Reason.com notes NASA's successful completion of its Artemis I mission, calling it "part of NASA's ambitious program to bring American astronauts back to the moon for the first time in half a century. And then on to Mars."

But then they ask if the project is worth the money, with the transportation policy director at the libertarian "Reason Foundation" think tank, Robert W. Poole, arguing instead that NASA "isn't particularly interested in cost savings, and its decision making is overly driven by politics." NASA would have been better off replacing the costly and dated Space Launch System used in the Artemis program. But it didn't. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that it was largely constructed and engineered in Alabama, the home state of Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Richard Shelby, who has a history of strong-arming NASA to preserve jobs for his constituents.
Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shared the article, which ultimately asks whether it'd be faster and cheaper to just rely on private companies: In 2009, the private sector saw one of its biggest champions ascend to become the number two person at NASA. Lori Garver pushed to scrap the Constellation program as a way to entice the private sector to fill in the gaps. She also spearheaded the Commercial Crew Program, which continues to employ commercial contractors to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. Today, companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX are launching rockets at a faster pace and for a fraction of what NASA spends. In 2022, the company successfully launched 61 rockets, each with a price tag between $100 million and 150 million.

Private companies already design and lease NASA much of its hardware. Poole says there's no reason NASA can't take it a step further and just use the SpaceX starship to cover the entire journey from Earth to the moon and eventually to Mars. "If the current NASA plan goes ahead to have the SpaceX Starship actually deliver the astronauts from the lunar outpost orbit to the surface of the moon and bring them back, that would be an even more dramatic refutation of the idea that only NASA should be doing space transportation," he says.

Poole says that instead of flying its own missions, NASA should play a more limited and supportive role. "The future NASA role that makes the most sense is research and development to advance science," he says.
But for a contrary opinion, Slashdot reader youn counters that "You can bash NASA all you want but a big reason the private sector is where it is at is because it funded research 12 years ago." They share a CNET article noting the $6 billion NASA budgeted over five years "to kick-start development of a new commercial manned spaceflight capability."

And Slashdot reader sg_oneill argues that "Its gonna be a century before we're really colonizing the moon and/or Mars... because we have a lot of science to do first. How do you do a civilization with zero energy inputs from the rest of humanity? How do we deal with radiation? How do bodies work in low G? (Mars is about 1/3 the gravbity of earth). This needs science, and to get science we need NASA, even if private enterprise is building the rockets."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Audi is preparing to convert its entire network of global production factories to manufacture electric vehicles as it gears up to compete in the auto industry's future. ;...] Audi announced last year that its last combustion car would roll off the line in 2033 (if they are still around then), launching only electric vehicles from 2026. To better compete in the new EV era and ease the transition, Audi will convert all exiting existing production factories to build electric vehicles by 2029. Audi board member for production and logistics Gerd Walker said, "Step by step, we are bringing all our sites into the future" as the automaker prepares to go all in on electric vehicles.

In a press release Tuesday, Audi presented the "plan for the production of the future," including converting its network of global factories to produce purely electric vehicles. Walker added: "The path Audi is taking conserves resources and accelerates our transformation to a provider of sustainable premium mobility. Rather than building new facilities like some competitors, Audi will work to incorporate the flexibility these new state-of-the-art plants provide into its existing operations."

A primary focal point of Audi's production plan is to cut annual factory costs in half by 2033, aligning with when it plans to phase out combustion models. To do so, the company will continue to digitalize and streamline its manufacturing processes with solutions like Edge Cloud 4 Production. According to Audi, less expensive industrial PCs will result in lower IT costs with software updates and OS changes. To have the ability to respond to fluctuating consumer demand, Walker says: "We want to structure both product and production so we get the optimum benefit for our customers." He adds an example of building the new Audi Q6 e-tron on the same line as the A4 and A5 as it phases out its gas models.

The United States Postal Service said it expects to buy more than 66,000 electric vehicles by the end of 2028 in a significant change from previous plans. From a report: In February, the USPS said it would purchase 5,000 fully electric versions of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle, with gas-powered trucks accounting for the remaining 45,000 of the initial order. After pushback from the Biden administration and resistance to that from the USPS, the agency has gradually increased the proportion of EVs in the order.

