Future robot overlords, faulty Google connections in China, and the advent of hurricane season. Here’s a few things you need to know for the week.
Tesla Unveils Optimus, its Humanoid Robot Prototype:
Tesla held its annual AI Day on September 30th at its headquarters in Palo Alto, unveiling its newest robotics project: Optimus, a humanoid robot. Equipped with some of the same features as Teslas automobiles — notably, driver-assistance and autopilot AI — and operating for the first time without a tether, the live-streamed event depicted the robot stiffly walking about the stage, waving to audience members, and gesturing with its hands. Musk claims that the robot can do a lot more than what the event showed — ”we just didnt want it to fall on his face,” he told reporters — and that should the robot be mass-produced, its price would hover around $20,000.
Hurricane Ian Makes Landfall on Southeast U.S., Proving Costly to Residents:
In what is expected to be Florida’s most expensive hurricane in history, Ian — which made landfall on Wednesday and subsided into a post-tropical cyclone by the weekend — left the state with a collective $47B in insured losses, according to recent estimates by CoreLogic. With winds as high as 150 mph, furious flooding, and rains up to a foot in certain regions, the storm is expected to permanently alter Floridas real estate industry and residents access to insurance. At least 67 people were killed; almost a million remain without power.
Google Suspends Access to Translate in Mainland China:
Following a string of quarrels with the Chinese government since launching there in 2006, Google disabled its Translate feature in parts of mainland China, redirecting visitors to the Hong Kong domain. Representatives of Google allege that the move was attributed to low usage as opposed to political motive, given the popularity of Chinese-owned competitors like Baidu and Alibaba — still, halting Translate has significantly affected the functionality of other dependent services for China-based users like KOReader, a document-viewing tool, and Chromes translation function.
Interpols Red Notice for Terraform Labs Founder, Do Kwon:
The Tether saga reached an ever-dramatic high this week when the South Korean government and Interpol, the global policing organization, issued a red notice for the search and arrest of Do Kwon, whose blockchain start-up was responsible for the implosion of UST and Luna and the vicious repercussions for large-scale investors. Facing a recently ramped-up probe by South Korean prosecutors, Kwons whereabouts are currently unknown, yet he continues to communicate his positions — both physical and legal — over Twitter. When a user asked about his “hiding” location, he responded, “Im writing code in my living room hbu […] Im making zero effort to hide.” Though the Luna token was revived, the recent charges against Kwon have seen investors sell their positions. “We look forward to clarifying the truth over the next few months,” said Kwon in a tweet earlier in September.
CEO of Celsius, the Crypto Bank, Resigns Amidst Bankruptcy:
After the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky submitted a letter of resignation, effective immediately. The filings come after the industry-wide liquidity crash in June, which caused Celsius freeze withdrawals for customers. Their move going forward? CNBC reports that the newly-formed team at Celsius has plans to restructure the companys debt into a cryptocurrency, selling them in the form of “wrapped tokens” that serve as IOUs for users. “The tokens represent the ratio between what Celsius owes customers and what assets they have available,” they say.
