Metropolitan Water commits up to $250 million for previously untapped water sources Projects in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties could bring ‘new’ water for 100,000 Southern California households. 04/16/2024 - 12:03 pm | View Link
Silicon Valley water supplier plans rate hikes Santa Clara County residents could see higher water bills in the upcoming year, as one water agency looks for ways to cover costs. Valley Water, the region’s main water supplier, is proposing raising ... 04/16/2024 - 8:00 am | View Link
California GOP leaders call for accountability after state can’t account for $24B spent on homeless crisis California GOP leaders are calling for more accountability after an audit released earlier this week indicated that the state spent around $24 billion ... for tracking our investments," he said. 04/11/2024 - 2:51 pm | View Link
California water agencies broke own rules, possibly killing thousands of endangered fish Both state and federal water projects pull water out of the beleaguered estuary and ship it south, primarily to reservoirs for farms in the San Joaquin Valley. “I continue to be shocked by the ... 04/7/2024 - 11:45 pm | View Link
Crisis in California: Migrants overwhelming state with ‘no end in sight,’ local officials warn Surging border crossings are putting a strain on communities in Southern California, where hordes of migrants are often spotted at transit hubs after immigration officials resumed street releases ... 04/6/2024 - 10:30 pm | View Link
Enlarge / The X-62A VISTA Aircraft flying above Edwards Air Force Base, California. (credit: Kyle Brasier, U. S. Air Force)
An AI test pilot has successfully flown a jet fighter in dogfights against human opponents. It's the latest development for DARPA's Air Combat Evaluation program, which is trying to develop aerospace AI agents that can be trusted to perform safely.
Human test pilots have a bit of a reputation thanks to popular culture—from The Right Stuff to Top Gun: Maverick, the profession has been portrayed as a place for loose cannons with a desire to go fast and break the rules.
Enlarge / This image taken by NASA's Orion spacecraft shows its view just before the vehicle flew behind the Moon in 2022. (credit: NASA)
Although NASA is unlikely to speak about it publicly any time soon, the space agency is privately considering modifications to its Artemis plan to land astronauts on the surface of the Moon later this decade.
Multiple sources have confirmed that NASA is studying alternatives to the planned Artemis III landing of two astronauts on the Moon, nominally scheduled for September 2026, due to concerns about hardware readiness and mission complexity.
Under one of the options, astronauts would launch into low-Earth orbit inside an Orion spacecraft and rendezvous there with a Starship vehicle, separately launched by SpaceX.
Enlarge / The Tesla Cybertruck. (credit: Tesla)
On Monday, we learned that Tesla had suspended customer deliveries of its stainless steel-clad electric pickup truck. Now, the automaker has issued a recall for all the Cybertrucks in customer hands—nearly 4,000 of them—in order to fix a problem with the accelerator pedal.
Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg)
Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing helped the streaming service blow past Wall Street’s earnings forecasts, but its shares fell after it said it planned to stop regularly disclosing its subscriber numbers.
The company’s operating income surged 54 percent in the first quarter as it added 9.3 million subscribers worldwide, proving that the efforts to reduce password sharing it launched last year have had more lasting benefits than some investors expected.
However, Netflix said on Thursday that from next year it would stop revealing its total number of subscribers, a metric that has been a crucial benchmark for investors in the streaming era.
Enlarge / A sample image from Microsoft for "VASA-1: Lifelike Audio-Driven Talking Faces
Generated in Real Time." (credit: Microsoft)
On Tuesday, Microsoft Research Asia unveiled VASA-1, an AI model that can create a synchronized animated video of a person talking or singing from a single photo and an existing audio track.
Two more Walmart stores—one in St. Louis, Missouri, and one in Cleveland, Ohio, are getting rid of their self-checkout machines, according to a statement shared with Business Insider. The self-checkout machines will reportedly be removed after hours and the process will be completed within two weeks.
“We believe the change will improve the in-store shopping experience and give our associates the chance to provide more personalized and efficient service,” Walmart spokesperson Brian Little told Insider.