Paypal founder Elon Musk unveils 760mph transport concept

Elon Musk has unveiled a near-supersonic transport concept to link Los Angeles and San Francisco, cutting the 380-mile journey to less than half an hour.

The blueprints reveal how the US-based billionaire wants to use magnets and fans to fire passenger-carrying capsules floating on a cushion of air through pressurised tubes. The plans were released as part a 57-page document outlining the project.

"Short of figuring out real teleportation, which would of course be awesome ... the only option for super-fast travel is to build a tube over or under the ground that contains a special environment," he wrote.

The SpaceX, Tesla and Paypal founder said the capsules would travel at speeds of up to 760mph or nearly the speed of sound. Musk claimed the solar-powered shuttle would be a quicker, safer, cheaper, and more efficient mode of transport between Los Angeles and San Francisco than the high-speed train line that is currently being built.

The pods could arrive every 30 seconds and even accommodate cars onboard.

Last week Musk described the concept as a cross between a "Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table".

He said on a conference call that passengers in the cabins would experience a little bit more than the force of gravity and compared the experience to being on an aeroplane as opposed to a rollercoaster.

He said the concept would work best between destinations less than 1,000km, adding that anything beyond that would be more suited to supersonic air travel.

In order to avoid minimal disputes over land, Musk envisions building the project on an elevated platform alongside an existing Californian motorway. He said the structure holding it up would be designed to withstand earthquakes.

Musk estimated that linking the two Californian cities in this way would cost $6bn (£3.9bn) and said fares could be in the region of about $20 (£13) for a one-way ticket.

Musk has said he is currently too busy to develop the project himself and is therefore making it “open source” so that anyone can improve it, or try to create it.

Samsung unveils super duper high-speed 1TB SSDs

Samsung Electronics will offer a range of faster SSD drives for consumers from next month, including a zippy new 1TB drive meant for everyday use.

The company’s “840 EVO lineup” will be two to three times faster than its existing 840 drives, depending on the capacity, it said Thursday. The 1TB version has a sequential write speed of 520MBps, over double its predecessor, while the 120GB model can reach up to 410MBps, about triple the older version.

As NAND flash prices fall and adoption of SSDs spreads in consumer computers and laptops, terabyte-sized SSDs have become the new battleground for manufacturers. Samsung announced its newest drives under the slogan “SSDs for everyone.”

Micron unveileda 1TB drive, the Crucial M500, for consumers in January at the International CES show in Las Vegas, pricing it under $600, or 60 cents per gigabyte, far below rivals at the time. The first 1TB SSD, from OCZ, launched in 2011, still sells for over $2,500 online.

Samsung has yet to reveal the price for its 840 EVO, which it said will go on sale in August in major markets. The company’s sequential read/write speeds are slightly faster than Micron’s product, as are its 98,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) and 90,000 IOPS random read and write speeds.
The new SATA-based, 2.5-inch drives will come in sizes ranging from 120GB to 1TB, and will use Samsung’s NAND flash built using process technology smaller than 20 nanometers. The company’s previous consumer drives maxed out at 250GB.

Samsung also announced a new lineup of SSDs for enterprise storage, including a 1.6TB drive that has a sequential read speed of 2,000MBps and a random read speed of 740,000 IOPS. The company said it is the fist to build a 2.5-inch SSD based on NVMe (non-volatile memory express), an interface specification for solid-state drives that replaces the SATA interface now widely in use.

The 2.5-inch enterprise drives will also come in 400GB and 800GB sizes. Samsung said it plans to expand its enterprise offerings based on NVMe in the future. 

Microsoft unveils prototype 3D touchcreen

Microsoft’s interaction research unit has revealed it is working on a 3D touchscreen that enables users to “feel” through tactile feedback and manipulate images.

The project combines an LCD flat panel screen with force sensors and a robotic arm that moves it backwards and forwards to provide variable resistance.

Special glasses are used to augment the 3D effect created by changing the size and perspective of the images according to the movement.

Microsoft claims the system can simulate the shape and weight of objects shown on screen by controlling resistance to a user’s fingertips and adjusting the screen’s position to match a virtual object’s contours as fingers are moved over its surface.

In a demonstration that shows three virtual 3D boxes, each has different virtual weights and friction forces corresponding to their supposed material: stone, wood, and sponge.

The force feedback monitor responds to convey the sensation of different materials. The stone block “feels” hard to the touch and requires more force to push, while the sponge block is soft and easy to push.

Proposed applications include enabling doctors to explore medical scans.

According to Microsoft, a doctor could navigate through the different slices of an MRI scan of a brain, for example, by pushing a finger against the display.

Researchers say such applications could be set up to give the user feedback when they touch anomalies, such as a tumour. The responses when touching soft tissue could also differ from those for hard tissue.