Now, the postal service aims to buy at least 60,000 Next Generation Delivery Vehicles by 2028, at least 75 percent of which will be electric models. Starting in 2026, the USPS expects that all NGDV acquisitions will be electric versions. The NGDVs are expected to start operating on delivery routes late next year. In addition, the agency plans to buy another 21,000 off-the-shelf EVs through 2028. Overall, the USPS plans to buy 106,000 delivery vehicles by the end of 2028 to start replacing its aging, inefficient and not-as-safe fleet of more than 220,000 vehicles. That means the agency still expects to buy around 40,000 gas-powered models over the next six years. The USPS said in a statement that the feasibility of fully electrifying the fleet "will continue to be explored." However, it believes there will be more EV availability in the future, which will certainly help.

Longtime Slashdot reader WindBourne writes: EU is creating a tariff on certain imported goods based on their CO2 emissions that went into production and transportation. While many have opposed this, others have been correctly pointing out that little would change until nations started charging other nations for their polluting the world. In some ways, this already has a number of attributes going for it. With Kyoto, Europe forced that emissions from bio would count at the point where it was harvested and not where it was burned/utilized. This was because Europe is a major importer of bio products for heating and electricity. With this tariff, it will apply any use of bio, including H2, at point of usage, not of production.

What remains to be seen is:
1) How they will apply it to size (Nation? State? City?)?
2) What data will be used (Information from the local government? Satellite?)?
3) How the data will be normalized (GDP? Per capita?)?
4) How to calculate emissions per good (Total emissions? Worst item? Certain parts?)?

This will no doubt cause a number of nations to scream about it, as well as smaller nations, but hopefully, more nations will join in as well. Looks like the world is finally going to get serious about stopping greenhouse gas emissions. "The measure will apply first to iron and steel, cement, aluminum, fertilizers, electricity production and hydrogen before being extended to other goods," notes CNN. "Under the new mechanism, companies will need to buy certificates to cover emissions generated by the production of goods imported into the European Union based on calculations linked to the EU's own carbon price."

Details of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism can be found here.

On Friday, long-time Slashdot reader NewtonsLaw wrote: Manufacturers of drones made after 16 September 2022 must, from today (16 December), ensure that those drones are "Standard Remote ID" compliant. This means that the drones must broadcast packets of data once per second (using Bluetooth or Wifi) that contain the position speed and path of the drone, a unique identifier and the operator's position including height above ground....

Already, several companies have announced their intention to build networks of receivers that will create a realtime database of all drone activity in the USA, showing the positions of the drones and their operators and flagging any non-compliant craft.

By September 16, 2023, all U.S. hobbyists must fit "broadcast remote ID" modules to their RC model aircraft or older drones which also make them Remote ID compliant (unless they are under 250g in mass or are flown in pre-approved areas called FRIAs)....

Drone and radio-controlled model aircraft users must register with the FAA [unless they weigh less than 0.55 pounds], sit (and pass) a knowledge test and soon have this Remote ID technology installed on all their craft.
"Remote ID helps the FAA, law enforcement, and other federal agencies find the control station when a drone appears to be flying in an unsafe manner or where it is not allowed to fly," argues an FAA web page. This week the top intelligence official at the U.S. Department of Defense told reporters that drones, including drones operated by amateur hobbyists and by foreign adversaries, account for many of the reports of Unidentified Flying Objects, according to the Washington Post.

They quote Sean Kirkpatrick, the director of America's new UFO-tracking agency, as saying that "Some of these things almost collide with planes. We see that on a regular basis...."

Waymo is sending its fully driverless cars to handle some of the trickiest types of passenger pickups you can muster: airport trips. From a report: The company announced that customers flying in and out of Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport will now be able to hail one of the company's "rider only" vehicles, a sign that the Alphabet company is willing to take on more risk as it seeks to bolster the case for a fully autonomous taxi service. Waymo is also expanding the size of its service area in both Phoenix and San Francisco as it seeks to send the message that despite all the recent dour headlines about the future of autonomous vehicles, its robotaxi business is still going strong.

