Commercial aircraft get their first global emissions standard

Ground-based vehicles have had emissions standards for a while (just ask Volkswagen), but commercial aircraft like passenger jets? Not so much. However, the world just took one big step toward cleaning up the skies: a total of 23 countries have agreed to set the first international carbon dioxide emissions standard for commercial aircraft. If the measures are adopted as recommended, new airplane models will have to meet the tougher guidelines in 2020. New aircraft from existing model lines will follow suit in 2023, and there will be a complete cutoff for non-standard aircraft in 2028.

So long as everything goes forward, this could go some distance toward cutting back on airplane pollution. It could cut over 650 million tons of CO2 emissions between 2020 and 2040, or as much as you’d get if you stopped 140 million cars from running for a year. This won’t be as good as moving to pollution-free air travel — humanity will need still-exotic technology like electric jets for that. All the same, it could play an important role in meeting climate change reduction goals.

Source: ICAO, White House

New watch strap will bring contactless payments to Pebble smartwatches

One of Pebble’s first unique features advertised with the Pebble Time was that it would support third-party bands that brought extra functionality to the watch. A new Kickstarter from Fit Pay Inc. has sprung up that plans on offering a mobile payment solution for Pebble watches with a device called Pagaré. It uses NFC to replicate what we’ve seen in Apple’s Apple Watch and what’s eventually going to come to Samsung’s Gear S2.

The Pagaré looks pretty similar to the watch band that ships with the black Pebble Time, but it includes the secure element for payments and an NFC chip, plus its own charger at the end of the strap. Not flashy, but in this case, that’s probably a good thing.

With over 9 million places already accepting mobile payments, Pagaré will work anywhere that Android Pay currently works at. And like other major mobile payment systems, it uses an extremely secure network that doesn’t actually keep your card on file, so you won’t have to worry about numbers or PINs getting stolen. It’s pretty crazy that paying for something with your watch is more secure than using a bank-issued card, but that’s the state of the industry right now.

Interestingly, Pagaré also doesn’t need your phone nearby to use. Once it’s set up, you can leave your phone at home or in the car and still use your Pebble to make a payment. It also doubles as a charger for your Pebble, since the USB cable is built into the end of the strap. You can plug it right into your computer to charge it up, skipping the magnetic charger that ships with Pebble watches. That’s a great combination alongside the Pebble’s extremely fast charging time.

Here’s the bad news: the Kickstarter hasn’t reached its goal yet. It’ll need $120,000 to get off the ground, and you can secure yours early for $49.

Anybody interested?

source: Kickstarter

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Smart car algorithm sees pedestrians as well as you can

It’s one thing for computers to spot people in relatively tame academic situations, but it’s another when they’re on the road — you need your car to spot that jaywalker in time to avoid a collision. Thankfully, UC San Diego researchers have made that more realistic than ever. They’ve crafted a pedestrian detection algorithm that’s much quicker and more accurate than existing systems. It can spot people at a rate of 2-4 frames per second, or roughly as well as humans can, while making half as many mistakes as existing systems. That could make the difference between a graceful stop and sudden, scary braking.

The key is to quickly and gradually cut out the areas that don’t contain people (such as the sky or empty road) and lean on deep learning at the last stages, when you want complex image recognition to confirm what you’re looking at. It saves a lot of the computing power normally needed for pedestrian recognition, since you’re limiting the focus to just a handful of areas instead of large chunks of the screen.

UCSD’s current system can only recognize one object type at a time, so you couldn’t just drop it into a car by itself. However, the team plans to have it detecting multiple object types and become far more practical. And it’s not limited to vehicles, either. This could be useful in robots, security cameras and other devices that need to spot humans in a heartbeat.

Via: Phys.org

Source: UC San Diego