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Alphabet is trying to restore Puerto Rico cell service with a network of giant balloons…seriously.

Zume is your traditional pizza company where the chefs are robots and the dining room is a truck. But now it’s got $48 million to play with after raising a VC round. Zuma (and its “Doughbots”) is just one Valley startup (see: eatsa) that’s pushing the food industry toward automation.

The Honest Company—When she’s not on set, Jessica Alba’s working on her non-toxic household products company…which just secured a Series E round of $75 million. To date, Alba has raised $220 million, but the recent round is a step in the wrong direction. After a failed acquisition from Unilever, and a co-founder who decided to step down as CEO, Honest (valued at $1.7 billion in 2015) is losing some steam. This time around, $1 billion was the magic number.

Hurricanes Irma and Harvey rained on the U.S. economy’s parade in September, causing nonfarm payrolls (Labor Dept. jargon for workers not on farms or in NGOs) to drop by 33,000. But what a parade it was. For the last seven years, the U.S. economy added jobs every single month in what was a record march back to health from the Great Recession. The release blindsided economic forecasters, who were about as accurate as your local weatherman. Estimates pegged job gains at around 80,000 (still much lower than the 12-month average of +170,000), but no one expected the job market to contract. For the most part, though, the economic report painted a sunnier pictu…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared a short video of Model 3’s production body line in action, dispelling recent reports that the company’s factory workers were building Model 3 vehicles by hand and that the production body line was still being developed. The video was posted to Instagram on Sunday, before the upcoming trading week likely to quell investor concerns that the California-based won’t be able to dig itself out of deep production hell and reach Model 3 production levels of up to 5,000 units per week at the end of the year. The speed of the Kuka robots seen welding sections of Model 3’s body has been slowed down to one-tenth the normal speed. “It is slowed d…

The US Air Force released a Request For Proposal (RFP) that hopes to fund the development of multiple heavy rocket vehicle prototypes to launch no later than 2022. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 workhorse is already capable of performing the reference missions used as examples. However, maintenance of the status quo is not the goal of this particularly proposal. Rather, the Air Force specified on October 5, that it wants to completely fund prototype development for at least three promising US-sourced launch vehicles, while maintaining the options to select none of the proposals or even more than three. The purpose of those broad strokes is to provide the Air Force and US military…

via TheWorldNewsOrgWorld News

via TheWorldNewsOrgWorld News

A tropical storm that killed at least 22 people in Central America is now forecast to strengthen into a hurricane over the weekend before roaring ashore in New Orleans. Hurricane watches and warnings were already in effect for coastal areas of four southeastern U.S. states, including metropolitan New Orleans, according to the National Hurricane Center. Tropical storm warnings have extended into central Alabama, Mississippi, northern Georgia -- including Atlanta -- and the western panhandle of Florida. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency on Thursday as the state braces for a direct hit. Edwards mobilized 1,300 National Guard troops, with…

In light of the more serious developments taking place across the world these days comes a much needed and light-hearted video that shows a Tesla Model X poking a little fun at the always-flashy Lamborghini. The video, shot on a famed shopping street in Amsterdam, captures a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera confidently reversing into a parking space that’s nestled between Tesla’s Falcon-winged SUV and another vehicle. As the Italian exotic backs into the prime parking space in front of luxury boutique Chanel, the chant of Wizards in Winter is heard coming from the Model X. Windows down, lights flashing and seemingly ‘congratulating’ the Lambo’s victorious parking job wi…

@James Thomas Rook Jr. should like this one.

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Tesla has delayed the unveiling date for its Semi-truck from Thursday, October 26 to Thursday, November 16. CEO Elon Musk took to twitter to explain that the reason for the postponement is so that the company can focus on fixing Model 3 bottlenecks, but also ramp up battery production for hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico and other affected hours. The post Tesla delays Semi-truck event to Nov. 16, shifts focus to Model 3 production bottlenecks appeared first on TESLARATI.com. Via

While competition can be positive and sportsmanship does exist, sometimes we forget the bigger meaning of athletics and the opportunity it can provide each of us to excel as individuals. Sometimes we need to put aside our bravado and competitive nature for a higher good. Here’s a kid named Mitchell who has been a huge basketball fan since a kid. He helps out on the team and is the coach’s favorite right hand man. Mitchell is also special needs. In a surprise move, Mitchell gets the word from his coach to suit on up and get in the game. It was the end of the season, the last game, and it was time to allow those who don’t always get the opportunity to excel, to be given…

Director of autonomous vehicle integration for General Motors, Scott Miller, thinks Tesla’s goal to build a self-driving vehicle that meets SAE’s criteria for a fully autonomous Level 5 car is not physically possible when using Autopilot hardware. “The level of technology and knowing what it takes to do the mission, to say you can be a full level five with just cameras and radars is not physically possible,” said Miller in speaking to the Australian press about Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s goal to produce a full self-driving vehicle using Autopilot technology. “The mission” that Miller is speaking about is Musk’s plan to demonstrate a cross-country drive from Californi…

