December 14, 2013
China has landed its first robotic lander on the moon, a historic lunar arrival that makes the country only the third nation to make a soft-landing on Earth’s celestial neighbor.
The “Jade Rabbit” is a very luckily named rover. It’s exciting because it’s the first time in my life time that humans landed something on the surface of the moon. Hopefully a new manned mission isn’t too far behind.
Tesla Motors plans to debut cheaper car in early 2015
Tesla Motors plans to unveil an electric car in early 2015 that could sell in the $40,000 range, a mainstream offering that could be key to the automaker’s future growth.
This is fantastic news. While many still think the $40,000 USD mark is still high, I agree with their long-term business strategy. The innovation and technological development needs to be funded from the top-end first. And from there it can be trickled down to the mass produced vehicles. Hopefully a $25,000 USD ranged model is in the not so distant roadmap.
Google adds to its menagerie or robots
It is the eighth robotics company that Google has acquired in the last half-year. Executives at the Internet giant are circumspect about what exactly they plan to do with their robot collection.
The acquisition of Boston Dynamics is intriguing. They make high end research robots for the Pentagon to mechanical dinosaurs for theme parks. Who knows what they are planning.