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Gizmorama - October 6, 2014
Good Morning, The future is here! The CEO of Tesla Motors claims that the new line of electric cars will self-drive 90 percent of the time. Soon driving will not interrupt texting at all.
Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.
Until Next Time,
ErinP.S. Did you miss an issue? You can read every issue from the Gophercentral library of newsletters on our exhaustive archives page. Thousands of issues, all of your favorite publications in chronological order. You can read AND comment. Just click
GopherArchives****-- Musk: Next Tesla cars will self-drive 90 percent of the time --*WASHINGTON (UPI) - Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, had already scheduled a series of announcements -- presumably about the company's new line of electric cars -- for October 9, but he may have already let one of most buzz-worthy talking points out the bag.
In an interview Thursday with CNN Money, Musk said Tesla's new cars, set to be unveiled in 2015, will feature self-driving, or as Musk prefers to say, "auto-pilot" capabilities. Though they won't apparently be entirely autonomous, Musk said they will be able to self-drive 90 percent of the time.
"Autonomous cars will definitely be a reality," Musk said. And according to Musk, Tesla will lead the way. "Of course. I mean, Tesla's a Silicon Valley company. If we're not the leader, shame on us."
"You combine cameras with image recognition with radar and long-range ultrasonics, that'll do it," Musk said, explaining how Tesla will make autonomous cars a reality.
It's expected Musk will elaborate on Tesla's self-driving car plans in his press releases planned for October 9. On Wednesday, Musk tweeted a Tesla door with the letter D, teasing a possible third model. Tesla followers also think the company will release new details about the forthcoming Model S and Model X.
A number of other companies, including Mercedes, GM and BMW have reportedly been testing self-driving technology, but even the most aggressive projections don't predict autonomous cars until the end of the decade. Musk's latest announcement, however, suggests Tesla intends to take the technology to market much, much sooner.
* 3D printer makes bionic hand for 5-year-old girl *INVERNESS, Scotland (UPI) - Hayley Fraser, a five-year-old girl from Scotland, recently became the first child in the United Kingdom to be outfitted with a prosthetic limb made using 3D printing technology.
Fraser was born without fingers on her left hand; ashamed, she'd often hide that hand when having her picture taken. But not anymore. Her new bright pink bionic hand, inspired by the movie Ironman, is quite a sight -- something worth showing off.
The prosthetic hand didn't come easy, though. Fraser's family says she was denied a prosthetic hand by United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS). So her parents, David and Zania Fraser, went online to see what they could find. They happened upon the website of E-nable, a group of volunteers in the United States -- including engineers, artists and academics -- who design and build prosthetics for children.
One of the members of E-nable is Professor Frankie Flood, an engineer at the University of Wisconsin. After being put in touch with Flood, Fraser's parents made a cast of their daughter's hand and sent it across the Atlantic. Flood used the model to print out properly-sized prosthetic components using a 3D printer. The superhero-themed hand was ready in just six weeks.
Now, Fraser can manipulate her prosthetic hand's artificial tendons, joints and fingers by flexing and rotating her wrist.
"It was all her dreams come true," Fraser's father told the Independent. "It's the little things -- she can hold her teddy, peel a banana and even paint her nails now."
David says she no longer hides her hand, or acts embarrassed around her friends. And that may be the most important benefit.
"When we started it was more about function, but now it's much more about self-esteem," explained another E-nable volunteer, Melina Brown. "They make the kids feel really special, rather than being something to be embarrassed about."
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