Weekly News: High Speed Levitating pod

Hyperloop’s first passenger ride

Richard Branson’s Virgin Hyperloop completed this past weekend the world’s first passenger ride on a high-speed levitating pod. 

The successful test marks a key milestone for the technology. It indeed promises to revolutionise human and cargo transportation by using magnetic levitation to hurtle vehicles through vacuum tubes. 

Although the Hyperloop executives involved in the trial only reached a top speed of 172 km/h, the technology promises to deliver speeds of 966 km/h and faster. That’s twice as fast as a commercial jet with a fraction of the emissions. It could be a reality by 2030.

The Guardian

High Speed Levitating pod: Updates from Microsoft

Microsoft has released the .NET 5.0 developer platform, introducing among other features the new C# 9 and F# 5 programming languages.

.NET 5.0 allows developers to unify their toolset across platforms and operating systems, whether they are building for desktop, mobile, cloud or IoT applications. The new programming languages offer easier, more expressive top-level coding.

Additionally, the Redmond, Virginia company released on Tuesday its November security patch, addressing 112 vulnerabilities. The Windows zero-day vulnerability revealed last month is among them.

TechRepublic / ZDNet

High Speed Levitating pod: Tougher EU tech export rules

European law-makers are tightening rules for the export of dual-use technology products, a category of technologies that can be used both by civilians and the military.  

The technologies involved to improve high-speed levitating pod include high-performance computing (HPC), drones and facial recognition software, will now require vendors to meet a much higher set of conditions when closing licensing deals. 

The rules focus on protecting democracy and human rights and can be easily and quickly amended to cover any new emerging technologies that may appear in the future.    

ITPro