The Innovation Report
New Technology Installed Beneath Detroit Street Can Charge EVs As They Drive
Crews have installed what's billed as the nation's first wireless-charging public roadway for electric vehicles beneath a street just west of downtown Detroit. Copper inductive charging coils allow vehicles equipped with receivers to charge up their batteries while...
Driverless Cars Immune From Traffic Tickets In California Under Current Laws
Mounting concerns over self-driving cars – headlined by allegations autonomous vehicle maker Cruise misled the DMV about an accident in San Francisco that left a pedestrian seriously injured – have some questioning whether the state needs new laws and new watchdogs to...
Pentagon’s Replicator Project Aims To Deploy Thousands Of AI-Enabled AVs By 2026
The Pentagon is embarking on an ambitious project, known as Replicator, with the goal of deploying thousands of AI-enabled autonomous vehicles by 2026, as it seeks to keep pace with China’s military advancements in artificial intelligence. This move represents a...
Governments Proposed Launching Over One Million Satellites
As the number of satellites in orbit increase, so will the possibilities of space debris. There are currently 8,000 satellites in orbit, but hundreds of thousands more are being proposed. If even 10 per cent of the filed-for satellites launch, low Earth...
Autonomous Cars Putting Strain On Local Governments
In an article for The New York Times, Yiwen Lu describes how driverless vehicles are creating headaches for city workers and officials and, in some cases, putting residents in danger. “In San Francisco and Austin, Texas, where passengers can hail...
Consumer Reports Pummels EV Reliability, Praises Hybrids
Electric vehicles may be the future, but in some ways they look a lot like the past. Particularly reliability. That’s the bottom line from Consumer Reports’ eagerly anticipated annual reliability survey, which sounds like an ‘80s tribute act: the top tier, brands...
Missouri Universities Win Grants To Help Agricultural Workers Harness New Technologies
The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects a shortage of agricultural workers able to use new technologies and plans to help two Missouri universities better train them. Lincoln University in Jefferson City and Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla...
Senators Embrace AI On The Farm, Eye Provisions In Farm Bill
Artificial intelligence is already a workhorse in the technology that allows tractors to identify weeds and tailor herbicide spraying, determine when a crop is ready to harvest and weave together satellite and soil data to make efficient use of fertilizer. But Senate...
Police Could Use Military-Grade Drones To Track Criminals
Police helicopters could be replaced with military-grade drones as part of a major tech upgrade across some forces in England and Wales. Chairwoman of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners Donna Jones revealed chiefs have been “pushing strongly”...
How To 3D Print Fully-Formed Robots
3D printers are capable of producing complex shapes, but making functioning objects from multiple materials in a single print-run has proved challenging. To overcome this, a team has combined inkjet printing with an error-correction system guided by machine vision, to...
