This week on Between the Bytes we’re talking about updates from Tesla and Elon Musk Facebook AI and more. Stay tuned.
Welcome to Between the Bytes where we are not as smart as your average nerds. I’m Gary Arnold and today we have a special guest. I’m Chelsea and I’m the other token minority in the office. We are the most diverse group, we believe in diversity.
TECH NEWS
Our first bit of news is from Elon Musk, a couple weeks ago he announced that they would be releasing an electric semi truck, that’s right, Tesla is bringing semi trucks to the forefront of the electric world. The new truck will be able to travel 500 miles with a full load which is further than most trucks can do now with gasoline. The design of the truck is really cool, it’s very modern and very forward-thinking. The seat is centered in the middle of the vehicle rather to the left side. He also announced that they would be bringing back the Tesla Roadster, (the first vehicle produced by Tesla) and they’ve revamped it and re-modified it and it is now crazy-cool. It can go 0 to 60 in 1.9 seconds, it will be the fastest production car ever made and it also has a range of over 620 miles. It comes with a hefty price tag of over two hundred thousand dollars and it’s not out yet for the public it’s just a demo but it’s coming your way soon.
Facebook is rolling out a new AI system designed to identify posts that contain suicidal thoughts. The AI works using many social signals to identify people at risk and notify proper authorities and offer appropriate help. That’s a that’s a very good use of AI, we often cover the bad things that artificial intelligence might do but it’s definitely a good use of artificial intelligence.
In other artificial intelligence related news Boston Dynamics, who we’ve covered here multiple times, last week we talked about their cute new little robot that they released a video of another video of their popular robot Atlas which is a sort of humanoid looking robot. It can now do backflips and kind of parkour jumping and jump over boxes. It’s really cool also kind of terrifying. Elon Musk, of course, weighed in and said this was only the beginning and that likely we would see robots that move extremely fast in the coming years so something to watch out for.
Bitcoin breaks 10,000. The popular cryptocurrency has been on an upward spike is finally at 10,000 and experts predict it will continue to rise. With Bitcoin, we’re excited to announce that in the coming weeks we’ll have a series of experts corners, a series of videos that we do with some of our resident tech experts detailing cryptocurrency and bitcoins. So if you’ve ever wondered what the heck cryptocurrency and Bitcoin is and why is it such a big deal you will have some explained videos the next coming weeks from one of our resident Bitcoin experts. Stay tuned and subscribe to check that out.
TECH HISTORY
This week in Tech History on November 26th in 1996 the MP3 was patented. The technology used to compress music was first developed in a university in Germany many years ago and music has never been the same since. Remember that movie with Justin Timberlake and he comes out with the Napster? That was all about pirating mp3’s. On November 28th, 1948 Polaroid released the first instant camera for the Christmas season and self-development film has been a hit ever since. Selfies have taken over the world.
That’s it for this week. We want to remind you of a couple of things. We are still running a giveaway so until the end of this week you can still like, subscribe, and comment to be entered to win an Amazon Echo. Remember you can like us on YouTube or Facebook, subscribe to this channel, and comment with your favorite smartphone app for a chance to win an Amazon Echo. We will pick the winner at the end of this week and announce it on next week’s episode be sure to share with your friends and let them know about the contest. Amazon Echo makes a great Christmas gift. We are also running a book drive with Silicon Slope Startup Santa and United Way and we are collecting books here at the Executech office. If you have technicians that come to your office and you’re an Executech client please give them books and we will donate it to a good cause that goes to youth here in Utah Valley. We’re looking for new to slightly used children’s books and it goes towards a good cause for this Christmas season. Be sure to participate in that and learn more at startupsanta.com. Please donate as it’s for a good cause and thanks for watching. That’s it for this week and we will catch you next week.
