Light Start – Hyperloop test, Vuze VR, Nissan xStorage, and Parsey McParseface

The first test for Hyperloop One doesn’t look like much

The Hyperloop is supposed to be the future of transport, right? Well, the first test of the company formerly known as Hyperloop Technology’s er… hyperloop technology doesn’t look like a whole lot. Part of it is the video footage, which isn’t that spectacular to begin with, but the test is also sorta…. meh. Which, if you think about it, is almost the point. You only really get excited by something extremely novel when it comes to cars these days. A Corolla on the roads isn’t going to make you sit up and take notice and if the Hyperloop works out right, you’ll feel the same way about it. But while this concept track doesn’t seem remarkable, the little test unit makes it to just under 200km/h in the tiny space you see before you.

Source: The Next Web

If you want to create VR, you can do worse than the R12,000 Vuze Camera

Virtual reality is coming hard and fast. Silence, you. What that means is that the average person will want to make their own and there are already ways to do that. Absent the fabrication methods that will put VR cameras on a smartphone, you can use something like the Vuze Camera. It’s capable of 360-degree video recording, according to the creators, and can also create stereoscopic images due to the way that the camera’s lenses are arranged. On paper, it’s pretty versatile. The Vuze Camera is up for pre order at the link below, with an estimated delivery of October this year. If you have R12,000 to spare, that is.

Source: Vuze

Nissan to take on Tesla’s Powerwall with xStorage, based on their own car battery tech

Tesla turned the world on its head when it announced the Powerwall, a device that attracted a lot of South African attention because Eskom. Nissan wants a piece of that action too and to that end they’ve created and announced the xStorage unit. It’s a 4.2kWh battery which uses 12 Nissan EV battery modules and which will set users back some R70,000 (converted from European money, that is). Functionally it’s similar to the Powerwall but it’s unusual in that it’s probably not going on sale in the States. We’re also not sure whether it’ll go on sale here, Europe is the xStorage’s home ground for the moment. Still… imports?

Source: Nissan

Google is open-sourcing something called Parsey McParseface

You might have heard the words Boaty McBoatface, the best name the internet as a collective has come up with. Well, the best name we’re willing to admit to knowing. Well, even though a scientific vessel won’t be bearing the moniker, Google has us covered. They’ve just made something called Parsey McParseface open-source. Paresy is a tool for a software package called SyntaxNet, which Google is also making open-source. It’s designed to parse sentences, letting users create programs able to understand natural human language. More or less, anyway. It’s awesome news if you’re a developer but we’re just here to see Parsey. Parsey is cool.

Source: The Verge