A digital twin is a virtual representation of a real system – a building, the power grid, a city, even a human being – that mimics the characteristics of the system. A digital twin is more than just a computer model, however. It receives data from sensors in the real system to constantly parallel the system’s state. A digital twin helps people analyze and predict a system’s behavior under different conditions. The systems being twinned are typically very complex and require significant effort to
The current energy crisis has increased gas prices so much that sitting behind your car’s wheel doesn’t come without a high cost (pun intended). And, perhaps, that’s exactly the impetus we need to (partly) ditch our cars once and for all. The rise in gas prices and the subsequent inflation can work as an accelerator for the reduction of car use and the shift to cleaner modes of transport, such as escooters, mopeds, and ebikes. Making the best out of the oil crisis Speaking at the Micromobility E
Climate tech is an emerging industry that budding entrepreneurs should definitely keep an eye on. And not just because they can solve urgent environmental issues — they can also generate profit. I spoke with Aaron Cohen, co-founder of Therma, which has managed to do exactly that. The US-based company has developed a sensor for commercial refrigerators (in restaurants, schools, convenience stores, etc), which monitors the temperature and humidity levels in real-time. That way, manual checks can b
Many cities are partnering with escooter providers to get cars out of their landscapes. But should we get behind this type of transport when they are massively underutilized by women? Research in Paris, for instance, found that 66% of dockless e-scooter riders were male. This week, Voi released a report on Shared escooters and gender equity. It reveals a significant disparity in the way men and women experience escooters — with the latter losing out. Written in partnership with Voi’s Gender Equ
NASA’s long-awaited return to the Moon is starting to take shape — literally. The space agency has developed a unique lunar orbit for the Gateway space station, which will provide a staging post for visits to Earth’s nearest neighbor. Dubbed the near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), the celestial path has never been tested in space — until now. In a launch window that runs from June 13 to June 22, NASA aims to demonstrate the orbit in an area around the Moon. This unprecedented trajectory will be
New rules on mobile app stores could trigger a wave of creative, cheaper apps with more privacy options for users. Every budding developer dreams of creating an app that goes viral and makes lots of money overnight. The Angry Birds game became a worldwide phenomenon within weeks when it launched in 2009 and made US$10 million (£8 million) in its first year. But, overall, the numbers make it clear that mobile apps don’t guarantee wealth. A 2021 study showed just 0.5% of consumer apps succeed comm
This article was originally published on .cult by Randy Tolentino. .cult is a Berlin-based community platform for developers. We write about all things career-related, make original documentaries, and share heaps of other untold developer stories from around the world. Years ago I worked on a small, distributed team that was split between two locations. The designers and frontend developers were based out of Austin, Texas, and our engineering team, along with the project stakeholders, were locat
A man wading in a pool of his own consciousness, surrealistically draped in the hallucinations of an artificial intelligence, shouts at me about poetry. He contorts himself with passion as his rhetoric reaches its fever pitch — you might say he ‘peaks’ — and suddenly bursts into self-awareness like a phoenix, renewed. Finally, he shakes an iPhone at me, declaring it a monument to human ambition and actuation. After watching, I feel like I’m both a tiny worm on a big hook and the master of my own
A year after completing the first powered and controlled flight on another world, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is still setting records on Mars. The chopper recently hit a pair of new milestones: its farthest and fastest ever flights on the red planet. The rotorcraft traveled 704 meters at a speed of 19 kmph on its landmark 25th flight. That might not win a Grand Prix on Earth, but it’s pretty impressive on Mars. The red planet’s atmosphere is less than 1% as dense as ours, and its temperature ca
Video games are increasingly incorporating blockchains, the decentralised databases that underpin cryptocurrencies, as well as NFTs and other “digital assets”. New games are emerging expressly to support blockchain technology, while traditional games are being updated to incorporate blockchains. As of October 2021, “crypto gaming” accounted for more than half of the blockchain activity over that quarter. At the same time, a treasury inquiry has led to consumer groups calling for regulation in th