Tag: Travel

Topics

Black Mirror in China Part 2: The car vending machine

Source: The Verge / YouTube (Alibaba)

Last week we told you about the very real restrictions that Chinese citizens with low social credit scores face. Anybody who has a low social credit score, which comes from social and financial behavior faces travel restrictions that’ll last for up to a year. This week we’re bringing you the flip side of this dystopian nightmare. The perks of having a high social credit score.

As we head into a fully automated future, the idea of arbitrary responses from virtual machines seems all the more terrifying if you have a low social credit score. The flip side is that a positive score, like 700 points, could get you access all sorts of goodies. 700 is 150 more points than you start out with before you’ve made any transactions that affect your social credit score. One such example, in Guangzhou, is a cat-themed vending machine that spits out Fords for free test drives.

The vending machine is the result of a partnership between online retailing giant Alibaba and American car manufacturer Ford. All Alibaba customers need to do is select the model of car they want to test drive on their Tmall app, snap a selfie of themselves, and then turn up at the selected time. They’ll get a 3-day test drive for free, citizens with lower scores will have to pay, and they’ll even be able to then buy the car directly through the app.

All aboard the Saturn Submarine

Source:  NASA/JPL/Univ. Arizona/Univ. Idaho

If you are not a masochist, like Gordon Ramsay’s 6.62 million followers on Twitter, there is one way you could get away from his stinging criticisms, put your name down for NASA’s newest planned project. All aboard The Saturn Submarine.

Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, offers scientists a real chance at finding extra-terrestrials in our Solar system as it has plenty of seas and lakes that could be teaming with life. The prospect seems too tantalizing for NASA to ignore as researchers have already begun simulating the conditions of Titan’s seas and lakes so that they can learn how to build a craft that will navigate through the murky deep of Saturn’s largest moon.

The Saturn Submarine project, which has been penciled in for a 2032 launch date offers a long list of challenges that will need to be overcome by the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. Although Titan’s lakes offer the promise of life, they are very different from lakes found here on earth. Not least because the lakes are not made of water, but rather ethane and methane chilled to between 25 and 150 degrees Celsius below zero. Overcoming these challenges is not the end of it either, any heat or nitrogen created by the submarine could affect the craft’s ability to take accurate readings.

This seems like a real head scratcher then with plenty of hurdles between here and the finish line, 886 million miles away. With the possibility of discovering aliens in our own backyard, however, you can bet that it will only be a matter of time before The Saturn Submarine, man’s first ever craft to navigate a liquid surface off-world, splashes down into the freezing oceans of Titan. All aboard.

Exposed ice could lead to life on Mars

We’ve known that Mars has water for a while now, but it was all thought to be underground. Now it looks like there is water near the surface, too, making the red planet a little more hospitable.

In fact, scientists who spotted the near-surface ice sheets from pictures taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter say it’s a “game-changer” for both exploration and colonization. In theory, you could go out with a bucket and spade and take what you needed – rather than blasting water-bearing rocks.

So far, eight sites have been discovered – and even better, they’re mostly in the warmer parts of the planet. Now all we have to do is get there and figure out what to eat.

It looks like Mars is turning into a (little bit) more hospitable planet. Not only there is water, but we could take what we need just by spading the surface.