"No waitlist, no NDAs, no hours restriction, 24/7 service," said Waymo product chief Saswat Panigrahi in a briefing with reporters. (Panigrahi's references to hours restrictions is a subtle swipe at rival robotaxi service Cruise, which is restricted to operating its fully driverless cars in San Francisco only at night.) Of course, Waymo is not without its own restrictions. The company is still waiting to get the final approval from the California Public Utilities Commission before it can begin to charge for rides in its rider-only vehicles in San Francisco. As such, Waymo is only offering unpaid rides to certain members of the public, as well as employees and their guests, in its driverless vehicles.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Rules around taking liquids and laptops through airport security will be eased from June 2024, the government has said. The announcement of the biggest relaxation of aviation security regulations in decades confirms reports last month that the change would come in the year after next. Passengers at most major UK airports will be able to carry liquids in containers holding up to two liters, a huge increase from the current limit of 100ml. Travelers will also no longer need to carry the containers in clear plastic bags, or remove tablets and laptops from hand luggage at checkpoints. The Department for Transport said major airports would be required to install new technology that gives security staff more detailed images of what is in passengers' bags. It will lay new legislation around the changes in parliament on Thursday. The transport secretary, Mark Harper, said: "The tiny toiletry has become a staple of airport security checkpoints, but that's all set to change. I'm streamlining cabin bag rules at airports while enhancing security."

"By 2024, major airports across the UK will have the latest security tech installed, reducing queueing times, improving the passenger experience, and most importantly detecting potential threats."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: On Dec. 10, 2022, the relatively new cybercrime forum Breached featured a bombshell new sales thread: The user database for InfraGard, including names and contact information for tens of thousands of InfraGard members. The FBI's InfraGard program is supposed to be a vetted Who's Who of key people in private sector roles involving both cyber and physical security at companies that manage most of the nation's critical infrastructures -- including drinking water and power utilities, communications and financial services firms, transportation and manufacturing companies, healthcare providers, and nuclear energy firms. "InfraGard connects critical infrastructure owners, operators, and stakeholders with the FBI to provide education, networking, and information-sharing on security threats and risks," the FBI's InfraGard fact sheet reads.

KrebsOnSecurity contacted the seller of the InfraGard database, a Breached forum member who uses the handle "USDoD" and whose avatar is the seal of the U.S. Department of Defense. USDoD said they gained access to the FBI's InfraGard system by applying for a new account using the name, Social Security Number, date of birth and other personal details of a chief executive officer at a company that was highly likely to be granted InfraGard membership. The CEO in question -- currently the head of a major U.S. financial corporation that has a direct impact on the creditworthiness of most Americans -- did not respond to requests for comment. USDoD told KrebsOnSecurity their phony application was submitted in November in the CEO's name, and that the application included a contact email address that they controlled -- but also the CEO's real mobile phone number. "When you register they said that to be approved can take at least three months," USDoD said. "I wasn't expected to be approve[d]." But USDoD said that in early December, their email address in the name of the CEO received a reply saying the application had been approved. While the FBI's InfraGard system requires multi-factor authentication by default, users can choose between receiving a one-time code via SMS or email. "If it was only the phone I will be in [a] bad situation," USDoD said. "Because I used the person['s] phone that I'm impersonating."

USDoD said the InfraGard user data was made easily available via an Application Programming Interface (API) that is built into several key components of the website that help InfraGard members connect and communicate with each other. USDoD said after their InfraGard membership was approved, they asked a friend to code a script in Python to query that API and retrieve all available InfraGard user data. "InfraGard is a social media intelligence hub for high profile persons," USDoD said. "They even got [a] forum to discuss things." USDoD acknowledged that their $50,000 asking price for the InfraGard database may be a tad high, given that it is a fairly basic list of people who are already very security-conscious. Also, only about half of the user accounts contain an email address, and most of the other database fields -- like Social Security Number and Date of Birth -- are completely empty. [...] While the data exposed by the infiltration at InfraGard may be minimal, the user data might not have been the true end game for the intruders. USDoD said they were hoping the imposter account would last long enough for them to finish sending direct messages as the CEO to other executives using the InfraGuard messaging portal.

Tesla has launched Steam integration inside its Model S and Model X electric cars with thousands of games now playable. Electrek reports: Today, Tesla launched Steam Beta for Model S and Model X as part of its "holiday update." We reported all the details of Tesla's holiday update earlier today for most Tesla vehicles, but the Steam integration is only for the refreshed Model S and Model X produced over the last two years. That's because Tesla's two flagship vehicles are equipped with a more powerful entertainment computer designed for video games.

