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Your WIRED daily briefing. Today, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has begun building a test loop in France, the global shipping industry has agreed to cut its emissions, Telegram has been banned in Russia and more.
US firm Hyperloop Transportation Technologies has begun construction of Europe's first hyperloop test track in Toulouse in France (The Verge). Revealing the arrival of its hyperloop tubes in a video, the company says it will be building two test loops. The first, 320 metre loop is set to come into service this year, while a second, full-scale loop – the world's first according to the company – will measure 1km in length, be elevated on 5.8 metre high pylons and is scheduled for completion in 2019.
The International Maritime Organization has agreed a new climate goal that will see greenhouse gas emissions from shipping reduced by 50 per cent compared to 2008 levels by 2050 (BBC News). The target is a compromise between the European Union and a number of small island nations, which argued for a 70 - 100 per cent cut, and a number of other countries, including the USA, Saudi Arabia and Brazil, which wanted no emissions cuts at all. Due to their international area of operations, ships, like aircraft, were previously excluded from climate negotiations such as the Paris Agreement, although they represent 2.5 per cent of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
A Russian court has approved a state communications watchdog ban on secure messaging app Telegram following the company's failure to hand over decryption keys that it says do not exist (Ars Technica). Russian authorities say the app has been used to organise terrorist activity in the country. In a statement on Telegram, founder Pavel Durov wrote: "At Telegram, we have the luxury of not caring about revenue streams or ad sales. Privacy is not for sale, and human rights should not be compromised out of fear or greed."
Caecilians look like mutant worms but are actually amphibious creatures that dwell underground (WIRED). Mother caecilians wrap themselves around a clutch of eggs which are born sometime from late December to early January. The pale-pink offspring remain within their bluish violet’s mother’s coils and feed on her mucus-coated skin, alongside secretions from her cloaca. Carlos Jared and his team have been studying the notoriously elusive species, Siphonops annulatus, in Brazil’s Atlantic Rainforest since 1988. “Among other exclusive characteristics, they have a pair of tentacles in the head,” Jared says.
Sega has announced that it's returning to the hardware market this year with a Mega Drive Mini console, pre-loaded with classic games and set to initially be launched in Japan to mark the Mega Drive's 30th anniversary (Polygon). It appears that the new mini console may use technology from AtGames' Sega Genesis Flashback console, released in the USA last year to widespread criticism. AtGames reportedly revealed a number of features of the new Sega project on Facebook, but its entire page has subsequently been entirely deleted.
This is the factory where Ferraris are born. Housed in the location originally chosen by company founder Enzo Ferrari in 1947, the 165,000-square-metre plant, in Maranello, Italy, produces 8,400 cars a year and employs 1,300 workers. Every car that has ever borne the famous Prancing Horse was painstakingly assembled here – and Ferrari wouldn’t have it any other way.
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