Weekly Tech Recap - № 213 - Tesla SoC, Galaxy View 2 TV tablet, Zipline drones, Gosu.ai
Tesla chip
New on-board computer. © Tesla.
Until today, Tesla’s on-board computers ran on Nvidia chips. Now, the company has developed its own on-board computer equipped with its proprietary Tesla SoC. The in-house development team was led by Pete Bannon, a veteran engineer who has worked at Intel, P. A. Semi and, most recently, at Apple, where he worked on Apple’s SoC from 2008 to 2016 before joining Tesla. The new processor is specially designed to dedicate all of its AI to autonomous driving, allowing the computer to process the images produced by the 8 on-board cameras 21 times faster. Physically speaking, the new computer is the same size as the previous generation, making it possible to update previous Tesla models by simply swapping out the cards. For added security, the card is fully redundent, with two chips instead of one. All new Teslas (Model S, Model X and Model 3) currently coming off the assembly line are already equipped with the new computer. The SoC designed by Tesla is being fabricated by Samsung at 80% of the cost of the old Nvidia cards.
⇨ Circuit Breaker, “Tesla’s new self-driving chip is here, and this is your best look yet.”
Megatablet
Galaxy View 2. © Samsung.
Samsung’s Galaxy View 2 is a portable television (17.3-inch 1080p display) and an oversized Android tablet (Oreo 8.1) all at once, measuring 41.7x26.4x1.7cm and weighing in at 2.28kg. Powered by a hefty 12,000mAh battery, the device comes with an Exynos 7884 eight-core chip, 3Gb of RAM and 64Gb of internal storage. It has a front-facing 5-megapixel camera for video calls, but no back camera, probably because you won’t ever want to take pictures with a huge tablet weighing more than 2 kilos. The tablet also comes with built-in 4G LTE connectivity and Dolby Atmos speakers. The Galaxy View 2 is currently only available at AT&T for 740USD, payable in 20 monthly installments of 37USD.
⇨ Engadget, “Samsung’s strange, gigantic Galaxy View is ready for round two.”
Drone-delivered drugs
© Zipline.
Zipline, the company we spoke of back in 2017, has continued its expansion in Africa, consolidating its success in vast countries with transport infrastructures not always adapted to the emergency delivery of medical products. After Rwanda and Tanzania, Zipline has now started operations in Ghana, where it has just opened the first of 4 distribution centres. Eventually, the drone delivery network will reach 2,000 hospitals and clinics serving 12 million people. The service will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, making emergency deliveries of vaccines, blood products and essential medication. Together, all four distribution centres will make up to 600 on-demand delivery flights per day on behalf of the Government of Ghana. Each centre has the capacity to make up to 500 flights per day. Zipline’s new-generation drones can reach speeds of up to 125km/h with a 160km return flight autonomy, carrying up to 1.75kg of cargo (a bag of blood weighs about 0.5kg).
⇨ IEEE Spectrum, “Zipline expands medical drone-delivery service to Ghana.”
Video games: girls rule
Dota 2. © Valve Corporation.
Startup Gosu.ai surveyed nearly 5,000 gamers playing Dota 2 to understand which factors separate successful and less-successful gamers. They found that although only 4 percent of respondents to the survey were women, it turned out that those women that responded had a 44 percent higher win rate on average than the men. They also found that people who don’t have a partner or a job improve faster, which isn’t surprising. No matter what you’re doing, improvement takes time and dedication.
⇨ TechCrunch, “Are women better gamers than men? This startup’s AI-driven research says yes.”
