Lifeboat Foundation

What just happened? In addition to suing Elon Musk, Twitter is also blaming the world’s richest man for its falling revenue. The platform saw its number of users increase in the second quarter of the year, but that hasn’t translated to a healthier bottom line, something it partly blames on the disruption caused by Musk bidding for the company before walking away.

Twitter’s Q2 2022 results show its second-quarter revenue was $1.18 billion, representing both a quarterly and yearly decline, albeit only slightly. However, its average monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) was up 16.6% compared to Q2 2021, reaching 237.8 million globally.

Continue reading “Twitter adds more users but makes less money, blames Elon Musk” »

On Monday, SpaceX was spotted loading some of the first Starlink V2 satellite prototypes into a custom mechanism designed to refill Starship’s magazine-like payload bay.

While it’s not the first time SpaceX has used the dispenser, the photos captured by photographer Kevin Randolph are the first to clearly show real prototypes of the next generation of Starlink satellites. According to CEO Elon Musk, those Starlink Gen2 or V2 satellites will be “at least 5 times better”, “an order of magnitude more capable,” and about four times heavier than current (V1.5) Starlink satellites.

The potential of the new satellite bus design paired with Starship’s massive fairing and lift capacity could dramatically improve the viability and cost-effectiveness of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation. First, though, the company needs to launch and qualify prototypes of the new satellite design and verify that all associated ground support equipment works as expected.

Brain-computer interfaces have become a practical (if limited) reality in the US. Synchron says it has become the first in the country to implant a BCI in a human patient. Doctors in New York’s Mount Sinai West implanted the company’s Stentrode in the motor cortex of a participant in Synchron’s COMMAND trial, which aims to gauge the usefulness and safety of BCIs for providing hands-free device control to people with severe paralysis. Ideally, technology like Stentrode will offer independence to people who want to email, text and otherwise handle digital tasks that others take for granted.

Surgeons installed the implant using an endovascular procedure that avoids the intrusiveness of open-brain surgery by going through the jugular vein. The operation went “extremely well” and let the patient return home 48 hours later, according to Synchron. An ongoing Australian trial has also proven successful so far, with four patients still safe a year after receiving their implants.

It may take a long time before doctors can offer Synchron’s BCIs to patients. The company received FDA approval for human trials in July 2021, and it’s still expanding the COMMAND trial as of this writing. Still, the US procedure represents a significant step toward greater autonomy for people with paralysis. It also represents a competitive victory — Elon Musk’s Neuralink has yet to receive FDA permission for its own implant.

An XPrize competition funded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk just awarded teams of students $5 million to develop their ideas for carbon removal systems — and it still has another $95 million to give away.

The challenge: Between our cars, factories, and everything else, humans are pumping about 43 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

Continue reading “Students get $5 million from Elon Musk for carbon-removal ideas” »

Signs are positive after an explosion during tests this week, but SpaceX still ‘need to inspect all the engines’ of their Starship first-stage booster.