Other possible applications of the nascent technology include 3D modeling and 3D gaming. The researchers say the next step of the project will be aimed at improved feedback such as texture.

Build 2013 keynote: Microsoft unveils Windows 8.1, pledges 'rapid release' schedule

Microsoft formally unveiled Windows 8.1 to developers on Wednesday, with executives promising a “rapid release” schedule to keep the pace of new innovations coming.

 

For those who have read PCWorld’s hands-on of the Windows 8.1 preview, Microsoft’s announcements were nothing new. Executives confirmed the reworking of the Start menu, new boot-to-Desktop options, as well as a slew of updated apps that take advantage of Windows 8.1, which can be downloaded in preview form from preview.windows.com.

 

For Microsoft, the Build 2013 developer conference represents a chance to connect or reconnect with developers, luring them back to the Windows platform. Although Microsoft is nearing 100,000 Windows 8 apps, that still falls well short of the millions of apps that have been written for the Apple iOS and Google Android platforms.

 

For Steve Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft, the company is undergoing a transformation to a business that develops devices and services, and not just software. “And the only way that can happen is by a company undergoing a rapid-release schedule,” he said.

 

Although Ballmer and other Microsoft executives focused on Windows 8, they took a few moments to make a few announcements regarding Windows Phone, which provides an interface consistent with that of the other Windows platforms. “It’s beautiful, and it looks like the same software that we have on Windows tablets, Windows PCs, and our Xbox systems,” Ballmer said.

 

New Windows Phones will appear on Sprint. The big news for Windows Phone is that Sprint will add the HTC 8XT as well as the Samsung ATIV S Neo, meaning that Windows Phones will appear on all U.S. wireless carriers.

 

But whether it’s a phone or a tablet, smaller screens will become increasingly important, Ballmer said.

 

”The PC of today doesn’t look a lot like the PC of ...five or seven years ago,” Ballmer said, referring to an “explosion of new devices,” including small-form-factor tablets. Acer’s eight-inch ATIV tablet is “flying off the shelves,” Ballmer said, enabling kids to do homework and do a little bit of entertainment, too.

 

”This small form factor is very important,” Ballmer said.  “I wouldn’t call them PCs, but this small form factor is very important.”

 

Ballmer also promised that hardware makers would deliver Windows 8 devices with touchscreens, a capability that was neglected within early Windows 8 offerings. Consumers will see an “outpouring” of new devices that are notebook computers in every respect, and touch-enabled, Ballmer promised, Customers that have touch systems are much happier than non-touch-enabled customers, or Windows 7 customers, he said.

 

Ballmer showed off the Helix notebook from Lenovo, a Core i7 device with a full day’s worth of battery enabled with a keyboard dock.. “It literally makes it the most powerful PC, and the most powerful lightweight tablet... should we call it a PC? Should we call it a tablet? I’d call it all Windows, all the time,” Ballmer said.

 

Finally, Ballmer moved to the meat of the presentation, the changes that it had made to make Windows 8.1 a bit more consumer friendly—or in Ballmer’s words, to “refine the blend” between the Start page and the Desktop, among other changes.

 

Ballmer said that the way in which the Desktop and the Start page will be integrated will represent a better blend of both, with boot to Desktop, common backgrounds between the Desktop and the Start page, and other features bringing both together.

 

Combining the Desktop and Start pages "refines the blend," according to Steve Ballmer. Julie Larson-Green, who runs the Windows division at Microsoft, said she was proud of how responsive Microsoft’s engineering team had become.  The company had over 800 updates to the products since Microsoft launched Windows 8 last October, and Windows 8.1 is the biggest.

 

In portrait mode, the new Start screen works well on the new small-form-factor devices, Larson-Green said. The Twitter app has been designed for the new, smaller form factor. With Windows 8.1, she said that Microsoft had added gestures to the on-screen keyboard, where users can slide their fingers across, tap, and then the word appears. Users can also press and hold to access.

 

 

Microsoft's message at Build 2013 is that apps rule—both its own, and the ones created by third-party developers.

Larson-Green showed off the new Mail app, due in the fall. Users will be able to banish or Sweep emails from a certain sender, and then segregate automated emails, such as those from Facebook and Twitter, or subscribed newsletters, into their own folder.

 

Free music streaming from from Xbox Music will comes with Windows 8, Larson-Green said, together with the ability to create a playlist from music it finds on the Web, she said.

 

Larson-Green also showed off personalization features, such as the ability to show photos via the lock screen, the ability to take a Skype call from the lock screen, and Windows 8.1’s ability to add personalized backgrounds. She also briefly explained integrated photo editing, plus new apps including Food & Drink, which can be manipulated via hands-free mode. Basically, all the apps “in Windows 8.1 have either been written for Windows 8.1 or updated for it," she said. Those apps can be snapped together,  with four per widescreen monitor.