With the unveiling of the new Model S and Model X, Tesla announced the new gaming computer: "Up to 10 teraflops of processing power enables in-car gaming on-par with today's newest consoles via Tesla Arcade. Wireless controller compatibility allows gaming from any seat." A known chip leaker, Patrick Schur, posted a diagram of Tesla's new gaming computer powered by the AMD Navi 23 GPU. The system is integrated and connects directly to two touchscreens inside the Model S and Model X to play games, watch entertainment, and perform other functions. Musk also revealed that the new computer has more storage space to be able to handle more games on the platform at the same time, which is going to be useful to handle your Steam library. The holiday update also brings support for Apple Music, an update to Dog Mode, improvements to Tesla's "Light Show" feature, and a bunch of smaller features/updates.

Lexus is apparently working on a "virtual" manual transmission, reports the Verge, "to find out if the stick shift can survive the electric revolution..." British car enthusiast publication Evo reported this week that Lexus, which now leads Toyota's high-performance EV efforts, is developing a kind of shifting system that mimics the feel of a clutch and a stick shift in an electric car. Of course, it comes without the traditional mechanical connections for such a transmission because an EV doesn't need those things, but it mimics the motions involved with three-pedal driving. The company has even been showing it off on a special version of the Lexus UX 300e, an electric crossover not sold in the U.S.

Evo reports the "transmission" has an unconnected gear stick and clutch coupled to the electric powertrain, with fake internal combustion sounds and software that augments the electric torque output. In other words, it's a full-on pretend manual in an EV, complete with the "vroom vroom" sounds.... If this electric transformation really happens, being an enthusiast in the future could mean paying big bucks to simulate the things that got lost along the way.
Their headline puts it less charitably. ("Lexus could save the stick shift for EVs, if drivers are willing to pretend.")

But Evo writes that Toyota's ultimate goal is "making EVs more engaging to drive," noting it's also equipped with haptic drivers "to generate 'feel.'" Clumsy shifts will be accurately translated; you'll even be able to stall it. Toyota says it'll be able to theoretically recreate any engine and transmission combination through both sound and torque deliveries from the powertrain.... Takashi Watanabe, Lexus Electrified Chief Engineer, explained: "It is a software-based system, so it can be programmed to reproduce the driving experience of different vehicle types, letting the driver choose their preferred mapping...."

The sound being created from this sort of system is bound to only get better too, as other factors like vibrations through the cabin could be recreated by motors in the seats. This is a system used in BMW's latest high-end Bowers & Wilkins sound systems, which use vibrating motors in the seats to create more depth to the bass coming from its speakers.... It might not be the real thing, but in a future where we don't have a choice on the matter and have to drive an EV, it might be the next best thing...

"JetBlue is giving up carbon offsets for its domestic flights," reports the Verge, "shifting its focus instead to sustainable aviation fuels.

"It's a step that could help the airline actually reduce its emissions rather than relying primarily on controversial carbon offsets to counteract its fossil fuel use." Back in 2020, JetBlue became the first U.S. airline to voluntarily offset greenhouse gas emissions from all of its domestic flights. That effort ends in 2023, the company announced this week. The airline now plans to effectively cut its per-seat emissions in half by 2035. For flights to take off without generating as much pollution, JetBlue says its planes will need to run on sustainable aviation fuels.
JetBlue's announcement calls the move "a science-based target approved by the Science Based Targets initiative, a coalition that defines and promotes best practices in emissions reduction targets....

"[T]his science-based target aligns with the goals of the Paris Agreement and the growing airline's own goal to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040 — 10 years ahead of broader airline industry targets." JetBlue also recognizes how critical external partners are to decarbonizing the aviation industry and is committed to encouraging and supporting efforts by aircraft and engine manufacturers, governments, regulatory agencies, and fuel suppliers to realize their own greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. "Effectively cutting our per-seat emissions in half will require substantial change to the way we run our business today," said Robin Hayes chief executive officer, JetBlue.

"Our team is fully committed to hitting the goal, but we can't do it alone. We are calling on governments, aircraft and engine manufacturers, and fuel producers to support the development of the products and solutions that airlines need to achieve our ambitious goals...."

"The aviation industry is at a critical time in our push towards net zero. Many of these lower carbon solutions are proven, but still haven't achieved the scale needed to make a meaningful impact," said Sara Bogdan, director of sustainability and environmental social governance, JetBlue. "Encouragement of these maturing technologies is needed and the investments we make today will help shape the trajectory of these solutions as they grow to realize their fullest potential."

