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The world’s largest contract chip maker said it expects the chip shortage that has hampered car makers to start easing in the next few months after it ramped up its production of auto chips.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chip maker, said it expects the chip shortage that has hampered car makers to start easing in the next few months after it ramped up its production of auto chips.

The company is on track to increase output of microcontrollers used in cars by about 60% this year compared with last, Chief Executive C.C. Wei said in an earnings call on Thursday. However, he said, the broader semiconductor shortage could persist until 2022.

A dearth of semiconductors, used in products including home appliances and smartphones, has stymied manufacturing activity, notably in the auto industry. That shortfall should be greatly reduced for TSMC customers in the current quarter, Mr. Wei said.

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Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla currently has a Powerwall backlog of 80000 orders, which is worth over $500 million, but it can’t ramp up production to meet that due to the global chip shortage.

Tesla has been production constrained with the Powerwall for a long time.

The demand has been strong in several markets, like the US and Australia, but production hasn’t been to catch up despite significant ramp-ups.

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SMRs are cheaper and quicker to build than traditional reactors, and can also be deployed in remote regions and on ships and aircraft. Their “modular” format means they can be shipped by container from the factory and installed relatively quickly on any proposed site.

SHANGHAI, July 13 (Reuters) — China has started construction of the first commercial onshore nuclear project using its homegrown “Linglong One” small modular reactor (SMR) design, the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) said on Tuesday, about four years later than planned.

CNNC originally aimed to start building the project at the Changjiang nuclear reactor complex on the island province of Hainan in 2017, but it has been subject to regulatory delays.

The “Linglong One”, also known as the ACP100, was the first SMR to be approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2016. Each unit has power generating capacity of 125 megawatts (MW).

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DARPA announced the selection of four research teams to drive it home with no headlights on our Invisible Headlights program, which seeks to determine if it’s possible for autonomous vehicles to navigate in complete darkness using only passive sensors:

https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/uk-may-ban-boiling-lobsters-alive-under-sentient-being-law-so-can-they-really-feel-pain/ More

DARPA has selected four industry and university research teams for the Invisible Headlights program, which seeks to determine if it’s possible for autonomous vehicles to navigate in complete darkness using only passive sensors.

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China currently has one of the most expansive and impressive high-speed rail networks on Earth, and they aren’t showing signs of slowing. As their network reaches the far corners of their nation, Beijing could be setting its eyes on what lies beyond – far, far beyond.

According to reports, China wishes to build a high-speed, 13000-kilometer (8078-mile) train that travels from mainland China, up through Siberia in Eastern Russia, under the sea through the Bering Strait into Alaska, across the rocky peaks of Canada’s Yukon and British Columbia, and into the USA. Once constructed, they have could further extend their international bullet train into every corner of the US.

The price of such an outlandish proposal? A cool $200 billion. A price tag so high, even the likes of Jeff Bezos probably couldn’t reach it.

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World Economic Forum Founder Klaus Schwab opens Cyber Polygon 2021 with a warning: “A lack of cybersecurity has become a clear and immediate danger to our society worldwide.”

Giving the welcoming remarks at Cyber Polygon for the second year in a row, Schwab spoke at length about the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) desire to tackle cybersecurity by bringing together a closer merger of corporations, small businesses, and governments.

Last year, Schwab warned, “We all know, but still pay insufficient attention to, the frightening scenario of a comprehensive cyber attack, which would bring a complete halt to the power supply, transportation, hospital services, our society as a whole.”

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Tesla began sending out over-the-air software updates for its long-awaited “Full Self-Driving” beta version 9, the definitely-not-autonomous-but-certainly-advanced driver assist system.

As promised by Elon Musk, the software update (2021.4.18.12) began uploading after midnight on Friday, giving thousands of Tesla owners who have purchased the FSD option access to the feature, which enables drivers to use many of Autopilot’s advanced driver-assist features on local, non-highway streets.

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An ultra-high-speed shipping port logistics system has been presented that’s reported capable of shifting up to 2800 containers a day, covering hundreds of kilometers in minutes.

Hyperloop Transport Technologies has presented an ultra-high-speed shipping port logistics system it says can shift up to 2800 containers a day, covering hundreds of kilometers in minutes – while decreasing emissions wherever it’s rolled out.

The whole thing would be like a giant cargo-carrying version of the pneumatic tube systems that once blasted thousands of messages around every hour, back when things were all black and white. As long as those things were around, innovators dreamed of one day building scaled-up versions big enough to move passengers and cargo.

The hyperloop dream, of course, takes it all to the next level. Mag-lev rails eliminate rolling resistance, and hundreds of kilometers of sealed tubes would be vacuum-evacuated to nearly eliminate air resistance. Thus, most of the energy you use to accelerate a capsule up to supersonic speeds (don’t worry, there’s not enough air in there to create a sonic boom) can be recovered at the other end with minimal losses. Super-fast, super-efficient and pretty damn cool.

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