Fortune: Google Will Absorb Nest Developers
Alphabet subsidiary Nest Labs, maker of internet-connected thermostats and smoke detectors, is undergoing yet another restructuring, Fortune has learned.
Nest’s entire platform team will become part of Google, which also resides under the Alphabet umbrella, in order to create a unified internet-of-things platform. It will be led by longtime Google executive Hiroshi Lockheimer, who currently serves as senior vice president of Android and who recently assumed more responsibility for “living room” products. The combined group also will continue to work on Google Home, a smart speaker rival to the Amazon Echo, while simultaneously fending off Amazon challenges elsewhere in the smart home.
MIT Technology Review: Fully Autonomous Cars Are Unlikely, Says America’s Top Transportation Safety Official
Auto accidents kill more than 33,000 Americans each year, more than homicide or prescription drug overdoses. Companies working on self-driving cars, such as Alphabet and Ford, say their technology can slash that number by removing human liabilities such as texting, drunkenness, and fatigue.
But Christopher Hart, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, says his agency’s experience investigating accidents involving autopilot systems used in trains and planes suggests that humans can’t be fully removed from control. He told MIT Technology Review that future autos will be much safer, but that they will still need humans as co-pilots.
Bloomberg: India Urges Power Producers to Seek Opportunities Overseas
India is urging its power producers to look overseas for new markets as fewer new plants are needed at home amid surplus generation capacity.
The Indian government is encouraging state-run power producers to build plants overseas, Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal said in an interview Saturday. The country is projected to report surplus power supply for the first time in at least eight years during the year ending March, even as several parts remain without access to electricity.
ABC: South Australian Geothermal Project Closes
A potential energy source in Australia is set to remain untapped, with a geothermal power project in the far north of South Australia now closed.
Energy company Geodynamics closed and remediated the sites of several test wells and generation plants in the Cooper Basin after deciding they were not financially viable.
Before the closure, the company had managed to extract super-heated water from 5 kilometers below the earth's surface and use it to generate small amounts of electricity.
Huffington Post: What If Climate Change Deniers Used the Same Logic on Everything?
If watching climate-change deniers on TV is enough to drive you nuts, imagine living with one.
Australia’s Collective Noun sketch comedy group shows what that might be like, especially if the climate denier starts applying the same logic to everything.
Let’s just say a simple request for rent money can turn into a bizarre ordeal.