Microsoft is launching a new communities feature for Microsoft Teams today, designed for consumers to use the best parts of Teams free of charge to create and organize groups. From a report: The new community feature will allow groups to use the calendar, meeting, and chat features of Teams. Features like group chat, calling, and file / photo sharing are all supported, and groups will also be able to use a shared calendar (which includes Google Calendar integration) to organize community events. This new community integration is really aimed at groups like sports clubs or even virtual community groups for small businesses and simple groups like a carpool for co-workers to organize transportation. Facebook, Reddit, Discord, WhatsApp, Twitter, and many other services already provide a variety of ways to organize groups online, so Microsoft is entering a crowded market, but it believes Teams has something different to offer.

Boeing's final 747 rolled out of the company's cavernous factory north of Seattle Tuesday night as airlines' push for more fuel-efficient planes ends the more than half-century production run of the jumbo jet. From a report: The 1,574th -- and last -- 747 will later be flown by a Boeing test pilot, painted and handed over to cargo and charter carrier Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings early next year.

"It's a very surreal time, obviously," said Kim Smith, vice president and general manager of Boeing's 747 and 767s programs out of the assembly plant here. "For the first time in well over 50 years we will not have a 747 in this facility."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Insider: Deserted downtowns have been haunting US cities since the beginning of the pandemic. Before the pandemic, 95% of offices were occupied. Today that number is closer to 47%. Employees' not returning to downtown offices has had a domino effect: Less foot traffic, less public-transit use, and more shuttered businesses have caused many downtowns to feel more like ghost towns. Even 2 1/2 years later, most city downtowns aren't back to where they were prepandemic. [...] The increased cancellations of office leases have cratered the office real-estate market. A study led by Arpit Gupta, a professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business, characterized the value wipeout as an "apocalypse." It estimated that $453 billion in real-estate value would be lost across US cities, with a 17-percentage-point decline in lease revenue from January 2020 to May 2022. The shock to real-estate valuations has been sharp: One building in San Francisco's Mission District that sold for $397 million in 2019 is on the market for about $155 million, a 60% decline.

Other key indicators that economists use to measure the economic vitality of downtowns include office vacancy rates, public-transportation ridership, and local business spending. Across the country, public-transportation ridership remains stuck at about 70% of prepandemic levels. If only 56% of employees of financial firms in New York are in the office on a given day, the health of a city's urban core is negatively affected. The second-order effects of remote work and a real-estate apocalypse are still playing out, but it isn't looking good. Declines in real-estate valuations lead to lower property taxes, which affects the revenue collected to foot the bill of city budgets. Declines in foot traffic have deteriorated business corridors; a recent survey by the National League of Cities suggested cities expect at least a 2.5% decline in sales-tax receipts and a 4% decline in revenue for fiscal 2022. "The solution to the office-housing conundrum seems obvious: Turn commercial spaces like offices into housing. Empty offices can become apartments to ease housing pressure while also bringing more people back to downtown areas," reports Insider. "But after two years, few buildings have been converted." According to the report, it's being hampered by hard-to-justify construction costs and local housing rules.

"Overall, combating the death of downtowns requires a reworking of how we think about cities and the value they provide," the report says. "The urban author Jane Jacobs proclaimed in her famous 1958 article for Fortune magazine, 'Downtown Is for People,' that "'there is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.'"

"The economic health of cities is intrinsically linked to how space is used or unused, and right now downtowns are undergoing a massive shift. Despite the sluggish movement, it's in cities' best interest to figure out how to quickly convert office-centric downtowns into something more suitable for everyone."

Apple has scaled back ambitious self-driving plans for its future electric vehicle and postponed the car's target launch date by about a year to 2026, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. From the report: The car project, dubbed Titan inside the company, has been in limbo for the past several months as Apple executives grappled with the reality that its vision for a fully autonomous vehicle -- without a steering wheel or pedals -- isn't feasible with current technology. In a significant shift for the project, the company is now planning a less-ambitious design that will include a steering wheel and pedals and only support full autonomous capabilities on highways, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. [...] Apple had expected each car to sell for more than $120,000, but the company is now aiming to offer the vehicle to consumers for less than $100,000, according to the people.

