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Already, 320 people have paid the fee for a near-space-orbit trip aboard Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, which comes with exclusive gold-lined space suits by Under Armour that were unveiled earlier this week. When asked where else she would wear it, one would-be space tourist said, “every Halloween for the rest of my life.”
Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, has partnered with U.S. Strategic Command to help monitor and understand the litany of satellites and debris in the atmosphere, giving students invaluable hands-on experience.
SpaceX revealed its plan to have a network of 30,000 satellites to ensure better rates and reliability. Yet some think they could be a way to keep competitors out of the atmosphere, for fear of collision.
Facebook, Google and Lyft are among the many tech companies setting up satellite offices in the Denver area. But if Denver real-estate prices continue to increase, “The Great Tech Migration” may move on.
The Los Angeles Police Department will make changes to PredPol, its predictive-policing program, after criticism that the program is racist and ineffective in reducing crime. The adjustments are to happen in early 2020.
With a projected 2020 debut, the Hound breathalyzer will detect alcohol and marijuana, making marijuana DUIs more feasible to catch. The new technology assures police and policymakers of regulations that hadn’t before been possible.
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Governments of all sizes around the nation, whether they be cities, counties, or states, understand the importance of economic development to building a successful organization.
When helping people is your core motivation, failure is not an option.
The remaining number of founding members of Libra, the embattled Facebook-led cryptocurrency effort that now lacks many of the high-profile companies that originally voiced support for the effort. PayPal, an original signatory to the Libra Association charter, announced last week it was withdrawing its support. On Friday, payment giants Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and eBay announced they would no longer be associated with the project followed by the defection of Internet company Booking, which operates sites like Booking.com, OpenTable and Kayak.
The U.S. Census has much political significance and helps determine more than just state populations. But without development of the punch card, neither the Census nor the computer industry would have gained such power.
Miami International Airport debuts its $324 million baggage system remake this month, including robots that transport luggage. With the airport’s technological renovation, “TSA can now screen 7,000 bags per hour.”
As solar energy continues to gain popularity, Missouri researchers want to encourage better recycling of old solar panels. By improving recycling efforts and knowledge, they hope to prevent a waste management “crisis.”
In order to compete in clean energy, a battery startup company is hoping to tap into Southern California’s lithium cache. The county is “cautiously optimistic” for the lithium facility and its economic prospects.
After a yearlong debate, the city cautiously allows 2,500 scooters to emerge on San Francisco’s streets. The city encourages residents to file complaints and report violations in efforts to curb “bad scooter behavior.”
The state expects to pay $272 million on IT and administrative costs for Gov. Matt Bevin’s proposed changes to the state’s Medicaid program, roughly twice the combined expense of four other states overhauling their own Medicaid programs.
The state gets around $25 million from the federal government and wants to focus on core workforce needs that include health care workers, teachers and science, technology, engineering and math professionals.
The Cuomo administration said the practice of pushing costs into the next fiscal year is simply managing “the timing of Medicaid payments to ensure compliance with the global cap,” the term for the annual cap on Medicaid spending.
Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos may live in Medina, but the city of mansions is projecting a $500,000 deficit in 2020, which officials say could widen to $3.3 million by 2025 without a hike in revenue from property taxes.
The combined quarterly advertising revenues for Google and Facebook, among the few firm numbers available to estimate the value of the Internet. The question has renewed importance as policy-makers — including California Gov. Gavin Newsom — have “proposed creating a ‘data dividend’ that would require large tech companies to pay users for their data, which requires an understanding of how much the data is worth to companies such as Google and Facebook.”
The phenomenon of “blackout babies” took hold of America during the Northeast blackouts of the ’60s and ’70s and is revived as Northern California experienced mass power outages to prevent wildfires.
Virginia Department of Corrections data reveals 33 drone sightings near prisons since January 2018. “If the drones aren’t dropping off packages, they’re likely scoping the area with a camera,” posing new security concerns.
A Minneapolis-based report urges companies to take precautions against their own employees as valuable information is highly portable via USB or email: “Insiders have more access to information than ever.”
Though controversial, Baltimore residents are desperate for solutions to the growing crime rates. Of the 500 polled, “59% agreed that ‘we should do everything legally possible to stop violent crime.’”
The Michigan Department of Transportation switches to a new traffic signal company, just weeks after MDOT’s former director becomes the company’s new VP, only furthering skepticism of Michigan government.
A Dutch company, Urban Crossovers, is piloting an emissions-free aviation fuel. It is a kind of kerosene, made from passing electricity through a mixture of carbon dioxide and water taken from ambient air. Proponents call the potential “limitless” but concede that the capacity of the current plant’s output is only 1,000 liters of the new fuel a day — an amount a jet will consume in five minutes of flying. That in a world with 225,000 flights a day.
Tesla’s Smart Summon “was glitchy and at times worked intermittently,” says Consumer Reports after testing. Others worry the imperfections could scare the public and impede autonomous vehicle progress in the future.
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