Lifeboat Foundation

(Reuters) – Airbus Group plans to test a prototype for a self-piloted flying car as a way of avoiding gridlock on city roads by the end of the year, the aerospace group’s chief executive said on Monday.

Airbus last year formed a division called Urban Air Mobility that is exploring concepts such as a vehicle to transport individuals or a helicopter-style vehicle that can carry multiple riders. The aim would be for people to book the vehicle using an app, similar to car-sharing schemes.

“One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground,” Airbus CEO Tom Enders told the DLD digital tech conference in Munich, adding he hoped the Airbus could fly a demonstration vehicle for single-person transport by the end of the year.

Continue reading “Flying car prototype ready” »

Russia is not only talking about developing a sophisticated network of high-speed passenger trains but a trans-continental high-speed cargo rail line as well.

Pre-order at http://www.superpedestrian.com This is the first commercial version of the Copenhagen Wheel. Now available for sale.
Own a limited edition, hand-crafted Copenhagen Wheel, invented and built in Cambridge, MA.

The Copenhagen wheel Technical specifications:
MOTOR US: 350W / EU: 250W
WEELE SIZE 26″ or 700c rim
BATTERY Removable 48Volt Lithium
CONNECTIVITY Bluetooth 4.0
BATTERY LIFE 1000 cycles
SMARTPHONE OS iOS, Android
CHARGE TIME 4 hours
COMPATIBILITY Single Speed or 9/10 Speed Free Hub (email us your bike specs if you have doubts: info@superpedestrian.com)
TOP SPEED US: 20 mph
EU: 25 km/h
BRAKE TYPE Rim brake and regenerative braking (downhill and back-pedal)
RANGE Up to 50 km / 31 mi
WEIGHT 5.9 kg / 13 lbs
DROPOUT 135 mm

Continue reading “The Copenhagen Wheel official product release” »

Christopher Mims looks at the electronic vehicles that could end car ownership as we know it, from Swagtron’s Swagger-1 electric scooter to Mahindra Group’s GenZe 2.0 to the three-wheeled Arcimoto SRK.

This publication suggests that wax could be carried on vehicles and used to create hydrogen gas in situ, the waste carbon being used to make more wax via syngas production and the Fischer-Tropsch process, where carbon monoxide and hydrogen is converted into hydrocarbons as a potential source of petro-chemicals that does not involve releasing fossil carbon into the atmosphere. While this publication is still a long way from a working industrial-scale process, it offers a very hopeful potential avenue for less-polluting technology.

Philip recently attended an event for other Oxford University chemistry alumni, and one of the speakers drew attention to a recent publication from, among others, Oxford chemists, regarding the production of hydrogen from paraffin waxes by microwave degradation using a ruthenium catalyst.

Hydrogen has often been suggested as an environmentally-friendly replacement energy source for fossil fuels in transport vehicles and other applications requiring high energy density. (Note that hydrogen is not a “fuel”, as it must be made using energy from other sources, which can be environmentally-friendly or not.) However, there are significant problems with this, notably involving the safe storage of a highly-inflammable and explosive gas which is much lighter than air.

Continue reading “Making hydrogen from wax” »

Outgoing Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx on our robotic future.

Cars might have to broadcast their whereabouts to other vehicles.

For my many self driving fans. Here is an idea that they could look into as part of this infrastructure is to have the sensors in the pavement be able to sense a car broken down on the side of the road and notify nearby tow trucking company hired by the city or county as well as the same sensors able to pick up on vehicle impacts on the road to contact police/ hwy. patrol and emergency responders as cameras cannot be everywhere to monitor.

Press release — Persistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd — Smart Highway Market Explores New Growth Opportunities By 2026 — published on openPR.com.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VTXmmttInWk

Interesting.

20 Armata tanks boasted with a science breakthrough idea that reduced visibility with high-tech armor protection have successfully been tested in Russia.

Continue reading “Invisible Combat Vehicles May Now Be Possible; Russian Scientists Claim” »