France has been given the green light to ban short haul domestic flights. The European Commission has approved the move which will abolish flights between cities that are linked by a train journey of less than 2.5 hours. From a report: The decision was announced on Friday. The changes are part of the country's 2021 Climate Law and were first proposed by France's Citizens' Convention on Climate -- a citizens' assembly tasked with finding ways to reduce the country's carbon emissions. France is also cracking down on the use of private jets for short journeys in a bid to make transport greener and fairer for the population. Transport minister Clement Beaune said the country could no longer tolerate the super rich using private planes while the public are making cutbacks to deal with the energy crisis and climate change.

Axios reports: As Amazon prepares to debut its long-delayed Prime Air drone delivery service, it's also showing off a smaller, quieter drone that will be ready in 2024 and could be making regular deliveries in major cities by the end of the decade.

The 80-pound hexagon-shaped aircraft, about 5 and a half feet in diameter, is nimble enough to make deliveries in highly populated areas such as Boston, Atlanta and Seattle. It'll be more capable and less intrusive than the model Amazon is using in its Prime Air service, which will begin in two markets — Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas — in the coming weeks.... Thousands of items could be eligible for drone delivery as long as they fit in one box and weigh less than 5 pounds total.
The drones fly 50 miles per hour (80 km), according to the article, and "Upon arrival, the drone descends, scans the area to make sure it's clear, then drops the box from a height of about 12 feet." (With sturdy packaging to eliminate the need for parachutes or lines.) This drone can even fly in light rain, according to Axios, and has "sense-and-avoid" safety features "that allow it to operate at greater distances while skirting other aircraft, people, pets and obstacles." One Amazon executive estimates that by 2030 Amazon will be delivering 500 million packages by drone each year.

But Axios also suggests Amazon may be lagging its competitors. Walmart already has $3.99 drone delivery in six states — for up to 100,000 different products, weighing up to 10 pounds. And there's also other drone delivery services from Zipline and Google-owned Wing that have already launched limited-area commercial services.

The Boston Globe reports that U.S. Senator Ed. Markey just sent a letter to more than 20 car manufacturers asking them to continue including AM radios in future car models — including electric vehicles: Some EV manufacturers have raised concerns even as far back as 2016 about how the battery power of an EV can interfere with AM radio signals. However, Markey addressed these concerns saying, "car manufacturers appear to have developed innovative solutions to this problem."
"The last time I listened to AM radio was in the late 1970s," writes long-time Slashdot reader non-e-moose. "And then it was mostly because there were either no FM stations in reception range, or I was riding my bicycle and only had a transistor radio."

But the Senator sees it differently: AM radio has long been an important source of information for consumers. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 90 percent of Americans ages 12 and older — totaling hundreds of millions of people — listened to AM or FM radio each week, higher than the percentage that watch television (56 percent) or own a computer (77 percent).... Moreover, 33 percent of new car buyers say that AM radio is a very important feature in a vehicle — higher than dedicated Wi-Fi (31 percent), SiriusXM satellite radio (27 percent), and personal assistants such as Google Assistant (12 percent) and Amazon Alexa (9 percent). In other words, broadcast AM and FM radio remain an essential vehicle feature for consumers.

Moreover, broadcast AM radio, in particular, is a critical mechanism for government authorities to communicate with the public during natural disasters, extreme weather events, and other emergencies. AM radio operates at lower frequencies and has longer wavelengths than FM radio, so AM radio waves more easily pass through solid objects. As a result, AM radio signals can travel long distances, making them well-suited for broadcasting emergency alerts....

Despite innovations such as the smartphone and social media, AM/FM broadcast radio remains the most dependable, cost-free, and accessible communication mechanism for public officials to communicate with the public during times of emergency. As a result, any phase-out of broadcast AM radio could pose a significant communication problem during emergencies.... Given AM radio's importance for emergency communications and continued consumer demand, I urge your company to maintain the feature in its new vehicles...

NVIDIA is proud of its role in the first commercially available smart tractor (which began rolling off the production line Thursday). Monarch Tractor's MK-V "combines electrification, automation, and data analysis to help farmers reduce their carbon footprint, improve field safety, streamline farming operations, and increase their bottom lines," according to NVIDIA's blog.

