Lifeboat Foundation

While the remaining supersonic contenders duke it out to bring faster jets to market, private jet operators are doing their best to address the business traveler’s appetite for speed with aircraft that are as close to the sound barrier as they can be without actually breaking it, which poses all kinds of environmental issues.

With the news that supersonic planemaker Aerion has unexpectedly folded, is the dream of a successor to Concorde running out of fuel?

Bye Aerospace’s eFlyer 800 is a clean-sheet design that will carry eight people, including one or two pilots. The 800 will have two motors, powered by a grid of electric cells across the airframe.

This is the third model in a lineup of electric planes from the Denver-based aerospace firm, but the first with two motors. The eFlyer 2 is a two-seater for professional flight training that was developed when the company launched in 2014, and the eFlyer 4, a four-seater for air taxi and advanced training, came later. Both models have more than 360 orders each.

Amazing: 3

The President of Estonia Kersti Kaljulaid at the Tartu University laboratory. Photo: Mattias Tammet / Office of the President of the Republic of Estonia.

As the world is running out of lithium, planet-friendlier batteries are waiting to hit the market. We are using up lithium, the essential metal in rechargeable batteries. Some experts estimate that there won’t be any lithium left by 2035, and some say that it may already disappear within four years. Who should lose sleep over this? Anyone with a smartphone, a laptop or an electric car. Without lithium, they would have to be plugged in at all times.

Continue reading “Tartu researchers are turning soil into batteries” »

Kelly and photographer Carlton Ward Jr. are featured in the April issue of National Geographic magazine. The article provides a glimpse into the life of the Florida panther, whose population once dwindled to below two dozen but has since rebounded to more than 200. Still, serious risks remain. In the past few weeks alone, two more endangered animals were killed after being struck by vehicles. Those deaths highlight a problem — as well as a success story for the cat the Cherokee once called “Lord of the forest.”

To capture panthers on camera, Kelly and Ward first had to find them. That’s not an easy task on Florida’s sandy soil, which makes them hard to track. You have to find really fresh tracks, Kelly said.

“First things first is identifying the track and knowing if it’s a panther or not. And then the real trick is following it,” he said. “So because they go so far, like in any given night, a panther might walk oh, a couple of miles. Maybe more. To actually follow panther tracks to find the panther itself — it’s way harder than it is for any of those African animals. Way harder.”

Gas taxes are the largest source of funding for highway construction, maintenance.

The Japanese government expects flying cars to launch full-scale in urban areas by the 2030s and wants to use the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka to promote the cutting-edge technology, as well as smooth the way for their real-life adoption.

TOKYO — With flying cars inching closer to real-world use, Japan will start working on new legislation as early as next month to allow passengers on the soaring sedans at the World Exposition in Osaka in 2025.

The Japanese government expects flying cars to launch full-scale in urban areas by the 2030s. It wants to use the expo to promote the cutting-edge technology and smooth the way for their real-life adoption.

Continue reading “Flying cars at 2025 Expo: Japan crafts ‘rules of the sky’” »

Flying taxi designed for long commutes is science fiction made real.

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This killer whale-inspired watercraft is the aquatic equivalent of aerobatic airplanes.

Elon Musk has made the argument that Tesla is more of an AI (artificial intelligence) and robotics company. This is another argument in the series of Musk’s insistence that Tesla is not an automotive company. He has been saying for some time now that investors should view Tesla as a group of startups. He says that Tesla’s service centres are a startup, Tesla’s insurance company is a startup, Tesla’s automation group is a startup, etc.

Musk said that eventually, Tesla is going to be as synonymous with AI and robotics as with vehicles and energy. The CEO mentioned this during a conference call about Tesla’s Q1 financial results.

Right now people think of Tesla as a car company or as an energy company. I think long term, people will think of Tesla as much as an AI robotics company as we are a car company or an energy company. I think we are developing one of the strongest hardware and software AI teams in the world.