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Archive for the ‘transportation’ category: Page 511

Feb 4, 2017

Jetpack pioneer David Mayman’s new electric VTOL flying car project

Posted by in category: transportation

Jetpack Aviation’s David Mayman and Nelson Tyler have already brought honest-to-god jetpacks out of the pages of science fiction books and onto the market. Now, they plan to do the same with flying cars. We spoke with Mayman at length about Jetpack Aviation’s new manned VTOL multirotor project.

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Feb 2, 2017

Is This Buzz Aldrin-Inspired Locomotive The Future Of Space Travel?

Posted by in categories: space, transportation

Ever wish you could explore the far side of the Moon? Charles Bombardier’s latest concept vehicle would allow you to do just that.

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Feb 1, 2017

Supermarkets of the Future Are Going to Be Weird in So Many Ways

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

From predictive couponing to groceries delivered by robots straight to the trunk of your self-driving car, 21st-century shopping could offer serious innovations.

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Feb 1, 2017

Google’s self-driving cars just got way better at driving themselves

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles released its annual autonomous vehicle disengagement report today, in which all the companies that are actively testing self-driving cars on public roads in the Golden State disclose the number of times that human drivers were forced to take control of their driverless vehicles. The biggest news to come out of this report is from Waymo, Google’s new self-driving car company, which reported a huge drop in disengagements in 2016 despite an almost equally huge increase in the number of miles driven.

In other words, Waymo’s self-driving cars are failing at a much lower rate, even as they are driving a whole lot more miles. The company says that since 2015, its rate of safety-related disengages has fallen from 0.8 per thousand miles to 0.2 per thousand miles in 2016. So while Waymo increased its driving by 50 percent in the state — racking up a total of 635,868 miles — the company’s total number of reportable disengages fell from 341 in 2015 to 124.

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Jan 31, 2017

Electromagnetic Levitation Quadcopter

Posted by in category: transportation

Spinning magnets near copper sheets create levitation!
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Special thanks to Hyperloop One for showing me around.

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Jan 31, 2017

New Space-Based Manufacturing Technologies Demonstrated by Made In Space

Posted by in categories: space, transportation

Last year, a Made In Space-led team achieved something that had never been accomplished. For the first time in history, a commercial in-space manufacturing facility began operation aboard the International Space Station (ISS). While private parties are able to commission objects to be built by Made In Space’s Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) on orbit, the hardy device also supports astronauts by manufacturing parts, tools, and supplies that can be used on the ISS.

Made In Space has continued its mission to enable humans to live and work in space by demonstrating several new technologies in microgravity. Testing machines on Earth that are optimized to work in environments which have little or no gravity can be difficult at the bottom of Earth’s gravity well. The Flight Opportunities Program (FOP) at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas utilizes high-tech aircraft to fly in aggressive parabolic arcsa nose dive followed by a sharp ascent. This maneuver creates a gravity-free environment within the plane’s cabin for less than a minute before having to pull up and repeat. After partaking in over 200 of these parabolic flights, MIS has demonstrated several manufacturing techniques in microgravity that will be critical to the success of our journeys to other planets.

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Jan 30, 2017

These Students Just Won the First-Ever Hyperloop Competition

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, transportation

We have taken another step toward realizing Elon Musk’s vision.

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Jan 29, 2017

Hyperloop: Teams in final prep for today’s competition! Coverage begins at ~1:55pm PT

Posted by in category: transportation

The official spacex hyperloop pod competition.

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Jan 28, 2017

Who’s Responsible If An Open Source Software Powered Self-Driving Vehicle Kills Someone?

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, sustainability, transportation

Who is responsible if a self-driving car crashes and causes property damages, physical harm or even death? Autonomous vehicle legislation is still very much in its infancy though it will certainly be an evolutionary process over the years. Corporations such as Tesla and Volvo have publicly stated that they will take responsibility for any faults in their software. However, Comma.ai’s CEO George Hotz (geohot) has stated that he is not responsible for any accidents caused by those who download his free self-driving vehicle software.

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Jan 28, 2017

Hydraulic muscle makes for tougher, stronger disaster-site robots

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, robotics/AI, transportation

The idea of using robots as the go-to for handling disaster situations isn’t new, but part of the problem has been how to build robots light enough to move about easily, yet are strong enough and tough enough to handle things like a smashed up nuclear reactor. As part of the answer, the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Bridgestone Tires have partnered to develop a new hydraulic robotic muscle that is lightweight, yet is five to ten times as strong as conventional electric motors and much more durable.

The locations in disaster areas where the responders are needed most urgently are often the ones that are the hardest to get to, precisely because they’ve been hit so hard. The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster is a prime example. Despite the damage done to the nuclear power plant by the sea wave that struck it, the subsequent explosion and meltdown could have been avoided had emergency workers been able to reach it with the right equipment in time to make repairs and re-power the cooling systems.

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