Are You Dead?
Empty hands.
“Succinct and smart…News Items boils it down like no other newsletter.” — Tom Freston, Firefly3 LLC and author of “Unplugged - Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu”.
1. On a blustery November day, a Cessna turboprop flew over Pennsylvania at 5,000 meters, in crosswinds of up to 70 knots — nearly as fast as the little plane was flying. But the bumpy conditions didn’t thwart its mission: to wirelessly beam power down to receivers on the ground as it flew by. The test flight marked the first time power has been beamed from a moving aircraft. It was conducted by the Ashburn, Virginia-based startup Overview Energy, which emerged from stealth mode in December by announcing the feat. But the greater purpose of the flight was to demonstrate the feasibility of a much grander ambition: to beam power from space to Earth. Overview plans to launch satellites into geosynchronous orbit (GEO) to collect unfiltered solar energy where the sun never sets and then beam this abundance back to humanity. (Sources: spectrum.ieee.org, overviewenergy.com)
2. A new app that encourages users to check in every two days to confirm they are alive has taken China by storm. Named ‘Are You Dead?’, the app will get in touch with a designated emergency contact if users do not check in to give confirmation. Launched in May last year, it has attracted a lot of new customers in recent months, especially among young people who live alone in Chinese cities. It is now the most downloaded paid app in the country, which has a well-chronicled loneliness epidemic. (Source: telegraph.co.uk. Italics mine.)
3. Mississippi has gone from 49th in the country on national tests in 2013, to a top 10 state for fourth graders learning to read — even as test scores have fallen almost everywhere else. Poverty remains a driving factor in student achievement, and wealthy states like Massachusetts still have the highest share of students proficient in reading and math. But adjusted for poverty and other student demographics, Mississippi is No. 1 for fourth grade reading and math, and at or near the top in eighth grade, according to the Urban Institute, a left-leaning think tank. (Source: nytimes.com)
