the first line of the article "a record 300,000 electric cars sold in the US in the third quarter of 2023"; the spreading of FUD around EVs continues, nothing new here; this time it is from the opposite end of the spectrum from the crowd saying "Getting Americans to ditch driving altogether would be the most effective way to reduce emissions, but it would require a massive rethink of our transport system."
classic case of the great being the enemy of the good;
Not sure, but there is an argument out there that a cell phone + social media is as addictive as a slot machine, read some of Georgetown's Comp Sci Professor, Cal Newport: https://www.gq.com/story/cal-newport-digital-minimalism
wants? this is the way it has been done for a long long time in the US (the first US patent grant was from George Washington in 1790), there is Property category where there is at least Real Property & Intellectual Property, patents which are in the Intellectual Property 'bucket' so to speak
There are multiple of forms of intellectual property beyond patents: copyright, trademarks, etc
This is the way the legal system has always worked, not an invention of a modern corporate interests, the ancient Greeks recognizes some forms of patent, the modern version is based around the implementations of Italy's patent system in the 1400s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law
no conspiracy here....but yes corporations do like to see a return on their significant research and development investments
It is interesting to see the electronics/computer science side of the patent debate. On this side of the argument there is a desire for a short duration, very narrowly tailored patents (for some that is even too much) because technology moves so fast. On the biomedical/genetics research side of the argument there is a desire for long lasting, broadly tailored patents because it takes so long to develop medicine, do clinical trials, get FDA approval, etc.
What I find most interesting is that I believe most (not all) members of this side of the debate 1) don't know there is another side and/or 2) don't care about the needs of the other side. This author makes good points, but lacks proper context I believe.
Statements like '20 years was set in the days of horse and carts, does it make sense in the modern age?' are great for pandering to an already complicit audience. However, the point is that for some industries 20 years makes sense, and for some of them 20 years isn't long enough.
I'd be willing to bet Myriad Genetics or Monsanto thinks 20 years is not enough.
The whole argument is a non sequitur. The products and companies the author is hoping people defer too, are not prevalent in mainstream society yet. Ubuntu and Arch Linux do not have stores in the mall. Sparkfun is not making arduino based mp3 players and phones down by the food court.
I think this highlights an interesting point, but we aren't there yet as a culture, globally.
supercaps need waaaaay more energy density before they are going displace batteries.....there is a lot of published research into battery/supercapacitor hybrids, the benefit is primarily seen in short transient charge/discharge moments
In a car the use case would be driving with a lot of hills or a ton of start/stop (urban city) driving
Once you get out on the highway where there are long transients discharge moments, you won't see much benefit from the supercapacitors. Depending on the circuit topology it could also be a drain on the overall efficiency of the circuit.
Also, supercapacitors are very expensive....plus you need the high efficiency power converter ($$) between the two to manage the different power sources
"Folks who buy $90,000 cars tend to replace them every few years, and the bid for a four-year-old Model S may prove disappointing if it's going to need an expensive new battery in a few more years."
Seems odd that there are three different models/pricing options in the model s but they only mention the $90k price (85 kWh)....smaller battery (65 kWh) = smaller cost, not sure why this is so difficult to understand.....the Nissan Leaf is a 24 kWh battery and it is under $30k now
Also the battery has an '8 years, unlimited miles' warranty, idk I could say a few years or I could say almost a decade.....poor framing of the basic facts
Despite Barron's scare tactics, there is new tech on the horizon for high energy density/low power density metal air batteries, but somehow that discussion got left out.
i guess in 2013 iTunes overtook piracy in crushing the music industry because I see one of those articles every year, what exactly isn't crushing the music industry?
I think many want to learn so quickly because we need to run faster and faster just to stay in place within the technology fields....just look at all the new things we see on hacker news each day