🦈 'Shark attack' glove, Meta challenges Nvidia, World's largest cavern energy

Researchers created a new ‘e-glove’ to wirelessly transmit underwater hand gestures to a computer for translation into messages. In doing so, they overcome the key challenge of waterproofing electronic sensors for pool or ocean use while maintaining glove flexibility.

The development will help divers talk to those on the surface to relay messages like – ‘OK,’ ‘Exit,’ or ‘Shark.’ For more about how the tech works in today’s Must-Read.

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MUST READ

🦈 New e-glove could allow scuba divers shout ‘shark’ attack underwater

Usually, when divers have to say ‘I’m okay’ or to make their dive partners aware of some danger, they rely on hand signals to communicate visually. However, sometimes, these movements are hard to see.

Now, a team has crafted a new glove with waterproof sensors inspired by the tube-like feet of starfish. Using laser writing tools, they created an array of these sensors on a thin film of waterproof plastic (PDMS). They then sewed them over the prototype’s knuckles and first finger joints.

A volunteer made 16 gestures, which were recorded by the e-glove sensors. Using machine learning, the team achieved 99.8 percent accuracy in translating gestures into messages on land and underwater.

🕳️ World’s largest cavern thermal energy storage to warm a city year-round

Vaanta Energy, a company owned by the cities of Helsinki and Vaanta in Finland, has ambitious plans to establish the world’s largest cavern-based thermal energy storage system.

It will consist of three underground caverns, each measuring over 900 feet (300 meters) long, 131 feet (40 meters) high, and 65 feet (20 meters) wide. Together, the caverns will have a total volume of 38.85 million cubic feet (1.1 million cubic meters).

Dubbed the Varanto project, it’s expected to have an energy storage capacity of 90 gigawatt hours (GWh). That’s the equivalent of energy stored in 1.2 million electric vehicles and would meet the heating needs of a medium-sized city for up to a year. 

💾 Meta challenges Nvidia’s dominance with new AI chips

Social media giant Meta has unveiled its second-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips, which it plans to deploy in-house later this year. The Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) is part of the company’s larger plans to build AI infrastructure for integration into its services, such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The company first announced the MTIA version 1 (v1) in May 2023, but production plans were pushed back to 2025. Meta turned to industry favorite Nvidia for the H100 processors to power its AI operations.

According to a Reuters report, the company plans to acquire 350,000 H100 chips for AI applications. It will eventually have 600,000 AI chips powering its AI services. Meta is keen to break into the largely monopolistic market of AI-powered chips currently held by Nvidia.

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