Light Start – Drone explosion, Steam sale, virtual Malaysia, pyramids and Tesla in India
Brett Venter
A drone explosion is one way of mitigating avalanches
We have the sorts of drones that fly around capturing video and then we have the kind that make things go boom. Well, the military does. They don’t trust us with explosives, it seems. But combining a camera drone with dynamite might help resorts to prevent avalanches, by setting off snow movement when no-one’s in the way by using a drone to get the explosives in position. That’s the idea a company called Mountain Drones has in mind and it has its benefits (cheap, easy, fast) but there’s a slight problem with that – the same concept could be applied to just dropping explosives on random crowds. That’s not going to make drone regulation proponents sleep any easier.
Prepare your wallet for Steam’s Halloween sale – Now On
This weekend is Halloween, that holiday event thingy we seem to have imported from the Americans. Which means parties on Saturday night, for one, and costumes everywhere but it also means gaming sales. Digital distribution platform Steam are really, really good at those and their spooky sale has kicked off, running until 2 November. As you might expect, zombies, ghouls and other beasties feature extensively in the sale, which will feature discounts of up to 80% on titles. Prepare your wallet and remember: He who dies with the most unplayed Steam games wins.
Take a quick trip to Sabah in Malaysia, thanks to Google
Who has the time and money for a holiday these days? We’re lucky if we get to spend long weekends with our feet in a puddle (and we still have to bring our own sand) but Google’s got you covered for some virtual touring. The newest location on the list is the Sabah area in Malaysia, which count several islands as well as Mount Kinabalu among its attractions. And you can go there, without leaving your desk or office. Right now. Isn’t the modern world grand…?
Looking inside the pyramids using cosmic rays sounds fun
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This is the sort of tech usage we can get behind. A coalition group is going to be spending a year scanning the pyramids in Egypt, a project called Scan Pyramids Mission, using everything from lasers and drones to the cosmic radiation detectors that have been used to see inside active volcanos and the Fukushima reactor. The point is to do a non-invasive search of the pyramids and the pyramid complex at Giza, with work also extending to Dashur, with an eye on solving all of their mysteries. The project starts in November, with thermal mapping being first on the agenda. Awesome.
Tesla might makes its way to India at some point, perhaps with a Gigafactory in tow. A series of factors, including a visit by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and a Twitter exchange, has prompted speculation that the company might move a few operations to the country. In reply to a question about whether Tesla would create a Gigafactory in India, Musk replied “A Gigafactory in India would probably make sense in the long term.” Which isn’t much to go on but Elon Musk isn’t frivolous with his words as a general rule. Plus he’s on record as saying that the company need around 20 Gigafactories…
