Providence Technology Group

Sierra Northern Railway (SERA) unveiled the new look for its industry-leading Hydrogen Powered Switching Locomotive. This Zero Emission switching locomotive is moving forward and is slated to be completed on schedule. The California Energy Commission awarded $4,000,000 for the design, integration, and demonstration of a hydrogen fuel cell switching locomotive. The locomotive will prove the potential of hydrogen fuel-cell technology to reduce transportation air pollutant and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. SERA is retiring an older tier 0 diesel locomotive and replacing it with a zero-emission switching locomotive using cutting-edge hydrogen technology. The project involves the integration of an advanced hydrogen fuel cell, hydrogen storage, advanced battery, and systems control technologie...[Read More]

  Tesla may soon face a new legal battle in its former home state of California thanks to a bill that directly targets the naming of its controversial Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (but not really) software suites. This might sound like deja vu considering that the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles recently filed a complaint over Tesla’s allegedly misleading marketing tactics for the same software. However, this is a completely separate legal matter that could impact not only Tesla, but also any automaker that sells a vehicle with partially-automated software in the golden state. Keep Reading This Article at thedrive.com.

With this study, UC Davis joins BrainGate, an ambitious consortium of universities and academic medical centers studying how brain-computer interfaces can be used to restore neurological function in people living with paralysis. The technology is also sometimes referred to as brain-machine interface or neuroprosthesis. The focus of BrainGate is to use this technology to “turn thoughts into action” for people living with paralysis. Some of the consortium’s studies have turned “neural” handwriting into text output to a computer and helped participants with paralysis control a robotic arm and hand. The researchers at UC Davis are focused on a condition known as anarthria, where people want to speak but are unable to control their vocal cords or mouth in a way that would produce audible speech...[Read More]

Modern Football Technology, a football analytics software company, announced that it received pre-seed investment from Growth Factory and was selected to participate in the second cohort of the Growth Factory accelerator program. This milestone further validates Modern Football Technology’s mission to help football coaches at all levels simplify and elevate their use of technology to an elite level. “As we scouted for Sacramento-based venture backable companies with strong teams, traction, and market timing, MFT rose to the top of our applicant list. With MFT’s deep understanding of the problem, Growth Factory and our community of investors, partners and mentors are excited to support Christian and team as they help coaches move from data fatigue to football intelligence and beyond,” said ...[Read More]

In the 1950s, a visionary college student might have pursued a degree in computer science, and helped create our modern digital world. In the 1990s, that same student might have studied biotechnology, and developed genetic engineering techniques that are solving today’s health crises. But what and where should a forward-thinking student study in 2022? To find out, Gizmodo partnered with the independent market research provider Statista to identify the top universities within fields of study that we believe will define the 21st century. We looked for programs offering the best education in 25 disciplines, and we asked actual students and practitioners in each field to tell us which schools are leading the way. Click here for a detailed methodology. Keep reading this article at gizmodo.com.

Many proposed laws with potential significance to IT vendors may ultimately fail to clear the statehouse this session — and starting Monday, lawmakers will begin again the process of deciding which stay and which go. That’s because Aug. 1 is the date Assembly members and state senators return to the Legislature from their summer recess, which began July 2. So-called fiscal committees in both houses, where many of these bills currently reside, will have through Aug. 12 to “report” bills out for consideration by lawmakers en masse on the floor. Keep reading This Article at govtech.com.  

The world of technology is rapidly shifting from flat media viewed in the third person to immersive media experienced in the first person. Recently dubbed “the metaverse,” this major transition in mainstream computing has ignited a new wave of excitement over the core technologies of virtual and augmented reality. But there is a third technology area known as telepresence that is often overlooked but will become an important part of the metaverse. While virtual reality brings users into simulated worlds, telepresence (also called telerobotics) uses remote robots to bring users to distant places, giving them the ability to look around and perform complex tasks.  This concept goes back to science fiction of the 1940s and a seminal short story by Robert A. Heinlein entitled Waldo.  If we comb...[Read More]

Scientists revealed a robot dog that can teach itself to walk in just one hour. In a video released by researchers, the 4-legged robot is at first seen flailing its legs in the air and struggling – but after just 10 minutes it can take steps – and by the one-hour mark it’s walking quite easily, rolling off of its back and even navigating being knocked over with a stick by one of the researchers. Unlike many robots, this one was not shown what to do beforehand in a computer simulation. Keep reading this article at dailymail.co.uk.

Artificial intelligence (AI) gets its “intelligence” by analyzing a given dataset and detecting patterns. It has no concept of the world beyond this dataset, which creates a variety of dangers. One changed pixel could confuse the AI system to think a horse is a frog or, even scarier, err on a medical diagnosis or a machine operation. Its exclusive reliance on the data sets also introduces a serious security vulnerability: Malicious agents can spoof the AI algorithm by introducing minor, nearly undetectable changes in the data. Finally, the AI system does not know what it does not know, and it can make incorrect predictions with a high degree of confidence. Keep reading this article at hbr.org.

Standing on the outskirts of Oakland, California, Attila Toth takes in the nearby forested hills. The CEO looks out on what locals call “The Town” and, in the distance, San Francisco, or “The City.” Close by, Toth sees tangles of redwood, eucalyptus and oak trees – and the wildfire risk they pose. This “wildland-urban interface” isn’t far from the site of the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire, which flared up suddenly in a heavily residential area. Over four days, 3,000 thousand homes were destroyed in one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, causing an estimated $1.5 billion in damages ($3.2 billion in today’s dollars). Twenty-five people were killed. This area, Toth says, will almost certainly burn again. Keep reading this article at msn.com.

California lawmakers met in Sacramento today to discuss, among other things, proposed legislation to protect children online. The bill, AB2273, known as The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, would require websites to verify the ages of visitors. Critics of the legislation contend this requirement threatens the privacy of adults and the ability to use the internet anonymously, in California and likely elsewhere, because of the role the Golden State’s tech companies play on the internet. Keep reading this article at theregister.com.

(Reuters) – One by one, over the last week of May, Twitter Inc rang up some members of its incoming class of new hires who had recently graduated from college and revoked the job offers in 15-minute calls, according to some of the recipients. “It was traumatic,” Iris Guo, an incoming associate product manager living in Toronto, told Reuters. She received the bad news in a 10:45 p.m. video call that her position had been eliminated. Since then, she has raced to find new employment in order to secure her U.S. work visa. More than 21,500 tech workers in the United States have lost their jobs so far this year, according to Layoffs.fyi, a website that monitors job cuts. The number of tech layoffs in May alone skyrocketed 780% over the first four months of the year combined, according to o...[Read More]