As Tesla continues to aid hurricane-battered Puerto Rico in relief efforts, CEO Elon Musk responded to a tweet which suggested that Tesla could fortify the island’s electricity grid using solar and battery packs. “The Tesla team has done this for many smaller islands around the world, but there is no scalability limit, so it can be done for Puerto Rico too.” said Musk, in reference to Tesla’s involvement in off-grid energy solutions using the company’s commercial Powerpack battery system and solar panels. “Such a decision would be in the hands of the PR govt, PUC, any commercial stakeholders and, most importantly, the people of PR.” adds Musk. In response, Puerto Rico G…

The shipping industry is developing a case of the Amazon creeps. UPS and FedEx shares dropped after reports surfaced of a new Amazon delivery service, “Seller Flex.” Currently, third-party merchants on Amazon are responsible for choosing a logistics provider (like UPS, FedEx, etc.). But Amazon’s new service replaces that burden with end-to-end logistics from merchant to customer. It assured its delivery compadres like UPS they’d still play a role in the process…but of course, that did little to comfort investors.

Constellation Brands (U.S. distributor of Corona and Modelo beers) saw a 13% sales increase.

The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in favor of Whirlpool in its case for import protection.

A new study showed that the highest-paid CEOs are not the best performers.

Catalonia’s quest for independence from Spain is putting the region’s biggest banks in a sticky situation. So some are getting out. Banco Sabadell, Catalonia’s second-largest lender, will move its HQ out of Barcelona in search of greater stability. A departure from Spain would create uncertainty about Sabadell and other players’ positions within the EU regulatory system. That’s a scary thought for depositors, and even worse for compliance departments. 900 miles to the north, London is feeling the pinch from Brexit. Goldman Sachs is following other global banks on a one-way flight to Frankfurt (but not on Monarch Airlines). It just leased 10,000 m2 in Germany’s …

TransCanada waved goodbye to a proposed $15.7 billion pipeline project in eastern Canada, citing regulatory delays (oh yeah, and oil halving to $50 a barrel in 2014). The Energy East Pipeline would have impressed even the most finicky plumber, carrying 1.1 million barrels of crude per day from the Western CA tar sands to refineries near the Atlantic coast. Pipeline proponents (Conservative politicians, for one) argued the project would have created thousands of construction jobs and boosted exports. But environmental groups and Indigenous leaders are popping champagne over the news. They’ve raised concerns over the pipeline’s impact on climate change and the pot…

Merlin Entertainment, the owner of Legoland parks and Madame Tussauds wax museums, approached SeaWorld for a potential deal. SeaWorld’s (-6.52%) been jumping through hoops to attract potential buyers. That’s because Blackfish, a 2013 documentary that exposed unethical treatment of its marine life, is still crushing demand for the oversized aquarium. Two years ago, profits collapsed 84%, and shares are down 25% just this year. Of course, Merlin isn’t looking to dip its beard into nautical nightmares. It is, however, tempted by SeaWorld’s theme parks of a more terrestrial variety…like Busch Gardens. And hey, maybe souped-up rollercoasters can hedge against declini…

After one too many unpleasant Uber rides, the two largest aircraft manufacturers, Boeing (#1) and Airbus (#2), took concrete steps forward to introduce air taxis on the same day (coincidence? We think not.) Let’s start with Boeing. (+1.22%) It’s planning to purchase Aurora Flight Sciences, a futuristic unmanned systems company (that makes two such acquisitions in less than a year). Aurora’s 550-person team is proof that autonomous tech doesn’t just apply to cars—it’s been working on self-flyingapplications for both the U.S. government and Uber. Then there’s Airbus, (-0.41%) which is set to test its first air taxi flight by 2018. The Jetsons-era helicopter is no…

The last several months have been busy in the electric vehicle revolution. Governments have been announcing their phase out plans for petrol vehicles and automakers have committed billions of dollars to electrification programs. At this point automakers are practically falling over each other racing to get out their announcements. How many electric vehicles they’re developing, how much they’re investing, are they going fully electrified, and when. Suddenly no one wants to be perceived as falling behind in this revolution. And why should they? Nokia and Blackberry can attest to what happens if you do. In the past, established automakers have been very cautious with e…

The Declaration of Independance was written on hemp paper

WHAT A BIG DIFFERENCE !

Save the Children CEO on Rohingya crisis: 'Children are being shot at' Â

Earlier this year, the White House announced plans to reestablish the National Space Council (NSC), an advising body that dates back to the creation of NASA in 1958. The council convened for the first time on October 5 and invited several central figures in US spaceflight, including SpaceX’s President and COO Gwynne Shotwell. In a brief but powerful speech to the Council, Shotwell urged the US Federal government to apply the lessons learned from NASA’s successful private-public partnerships to efforts to expand human presence in Low Earth Orbit and beyond. Those successful partnerships include NASA COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services), which funded SpaceX to…