Month: February 2018

Enlarge / Ring Video Doorbell 2 (credit: Ring)

Amazon continues to bring smart home startups under its wing with its newest acquisition. According to a Reuters report, the online retailer agreed to buy Ring, maker of connected video doorbells and smart home security cameras, for reportedly more than $1 billion.

The California-based startup is a logical acquisition for Amazon, given its recent dive into the smart home security sphere. The company launched Amazon Key last fall, a service that uses a security camera and smart door lock to allow couriers access to customers' homes to deliver packages.

Amazon Key is meant to be a more convenient and secure way for customers tor receive Amazon orders as package theft rises. But the service has been met with raised eyebrows as many questioned the security of Amazon's system itself. Ring could help Amazon bolster customer confidence in Amazon Key: Ring's smart video doorbell uses an embedded camera to let users see who's at their door (via Ring's mobile app) and a speaker/mic system to allow the user and the guest to communicate.

Enlarge / United Launch Alliance has yet to select its booster engines for the Vulcan rocket. (credit: United Launch Alliance)

Publicly, the venerable US rocket engine company Aerojet Rocketdyne maintains that it is committed to finishing development of its powerful new AR1 engine by 2019. By meeting this deadline, company officials say, they will provide an all-American engine in time for use by United Launch Alliance's next-generation rocket.

However, a review of recent financial US Securities and Exchange Commission filings by Aerojet reveals that, even as it says progress is being made toward completing the AR1 rocket engine, the company is spending substantially less money developing it.

A rendering of Aerojet's AR1 rocket engine. (credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne)

Based on 10-K and 10-Q filings from 2016 and 2017, Aerojet had been spending more than $25 million per quarter during the first half of 2016. Funding levels, which include money from the US Air Force, Aerojet, and United Launch Alliance, rose during the second half of 2016 and peaked in the first quarter of 2017, when the company invested $36.6 million. This is consistent with the normal development curve of a new rocket engine, when large amounts of funding are needed for research, development, and testing.

Enlarge / Annealed neodymium iron boron magnets sit in a barrel prior to being crushed into powder at Neo Material Technologies Inc.'s Magnequench Tianjin Co. factory in Tianjin, China, on Friday, June 11, 2010. Photographer: Doug Kanter/Bloomberg via Getty Images. (credit: Getty Images)

Toyota says it has invented a new magnet for high-energy applications like electric motors that uses a fraction of the amount of neodymium (a rare-earth element) of a standard iron, boron, neodymium (NdFeB) magnet.

Rare-earth magnets are used in many hybrid vehicles, some all-electric vehicles, and in other applications like wind turbines and robotics.

Although "rare" is a bit of a misnomer for a material like neodymium (high demand has led to relatively high production volumes), Toyota notes that "there are concerns that shortages will develop as electrified vehicles, including hybrid and battery electric vehicles, become increasingly popular in the future." That concern is compounded by the concentration of rare-earth mining: although attempts have been made to mine rare-earth metals in the US and other parts of the world, a preponderance of rare-earth mining occurs in China. That country threatened to stop exporting neodymium and other rare earths in 2011, which sent prices for the metals soaring. If China were to use rare-earth access as a geopolitical tool again, it could significantly impact companies like Toyota that depend on rare earths to build flagship products like the Prius.

Enlarge / Women today have multiple options for contraception; researchers hope to soon give men the same degree of choice. (credit: BSIP/UIG via Getty Images)

In 1940s India, Dr. Marthe Voegeli made a potentially world-changing discovery: that exposing the testicles to hot water baths at temperatures of 116 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes every day for three weeks provided six months of reliable contraception.

She carried out a series of experiments showing that men could achieve varying lengths of contraceptive effectiveness from these hot baths. Getting men to take part in her research in the 1940s and '50s was no mean feat for a woman of her time, and she only managed to recruit dozens of men to her trials, however. That's far short of the hundreds and thousands who would be required to take part in a meaningful trial nowadays.

Despite this, Voegeli's preliminary results were promising. Yet the aims of her research were soon forgotten. Why? The female hormonal contraceptive pill was approved by the FDA in 1960, and interest in her work waned as the quest for non-intrusive, reliable contraception was deemed by many to have been realized.