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Category: transportation – Page 591

Expensive travel bags should do more than look good, and German high-end luggage manufacturer Rimowa would seem to agree. The company has developed an electronic luggage tag which displays baggage info in the same format, size and appearance of typical paper labels, but on a digital screen built into the unit and located near the handle.

The Rimowa e-tag is similar to a device tested by British Airways in 2013, which allowed travelers to attach it to any piece of luggage.

Travelers these days can easily check into a flight and secure a boarding pass, printed or digital, before they step foot in the airport. Despite that convenience, they’re often forced to stand in line to check their bags. Those with a Rimowa electronic tag-enabled bag can send their digital boarding info via Bluetooth from their smartphone to check their bag before they leave home, with details appearing on the bag’s electronic display. After arriving at the airport, they simply hand it off at the airline’s automated check-in station, avoiding at least one line.

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Wider has completed the first sea trials of the Wider 150 superyacht, an all-aluminum ship with a hybrid diesel-electric propulsion system.

Designed by Fulvio de Simoni and overseen by Tilli Antonelli, the 150-foot yacht functioned smoothly throughout each test and achieved its forecasted goals.

Wider 150 reached a top speed of 15 knots in diesel-electric mode and utilized new technology to reduce sound and vibrations to a minuscule level.

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The Prius is an intentionally odd-looking car that gets odder with every generation; I’m pretty sure even ardent defenders of Toyota’s flagship hybrid could agree with me on that. So why not throw an equally odd paint color on top?

What you’re looking at here is the new Prius in “Thermo-Tect Lime Green,” which is more than your average upsettingly loud paint color. Toyota says that by removing the carbon black particles found in most paint and replacing them with titanium oxide, it has significantly increased the vehicle’s solar reflectivity — in other words, the car heats up less, which lessens the need for air conditioning, which in turn improves fuel economy. And fuel economy, of course, is what the Prius is all about.

White paint also does a good job of keeping the sun’s heat at bay, but Toyota actually says that its Thermo-Tect paint outperformed white in a two-hour summer test outdoors. Basically, this technology means that you might be able to get the color of your choice on your next car and still reduce your AC use. Granted, lime green may not be your first choice, but there doesn’t seem to be anything stopping Toyota from rolling it out to other colors as well.

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Arca Space Corporation in New Mexico has developed an electronic flying vehicle that can hover over any terrain, including water. The design can hold up to 243 lbs and flies a foot above the ground.

The ArcaBoard’s creators are calling it the first revolutionary breakthrough in motion since the bicycle, automobile, and airplane, and say it will allow every person to fly whenever they want.

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Self-driving cars may represent an important achievement in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics, but one car manufacturer is hoping to develop new technologies that could help these autonomous machines drive less like robots and more like, well, humans.

British automotive company Jaguar Land Rover is taking part in a new research project, dubbed MOVE-UK, to foster the development of safer and more effective autonomous cars. The initiative aims to study how human drivers behave in real-life situations, such as when roads are congested, when weather is bad or when routes are diverted because of construction.

“Customers are much more likely to accept highly automated and fully autonomous vehicles if the car reacts in the same way as the driver,” Wolfgang Epple, director of research and technology for Jaguar Land Rover, said in a statement. “By understanding and measuring positive driving behaviors, we can ensure that an autonomous Jaguar of Land Rover of the future will not simply perform a robotic function.” [Photos: The Robotic Evolution of Self-Driving Cars].

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