Malta energy storage system is looking forward to first pilot

Malta has received a round of funding and is graduated from "project" to group that can sail. The Cambridge, MA-based company is focused on the storage of electro-thermal energy and the funding put the group in celebration mode this month. In return, the company is turning up the volume on its potential role in the future of energy storage—namely, working out salt-based electro-thermal energy storage.

Brian Dowling, Xconomy, reported that Malta is heading off into the world "with a $26 million Series A funding round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the climate change fund led by Bill Gates."

https://techxplore.com/news/2018-12-malta-energy-storage.html

Swarm of 300 robots reorganize autonomously

For now, research like this kilobot swarm assembly will remain in the lab, but the potential implications of cheap robots that can communicate and coordinate as effectively and simply as demonstrated here could be huge. Everything from structure reassembly to patterns of self-healing armor to autonomous scouting clusters could potentially be derived from studies like this.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/robotics/2018/12/23/watch-a-swarm-of-300-robots-reorganize-autonomously/

NASA Data Breach Highlights Agency Cybersecurity Problems

"…The scope of the data breach is unclear, but Gibbs said in the memo it could affect both current NASA civil servants as well as those who joined or left the agency, or transferred between centers, as far back as July 2006."

https://www.space.com/42837-nasa-data-breach-highlights-agency-cybersecurity-problems.html