Lifeboat Foundation

SpaceX hosted its fourth annual SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition finals on Sunday at the test tube it built outside its Hawthorne HQ. We were on site for the competition, and watched as Team TUM, from the Technical University of Munich, took home the win thanks to achieving the top speed overall of any team to run in the finals.

TUM (formerly known as team WARR Hyperloop in past competitions) is a repeat winner, and achieved a top speed of 288 mph in this year’s finals. That’s the fastest overall for a Hyperloop pod thus far – it beat its own record from last year of 284 mph set during the third SpaceX student run-off. It wasn’t without incident, however – near the end of its run, there was a spark and some debris appeared to fly off the craft, but it still survived the run mostly intact and satisfied SpaceX judges to qualify for the win.

TUM beat out three other finalist competitors, including Delft Hyperloop, EPFL Hyperloop, and Swissloop. Delft unfortunately had a communication error that cut their run short at just around 650 feet into the just over 3/4 mile SpaceX Hyperloop test track. EPFL managed a top speed of 148 mph and Swissloop topped out at 160 mph.

Italy’s Mount Etna began spewing hot ash and lava overnight, forcing authorities to close two airports in eastern Sicily. Experts detected “lively spattering” at the volcano last month.

2020 Harley-Davidson LiveWire test ride: Rebooting the brand with an electric bike.

César Pelli, the architect whose firm designed Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia and other of the world’s most recognizable buildings, died on Friday at his home in New Haven. He was 92.

The Argentine state news agency Telam confirmed the death, as did Anibal Bellomio, a senior associate architect at Pelli’s firm in Connecticut, with news organizations. Mr. Pelli had been dean of the Yale School of Architecture there, from 1977 to 1984.

Mr. Pelli’s many distinctive works include the World Financial Center in New York (now Brookfield Place), famous for its glass-roofed Winter Garden; the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, known for its bright blue-glass facade; and a terminal at Washington’s Reagan National Airport. He won hundreds of awards, including the American Institute of Architects’ 1995 gold medal.

Test-riding Byar’s chainless electric bike with all-in-one hub motor and integrated lock.

(21 Oct 2017) LEADIN:

Forget plugging in to charge up your new electric car, engineers are now working towards a future where you never need to plug in ever again.

Continue reading “Self charging car batteries mean you’ll never need to plug in” »

Imagine having your cell phone start to charge when you walk into a room, or your electric car charge as you drive over a particular strip of land. It’s like a sort of ambient charging environment surrounds you.

Harnessing the power of magnetic fields.

Continue reading “New Remote Charging Tech Could Start Powering Up Your Phone as Soon as You Walk Into a Room” »

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This could save a lot of hassle at the airport.

This is what a Hyperloop commute could look like.