Hydrogen Wells, Laser Communication in Space, and Free TVs! 5.18.2023

We’re back with our tech newsletter!

Space News

Scientists are running a test to see if they can produce induced pluripotent stem cells in space. These cells can be a replacement for embryonic stem cells, but we have difficulty producing them on Earth due to the 2D nature of cell cultures on Earth. Scientists believe that by producing these cells in microgravity, they would be able to grow in 3D similar to the way they would be produced in the human body. If successful, we could see organ factories in outer space where organs would be produced there and then shipped back to Earth for organ replacements. There is still a significant amount of technology that needs to be proven out before we can get there not just on the biotech side, but also the supply chain side allowing us to ship these organs back to Earth without damaging them.??

The Artemis mission, created to send people back to the moon, will be using lasers to transmit data back to Earth instead of radio waves that have been used in the past. This allows for a significant bandwidth increase and less energy consumption when transmitting data. This would allow not only for high-definition video and photos to be sent back in real time but also for more data concerning the astronauts’ health to be sent back for analysis. It will be interesting to see how this data transmission holds up and whether it will be the new standard for communication in space.?

Consumer Electronics

Startup Telly is releasing a new free TV! It's a 55-inch TV that has a small wide display below it. It also has a sound bar built into it and a camera that can be used for motion tracking when using fitness apps. The way that they’re able to make the TV free is by collecting data on what you watch and showing ads on the bottom screen. If you want to opt out of the data tracking, you’ll either have to pay for the premium subscription or pay 500 dollars for the TV. This business model has been proven out through heavily subsidized hardware from companies like Facebook and Amazon. This could shake things up in the streaming industry and the TV industry in general if it is successful.?

The Google Pixel 6 and 7 suffered from battery drain issues due to an update to the Google app. The issue was quickly resolved in a couple of days. As we have more IoT devices, small software changes can have huge implications on the hardware using them. Many Android phone makers have been very slow at rolling out updates and don’t support software updates to older phones. Having quick OTA updates is important not only in the phone industry, but we’ve seen companies like Tesla have significant OTA updates for their cars which makes the overall user experience better. In the future, we could see a world where the difference between a budget brand and a high-quality brand for any tech device is whether they support the device with updates in the long run.?

Asus has been running into issues with its new motherboards for the new Ryzen 7000 series CPUs. Under load, the motherboards have been providing ~.2 volts more to the CPU than other motherboards which can cause the CPU to die. A beta firmware helped alleviate this issue, but Asus told users that if they were to upgrade to the beta firmware released by Asus, it would void their warranty. They have since then walked back on that statement saying they will honor the warranty even with the beta firmware, but this is not a good look for the company. Many influencers have publicly stated that they will no longer be working with Asus due to their negligence or malintent. In a competitive market, the thing that can separate good companies from the best is customer service, and here’s an example where poor customer service led to significant impacts on the company as a whole.?

AI

Kraft Heinz has used AI to help it solve many of its supply chain issues. In a briefing with analysts, CEO Miguel Patricio told them that many they’ve used AI to help automate many parts of their supply chain from getting raw ingredients to distribution. They’ve reduced the number of operator alerts by 42% and added 30 million dollars in sales because of it. This isn’t to say they haven’t had supply chain issues. These new systems just help them to identify and act upon issues that come up and are a part of the company moving forward with using technology. In the future, we’ll probably see more blue chip companies, that aren’t in the technology sector, use AI to help them continue to grow and remain competitive.?

Open AI has added long-awaited features to ChatGPT but at a price. The platform now supports accessing the internet to get real-time information such as the weather and stock prices, and it also supports 3rd party plugins. This will allow the company to generate revenue while continuing to develop the chatbot further. The possibilities of these plugins are endless. There is a plugin for Wolfram Alpha where ChatGPT can interpret the text and convert it into something that Wolfram Alpha could compute. Innovations like this will allow us to easily convert English into things computers can do for us.?

Google announced many changes to its AI chatbot, Bard, at Google IO. Many of these changes are now rolling out including the ability to export output to a google doc or email and an improvement in Bard’s ability to summarize things. Bard is no longer just a preview and anybody in the public can use it as well. When the preview first opened up, many people said it was not competitive with ChatGPT which was way ahead of Bard. Now, it seems like Google is trying to iterate quickly on Bard so that it can close the gap with ChatGPT.?

NASA is now using an AI model called DAGGER to predict when the next solar storm will occur. Using data from satellites studying the sun and Earth's ground stations, it will alert NASA approximately 30 minutes before a disturbance happens. Currently, models used to predict these storms are unreliable and by using the pattern recognition ability of AI models, DAGGER was able to predict a solar storm in 2011 and 2015. This is just one cool use case for AI and it’ll be interesting to see how physics simulations are all impacted by AI as it continues to evolve and improve.?

Climate Tech

A study done by Northeastern University showed that approximately a third of the energy used for manufacturing in the US could be produced from rooftop solar in factories. Manufacturing currently produces just over 20% of the carbon emissions from the US and by switching to renewable energy, those emissions could be cut significantly. With the dropping prices of rooftop solar, this is becoming a more appealing proposition for companies, especially in areas that get a significant amount of sunlight. Tesla has already installed solar panels on many of its Gigafactories and it’ll be interesting to see which other companies follow in their footsteps.?

Hydrogen could be found abundantly underground. Currently, hydrogen that is used in things like hydrogen cars is made by artificially separating hydrogen from other substances. This is done by using energy. If we can find stores of hydrogen underground, that would then allow us to power devices without having to do any refinement to the hydrogen. Not only would this be clean energy, but it also may be renewable as water reacts with iron minerals at elevated temperatures and pressures all the time to produce these hydrogen stores. This could have huge implications for where our energy comes from in the future. There’s a significant amount of infrastructure required and research that still needs to be done to help figure out where these stores could be, but this could eliminate the need for fossil fuels in the future.?