ZF shows autonomous shuttle for mixed traffic
With a new shuttle generation, ZF Friedrichshafen wants to advance autonomous driving. At the CES in Las Vegas, the car supplier presented the electronic robo-minibus, which is said to be able to maneuver in mixed traffic on predefined routes without a safety driver. At the same time, the group presented a partner, the US mobility service provider Beep, with whom it intends to put several thousand of the shuttles on the road in certain areas such as Florida, California and Yellowstone National Park. heise online and c’t report on the news from Las Vegas.
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Gas shortage “increasingly unlikely”
According to the Bundesnetzagentur, the chances of Germany getting through the winter without gas bottlenecks have improved noticeably. “A gas shortage this winter is becoming increasingly unlikely,” predicted the regulatory authority in its current gas supply management report. For the first time since mid-June, the network agency changed its assessment of the situation. So far, the authority had rated the situation as “tense”. The background: Three months after the start of the heating period, the filling level of German gas storage facilities is still more than 90 percent.
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Almost half of the glaciers lost
Water scarcity, rising sea levels, changed flora and fauna: the progressive melting of glaciers due to global warming is having some serious effects. Now a study published in the journal Science shows that even in the best-case scenario, a large part of the glaciers will disappear. According to this, almost 50 percent of the approximately 215,000 glaciers considered are likely to melt by 2100 – if the rise in temperature is limited to 1.5 degrees. However, immediate climate protection measures and every tenth of a degree saved in warming could slow down the process.
Apple in AI mood
For the first time, Apple has included audio books in its digital book store that are read by computer-generated voices. The books are marked as such with the addition “Narrated by Apple Books”. Nevertheless, there is initial criticism from cultural workers and competitors. The Guardian cites creators who see human narration as an important artistic part of an audio book. In the case of competitors like Spotify, however, Apple’s step is likely to increase the existing feeling of injustice, since Apple reserves the AI-generated audio books exclusively for its own bookstore.
(igr)
