Geek News

Toyota has designed a magnet that halves the amount of rare earths needed in its electric cars, which could help mitigate the fall out of a looming materials shortage . Like other electric carmakers, Toyota has traditionally used neodymium, terbium and dysprosium in its electric vehicles , but it believes demand for these materials will outstrip supply come 2025. The new magnet uses the rare earths lanthanum and cerium instead, which are more plentiful and cost 20 times less than neodymium. A neodymium shortage would be serious news for the electric vehicle market as it stands, and we've already seen the consequences. Last year a clampdown on illegal mining in China (which supplies 80 percent of the planet's rare earth materials) caused neodymium prices to skyrocket by more than 30 percent in just one month. Toyota's plans will help protect the company and keep it on track to sell 5.5 million electrified vehicles by 2030, which will certainly be achievable if its cars a...

A woman suing Twitter for allowing ISIS activity on its website has had her case thrown out by a federal appeals court in San Francisco. The court ruled that Twitter Inc is not liable to families of two US government contractors killed in an Islamic State attack in Jordan for its failure to block ISIS from using its messaging services. The case began in January 2015 after the woman's husband, Lloyd Carl Field Jr, was killed during an incident that took place the previous November. Court documents on the woman's side claimed that "Twitter has knowingly permitted the terrorist group ISIS to use its social network as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits. This material support has been instrumental to the rise of ISIS and has enabled it to carry out numerous terrorist attacks." The appeals court, however, ruled 3-0 that the families failed to demonstrate a direct link between Twitter's services and the death of th...