescope has discovered water on the Moon.  That is a very big finding because the presence of water holds the potential of the presence of life.  Areas with the presence of water on the Moon and on other planets are the prime locations that NASA targets to search for new forms of life in space. NASA's Critical New Questions NASA is now asking a series of critical questions about the findings.  How much water is there in the places that SOPHIA has spotted?  How can the water be used by future astronauts in the 2024 Artemis mission to the Moon?  NASA says it is using rovers, spacecraft, telescopes and more in pursuit of answers to these critical questions. What We Know Now & What's Upcoming in 2028 NASA findings have already confirmed that there is more water o

  Partner to Develop Self-Driving Semi Trucks                                                            Source:  Daimler Trucks and Waymo Driverless Big Rigs Daimler and Alphabet/Google Waymo announced today that they are collaborating on the development of self-driving Class 8 semi trucks.  Specifically, they plan on incorporating Waymo's automated system into Daimler's Freightliner Cascadia semi trucks.  These are very big rigs capable of hauling 33,000 pounds. Big Win for Waymo This is a big win for Waymo which has been trying to collaborate with major, established automakers.  Waymo CEO John Krafcik, during a conference call about the deal, said it will take some time to develop the braking, steering and other technologies needed to bring fully self-driving semi trucks to market in high volume.   Highly Competitive Traffic with Tesla Daimler and its competitor PACCAR control more than 70% of the Class 8 semi truck market in the US.  But, the competition is heating up.  In

  Going for Global Investor Gold Source:  Ant Group $34.4 Billion IPO  Chinese financial technology giant Ant Financial Services Group is launching a dual listed IPO on the Shanghai and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges.  The IPO is aiming to raise nearly $35 billion. That would be the world's largest share price offering in history. Investors are racing for a piece of the fast growing company.  Ant is Alibaba's financial affiliate. Alibaba is a giant China-based technology and e-commerce multinational company. Ant offers a suite of financial services, including the widely popular Alipay digital payment system, known as China's wallet. The IPO deal would value Ant at more than $313 billion.  That is more than the world's biggest bank by assets, The Industrial and  Commercial Bank of China. Regulatory and Trade Concerns Overshadowing the market debut is a threat by the US State Department to add the company to its trade blacklist.  There is also some concern over growing regulat

  Elon Musk Says Solar Roofs are His Next Killer Product                                                  Source:  Tesla Tesla Hiring Hundreds of Roofers Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk says the company's next killer product is solar roofs.  He made the announcement during his Q3 2020 conference call.  He says solar roofs will be very hot in 2021. Tesla is hiring hundreds of roofers to get ready.  Musk promises a future of beautiful, tough, resilient solar roofs alive with energy.  Musk feels that is an energy future that we all want and he's building it into a big business.  The Tesla solar roof is composed of solar tiles not solar panels.  It provides the protection of a roof but also generates solar powered electricity. Green Energy Business Ratcheting Up Musk says his solar roof business is accelerating.  Deployments more than doubled in Q3 2020 to 57 MW compared to the previous quarter.  Musk told investors and analysts on the conference call that roof deployments are almo

  Hitting Financial and Sales Targets                                                  Source:  Tesla Rolling Out Full Self-Driving Software With Caution Tesla, the world's largest electric vehicle automaker, and CEO/founder Elon Musk are on a roll.  The company just recorded its 5th quarterly profit and it sold and delivered 139,300 vehicles in Q3 2020.  That puts it on target for selling 500,000 vehicles for the year 2020.  That is a milestone that CEO Musk has been pushing hard to achieve.  Meanwhile, Musk has just started a high stakes rollout of his Full Self-Driving (FSD) software for autonomous driving Teslas. FSD's High Stakes Beta Testing Musk has started limited beta testing of his software architecture re-write of FSD with a small group of selected Tesla customers. This new version of FSD provides more advanced autonomous perception capabilities of stop signs, traffic lights and a higher degree of driver assist on city streets.  It also has another new feature - Navi

  Volta Zero                                                       Source:  Volta Zero Zero Emissions, With Body Made of Flax & Biodegradable Resin Startup Volta Zero of Sweden has innovated an electric truck built for deliveries in cities.  It is a 16 ton, all electric delivery truck that's smaller than a big rig.  It has a range of 125 miles on a charge. The EV is powered by lithium ion phosphate batteries which are modular and allow Volta to customize the vehicles to the customers' specific needs.  Incredibly it is made of sustainably sourced Flax material and biodegradable resin in its exterior body panels.  Volta Zero says it will change the face of road travel. London's Ultra Low Emissions Zone The European delivery service DPD will start testing the Zero in London's Ultra Low Emissions Zone starting in the first quarter of 2021.  The company has forged significant partnerships with another 8 customers.  Experts say Volta Zero could have a significant role in

  Second Launch This Week of Fleets of Satellites Today                                                       Source: SpaceX Promise of Inexpensive, High Speed Internet SpaceX today successfully launched into orbit another fleet of 60 internet satellites.  It was the second Starlink launch this week as SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk continue to build their growing mega-constellation of satellites to deliver inexpensive, high speed internet from space.  Musk now has in orbit more than 800 Starlink satellites. Remarkable Technology The technology that Musk has developed at SpaceX is remarkable.  Today, nine minutes after launch, the Falcon 9 rocket's 1st stage booster that boosted the satellites into space returned to Earth and successfully landed on one of SpaceX's drone ships, known as Just Read the Instructions,  in the Atlantic Ocean.  The precision of the landing is awesome. The 60 satellites continued into space for their low Earth orbits.   This is the 19th launch for SpaceX in