 

Ballmer also emphasized that new apps for Windows 8 were on the way. “It’s gratifying to me that developers are doing really great work for Windows 8."

Larson-Green also showed off a preview of alpha code for PowerPoint, designed for the Modern experience on both Windows RT and Windows 8. Microsoft did not say when the full release for Office, within the Modern environment, would be released.

Antoine Leblond took the stage to unveil the improvements in Windows 8.1 for developers, which will be described in 100 sessions or so across the conference.
 

Visual Studio 2013 is also operating at a faster release cadence, Leblond explained. Devs can download the preview version of VIsual Studio 2013 today, he said, including new features that measure power, assist in asynchronous debugging of code, and send notifications via Windows Azure.
 

Facebook is finally coming to Windows 8.
Ballmer also emphasized that new apps for Windows 8 were on the way. “It’s gratifying to me that developers are doing really great work for Windows 8,” he said, including Flipboard for WIndows 8, NFL Fantasy Football. Most importantly, Facebook will bring an app to the Windows 8 platform, he said, eliminating the need to pin a shortcut to the Start menu.

Leblond also unveiled tiled resources, using a model of Mars made up of actual data from NASA. Normally, the graphics card would load all of the data, and downsample the data, he said. As the user would zoom in, the detail would become fuzzy. If put inside a game context, the result is an incredibly detailed game experience, Leblond said.
 

Leblond also showed off a Windows tablet working with a unreleased version of LEGO MindStorms, and showed off the capability of WIndows 8.1 to manage 3D printing.
 

Leblond also highlighted a new Samsung ATIV with the highest-resolution 13-inch display on the market, with an 8-hour battery life, and the Acer Aspire P3, about 0.25 inches thick, with a wireless keyboard that doubles as a touch cover. The Acer Aspire v5 offers high-quality touch for under $400, he said. Leblond also highlighted a Dell Windows RT tablet with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chip inside, and a whopping 18 hours of battery life, with the keyboard. Finally, there's the Dell XPS ET, an all-in-one that weighs less than five pounds and promises seven hours of battery life.
 

Ballmer said that the company continually wins blind “taste tests” between its Bing search engine and Google’s search engine, with the “shell experience” of search within Windows 8.1 powered by Bing. But search has increasingly become an enabling technology, rather than just a destination.
 

"Search is not just a list of links, it's things you can do," Larson-Green said.
 

Gurdeep Singh Pall, a corporate vice president for Bing, said that the search engine’s share continues to climb, currently up to 17.4-percent market share. Developers know that Bing is an incredible product, but they want more, Pall said.
 

”For a long time we’ve had this vision that we can enable all these new experiences,” Pall said.
 

For developers, the “unbounded knowledge of the Web” is now available, Pall said, connecting the real world and the Web via Bing APIs and controls. Pall showed off technology that allowed users to take a virtual tour of Valencia, Spain, using Bing and the power of Bing Maps. Windows 8.1 Maps will come with 3D capability, Pall said, via a 3D control that can be added inside applications.
 

New 3D capabilities will be added to Bing Maps. Pall didn’t brag about it, but the 3D maps puts Bing back on pace with Apple and Google in 3D mapping applications, instead of just using its traditional “bird’s eye” view.  Pall also showed off integration with Bing to search out more information on a famous Valencia architect, as well as Bing’s translation capabilities, all designed to add the information to a sample travel app Microsoft developers.
 

”I believe that apps will have eyes, they have ears, they will have mouths,” Pall said, all with the idea that apps should be enhanced with additional capabilities.
 

Microsoft executives ended the keynote by showing off Project Spark, both a game and a development environment through which gamers can create their own virtual worlds for the Xbox One game console and PCs.

Twitter: @sajilpl
 

Tesla unveils 90-second battery-pack swap

Tesla hopes the new system will help overcome the fears that many drivers have about the convenience of electric cars.

At a demonstration in California Thursday night, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the battery swap stations will be installed throughout the network of "supercharging" stations that Tesla is already building around the nation. The supercharging stations currently provide free recharging in about an hour. Musk said the battery swap, which will cost at least $50, will allow drivers a choice in order to get back on the road faster.

"The only decision you need to make when you come to one of our Tesla stations is, do you prefer faster or free," he said. "Our goal here was to eliminate the objections that people have. We want to show that [Tesla] can actually be more convenient than a gasoline car. Hopefully this is what convinces people that electric cars are the future."

During Tesla's demonstration of the Model S battery swaps, a video screen above the swapping station showed a driver taking 4 minutes to fill up at the pump.

It cost $99.83 to fill up the car's 23 gallon tank at an L.A. gas station. Most gas tanks hold around 15 or 16 gallons.