NVIDIA's been touting the ability to accelerate machine learning applications with its low-power Jetson boards (each with a system on a chip integrating an ARM-architecture CPU) , and they write that the new tractor "cuts energy costs and diesel emissions, while also helping reduce harmful herbicides, which are expensive and deplete the soil." Mark Schwager, former Tesla Gigafactory chief, is president; Zachary Omohundro, a robotics Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon, is CTO; Praveen Penmetsa, CEO of Monarch Tractor, is an autonomy and mobility engineer. Penmetsa likens the revolutionary new tractor to paradigm shifts in PCs and smartphones, enablers of world-changing applications. Monarch's role, he said, is as the hub to enable smart implements — precision sprayers, harvesters and more — for computer vision applications to help automate farming....

Tapping into six NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX SOMs (system on modules), Monarch's Founder Series MK-V tractors are essentially roving robots packing supercomputing. Monarch has harnessed Jetson to deliver tractors that can safely traverse rows within agriculture fields using only cameras. "This is important in certain agriculture environments because there may be no GPS signal," said Penmetsa. "It's also crucial for safety as the Monarch is intended for totally driverless operation."The Founder Series MK-V runs two 3D cameras and six standard cameras.
In one pilot test a tractor lowered energy costs (compared to a diesel tractor) by $2,600 a year, according to NVIDIA's blog post. And the tractor collects and analyzes crop data daily, so hopes are high for the system. Monarch has already raised more than $110 million in funding, reports the Verge: Many tractors out in farming fields have semiautonomous modes but largely require a driver to be seated. They also mostly run on diesel gas, so the MK-V, with its fully electric design and driver-optional smarts, is claiming it's the first production model of its kind.

IEEE Spectrum reports: In October, a startup called Jidu Automotive, backed by Chinese AI giant Baidu and Chinese carmaker Geely, officially released an autonomous electric car, the Robo-01 Lunar Edition. In 2023, the car will go on sale.

At roughly US $55,000, the Robo-01 Lunar Edition is a limited edition, cobranded with China's Lunar Exploration Project. It has two lidars, a 5-millimeter-range radar, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and 12 high-definition cameras. It is the first vehicle to offer on-board, AI-assisted voice recognition, with voice response speeds within 700 milliseconds, thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 chip. "It's a car, and, even more so, a robot," said Jidu CEO Joe Xia, during the live-streamed unveiling of the car (as translated from the Mandarin by CNBC). He added that it "can become the standard for self-driving cars."

But just how autonomous the car is remains to be seen: In January 2022 Baidu and Jidu said the car would have Level 4 autonomous driving capability, which does not require a human driver to control the vehicle. But the press release at the car's launch made no mention of Level 4, saying only that the car offered "high-level autonomous driving...." In September 2022, Baidu cofounder and CEO Robin Li noted that lower levels of autonomy shield car companies from liability in the event of a crash, because the driver is expected to be in control. With Level 4, the manufacturer of the car or the operator of the "robotaxi" service using the car would be to blame....

Regardless of the car's official autonomy designation, Baidu has billed its self-driving package, Apollo, as having Level 4 capabilities. That includes what the company calls a Point-to-Point Autopilot, designed to handle highway, city street, and parking scenarios. Jidu is conducting further tests in Beijing and Shanghai to ensure that its Point-to-Point Autopilot will cover all major cities in China. Chinese regulations do allow Level 4 in robotaxis that operate within designated geofenced areas, and Apollo has already shown what it can do in Baidu's Apollo Go robotaxis, which have delivered more than 1 million rides in at least 10 cities across China.

Baidu recently unveiled its latest autonomous robotaxi, the Level-4 Apollo RT6, which has a detachable steering wheel. The absence of a steering wheel is a statement in itself, and it frees up cabin space for extra seating or even desktops, gaming consoles, and vending machines.
Meanwhile CNBC notes that the four-seat Robo-01 "has replaced the dashboard with a long screen extending across the front of the car and removed cockpit buttons — since the driver can use voice control instead, said Jidu CEO Joe Xia.

"Theoretically, the half-moon of a steering wheel can fold up, paving the way for a cockpit seat with no window obstructions, once full self-driving is allowed on China's roads...." Xia claimed Jidu "can become the standard for self-driving cars...."

Co-investor Geely has pushed into the electric car industry with its own vehicles, and announced in November a multi-year plan to build up the software component of the cars. The automaker said it aimed to commercialize full self-driving under specific conditions, called "Level Four" autonomous driving in a classification system, by 2025.