Lifeboat Foundation

Tokyo, Aug. 1 (Jiji Press)—Tokyo-based startup A.L.I. Technologies Inc. plans to start accepting reservations for its “hover bike” flying motorcycle from October, company officials said Thursday.

The startup company, which mainly develops small unmanned aerial vehicles, will unveil the product at the Tokyo Motor Show in autumn.

It aims to sell the product mainly to wealthy foreigners, by touting its cutting-edge technologies.

With more electric cars on the road and the negative environmental impact of traditional vehicle emissions on the forefront of many minds, some may struggle with their choice to drive a car with a standard combustion engine.

But what if you could just “convert” your car into an electric one?

French startup Transition-One says it can do it for only $9,500 — in fact, in France, you also get a subsidy for a converted car so it actually only works out to around $5,600.

The world’s largest all-electric ferry completed its first voyage with passengers last week in Denmark.

The Ellen sailed between the southern Danish ports of Fynshav to Soby, on the island of Aero.

The e-ferry is capable of carrying 30 vehicles and 200 passengers and is powered by a battery “with an unprecedented capacity” of 4.3MWh, according to Swiss battery maker Lechanché which provided the system.

► Second Lagonda concept ► All-electric, All-Terrain ► Revealed in full at Geneva

After kickstarting the Lagonda brand with the slick Vision Concept at the 2018 Geneva motor show, Aston Martin has returned to the 2019 Geneva motor show with an evolution of this idea called the All-Terrain Concept.

Continue reading “Lagonda All-Terrain Concept: Aston Martin electric SUV revealed at Geneva” »

WASHINGTON — If you’ve ever tried to swat a fly, you know that insects react to movement extremely quickly. A newly created biologically inspired compound eye is helping scientists understand how insects use their compound eyes to sense an object and its trajectory with such speed. The compound eye could also be used with a camera to create 3D location systems for robots, self-driving cars and unmanned aerial vehicles.

In The Optical Society (OSA) journal Optics Letters, researchers from Tianjin University in China report their new bio-inspired compound eye, which not only looks like that of an insect but also works like its natural counterpart. Compound eyes consist of hundreds to thousands of repeating units known as ommatidia that each act as a separate visual receptor.

“Imitating the vision system of insects has led us to believe that they might detect the trajectory of an object based on the light intensity coming from that object rather than using precise images like human vision,” said Le Song, a member of the research team. “This motion-detection method requires less information, allowing the insect to quickly react to a threat.”

This is already happening on a small testing scale; the Big roll out is coming in 4 or 5 years.

UPS has been delivering a new kind of automated mail — and it’s not via email.

Continue reading “UPS Has Been Secretly Delivering Mail in Self-Driving Trucks for Months” »

Samsung will release a smartphone using new fast chargoing graphene battery technology that can fully charge in under 30 minutes according to gadgets leaker Evan Blass (@EVLeaks).

Samsung will release a smartphone powered by new graphene battery technology that can fully charge in under 30 minutes in 2020, or possibly 2021. This will be three to five times faster than today’s lithium-ion batteries which take about 90 minutes to charge.

In 2017, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) announced they had developed a “graphene ball,” a unique battery material that enables a 45% increase in capacity, and five times faster-charging speeds than standard lithium-ion batteries. The breakthrough provides promise for the next generation secondary battery market, particularly related to mobile devices and electric vehicles. In its research, SAIT collaborated closely with Samsung SDI as well as a team from Seoul National University’s School of Chemical and Biological Engineering.

A small company in Wales is reinventing clean motoring with a handmade ecological car, the Rasa, powered by fuel cells and emits water rather than CO₂.

In the U.S., air travel accounts for about a third of all CO₂ emissions. A startup called ZeroAvia wants to clean things up in a big way.

ZeroAvia recently emerged from stealth with a zero-emission powertrain for small aircraft. It’s electric, but there are no big, bulky batteries involved. ZeroAvia opted for compressed hydrogen instead.

Continue reading “This Hydrogen-Powered Plane Can Fly 20 Passengers Up to 500 Miles” »