Related: 9 questions for Tesla's Elon Musk

The swap is done by the same machine used on the assembly line, which senses the location of the bolts that hold the battery in place, unscrews them and then lowers the old battery into the ground and raises the new battery into place, reattaching the nuts to factory specifications.

According to analyst Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research, the quick-charge stations will be a money maker for Tesla, which plans to spend about $100 million installing the stations. Each swapping station will cost Tesla about $500,000 to install.

"We estimate Tesla margins on battery swap stations could be north of 60%," he said.

Company spokeswoman Shanna Hendriks wouldn't comment on the profit margin. But unlike the high-speed supercharging, Hendriks said Tesla intends to make money on the battery swaps. But she said the company's main purpose for offering the service is to make drivers more comfortable with the idea of taking trips in their Tesla, not to generate profits.

Drivers who opt for the swap will have to eventually return to the station to get their original battery back, and they'll have to pay for the service once again.

If they don't return, they can pay to have the 1,000-pound battery shipped back to the service center nearest their home, or they can keep the new battery they've had installed, a battery's efficiency varies depending on its age. It is expected that the swapping stations will be able to serve all future Tesla models, but not its original car, the Roadster.



The battery swapping technology also gives Tesla additional environmental credits from states such as California, which are pushing automakers to sell more zero-emission cars. Tesla has been able to sell those credits to the major automakers, and that has been a significant source of profits for the company.

One start-up that also planned to offer battery swapping for electric vehicles, Better Place, recently filed for bankruptcy and halted its operations. Chowdhry said that company's plans were based on the flawed assumption that all the different electric vehicles would use interchangeable batteries.

Related: Tesla tripling supercharger network

In May, Tesla announced plans to greatly expand its existing supercharging network, tripling the number of stations by the end of this month. By the end of this year, Tesla plans to have more than 100 locations, allowing drivers to drive from Los Angeles to New York.

Some battery swapping stations are expected to be in service by the end of the year along the San Francisco to Los Angeles corridor. Eventually they will be at all supercharging locations, though there is no schedule yet for when that will be accomplished.

Shares of Tesla (TSLA), which have nearly tripled in value so far this year, were up in early afternoon trading.

 

'Project Runway' Unveils Season 12 Cast, Reveals Changes

Lifetime has announced the cast and details for the 12th cycle of Project Runway.

Sixteen new fashion designers will compete for the grand prize, including a past competitor whom Lifetime is calling a "Runway Redemption Contestant." The past designer will be chosen by fans on the Lifetime website and will be unveiled as part of the new season. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news in May.

Heidi Klum returns as host and judge, alongside Nina Garcia and Zac Posen, with Tim Gunn mentoring. Gunn will also watch the runway show with the judges, a change from previous installments, and will be given the power to rescue a designer during the season who he feels deserves a second chance.

Additionally, seven fans will be featured in an upcoming episode this season for a makeover. In a Project Runway first, viewers will also be able to interact with others through the PlayRunway interactive on-screen feature, allowing them to voice their opinions for the episodes, challenges and eliminations.

Guest judges this season include Michael Kors, Kate Bosworth, Kelly Osbourne, Allison Williams, Sigourney Weaver, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Kaley Cuoco and Stacy Keibler.

The designers competing this season are:

·        Alexander Pope, 38 - Hometown: Los Angeles, CA; Resides in New York, NY

·        Alexandria von Bromssen, 38 - Hometown: Stockholm, Sweden; Resides in San Mateo, CA

·        Angela Bacskocky, 33 - Hometown: Richmond, VA; Resides in Richmond, VA

·        Bradon McDonald, 38 - Hometown: Lowville, NY; Resides in Los Angeles, CA

·        Dom Streater, 24 - Hometown: Philadelphia, PA; Resides in Philadelphia, PA

·        Helen Castillo, 25 - Hometown: Weehawken, NJ; Resides in Union City, NJ

·        Jeremy Brandrick, 41 - Hometown: Birmingham, England; Resides in New York, NY

·        Justin LeBlanc, 27 - Hometown: Tampa, FL; Resides in Raleigh, NC

·        Kahindo Mateene, 34 - Hometown: Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Resides in Chicago, IL

·        Karen Batts, 29 - Hometown: Boca Raton, FL; Resides in Queens, NY

·        Ken Laurence, 24 - Hometown: Birmingham, AL; Resides in Birmingham, AL

·        Miranda Kay Levy, 29 - Hometown: Wilton, WI; Resides in Milwaukee, WI

·        Sandro Masmanidi, 28 - Hometown: Krasnodar, Russia; Resides in New York, NY

·        Sue Waller, 45 - Hometown: Boston, MA; Resides in Brooklyn, NY

·        Timothy Westbrook, 24- Hometown: Wanakena, NY; Resides in Milwaukee, WI

·        Runway Redemption Contestant

Project Runway returns 9 p.m. July 18 on Lifetime.