The race to be the first to deploy autonomous vehicles is on among carmakers, emerging startups, and tech giants. Amid this constant news cycle of deals and drama, the purpose of all of it can get lost — or at least a bit muddied. What exactly are these companies racing for?
Continue reading… “Intel predicts a $7 trillion economy for self-driving vehicles”
The initial construction of the massive airplane Paul Allen has been quietly building in the California desert is complete, and the vehicle, which would be the world’s largest airplane with a wingspan wider than Howard Hughes’s Spruce Goose, was wheeled out of its hangar for the first time on Wednesday.
Called Stratolaunch, the plane has some impressive stats: a wingspan of 385 feet, or longer than a football field, a height of 50 feet. Unfueled, it weighs 500,000 pounds. But it can carry 250,000 pounds of fuel, and its total weight can reach as high as 1.3 million pounds.
Continue reading… “Paul Allen’s new mega-plane is the world’s largest”
The Kitty Hawk Flyer is a sort of a flying car except it’s not a car at all – it’s much more like a flying ATV, which is probably more legitimately all-terrain than most. Linguistics aside, it’s a very cool piece of tech that’s backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, and it’s already in the ‘working prototype’ phase of development.
Continue reading… “Introducing Larry Page’s Kitty Hawk Flyer”
Much of the talk surrounding robotics in the workplace centers on the job losses caused by automation. However, there are also great benefits of robots to humans who perform dangerous or labor intensive tasks that could possibly be mitigated with the help of technology.
Continue reading… “Enhanced robo-humans have arrived”
No more petrol or diesel cars, buses, or trucks will be sold anywhere in the world within eight years. The entire market for land transport will switch to electrification, leading to a collapse of oil prices and the demise of the petroleum industry as we have known it for a century.
This is the futuristic forecast by Stanford University economist Tony Seba. His report, with the deceptively bland title Rethinking Transportation 2020-2030, has gone viral in green circles and is causing spasms of anxiety in the established industries.
If you’re impress with the progress we’re making with A.I. so far, hang onto your hats. We’re just getting started. Over the next 10 years, artificial intelligence will make more progress than in the fifty before it, combined. With countless quickly oncoming applications to business, government, and personal life, its influence will soon touch absolutely every aspect of our lives.
Here are 27 surprising ways life and society that will be forever changed by artificial intelligence over the coming decade.
Continue reading… “27 common uses for A.I. in 2027 that don’t exist today”
Unlike typical consumer-aimed quadcopter drones, Latvian company Aerones specializes in big UAVs that can carry hefty loads. Last year, they showed off one of their big lifter’s prowess by towing YouTuber Kaspars Balamovskis on a snowboarding run.
Today, they released another stunt video spotlighting one of their heavy lifters hauling a man a thousand feet in the air — before he let go to skydive back down to earth. Check out the video!
Continue reading… “The next extreme sport – drone skydiving”
Who needs fishing prowess when you have a remote-controlled, sonar-equipped, bait-dropping, mini-submersible at your disposal? Because with the new PowerRay underwater drone, that’s exactly what you get.
The PowerRay UUV comes from Beijing-based drone manufacturer PowerVision, makers of the PowerEgg UAV that we saw last August. While the Ray officially debuted back at CES in January, a technical issue with their display (read: their tank sprung a leak) prevented the company from showing off the device in its natural environment.
Continue reading… “The PowerRay drone is an aquatic spyglass for playboy fishermen”
Being a kid, flying cars were the norm, not the exception and you always assumed that your parents will definitely get such a thing the next time they’re shopping for a family car. Although different companies told us, that it’s just around the corner, it never materialized and Back To The Future never happened.
Continue reading… “Introducing the Tesla self-flying electric car”
Recent advances in technology mean we can no longer rely on fences or barriers around our homes to protect our privacy. This was certainly the case for Darwin resident Karli Hyatt, who on Tuesday explained how a drone invaded the security and privacy of her suburban backyard.
Hyatt had returned home last week from an evening gym session, undressed and jumped into her secluded backyard pool. She thought she was “skinny-dipping” in private. Within minutes, though, a small camera-mounted quadcopter drone was hovering close overhead. Hyatt is certain it was watching her, although there was no operator to be seen.
She describes the experience as initially shocking and has ongoing concerns about who might have been flying the drone and why. The result is an erosion of trust and cohesion in her neighborhood and a feeling of insecurity in her own home.
Continue reading… “Backyard skinny-dippers losing privacy to peeping drone stalkers”
Over the last decade, the stock price of Domino’s Pizza has crushed that of Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook mainly because it stopped making pizza that tasted like cardboard. Now it’s innovating on the labor front with plans to test robots as substitutes for your friendly pizza delivery guy. “With our growth plans over the next five to 10 years, we simply won’t have enough delivery drivers if we do not look to add to our fleet through initiatives such as this,” Domino’s chief executive said in a statement announcing the pilot program.
DJI Technology Inc, the largest civilian drone maker, is claiming in a new study that “59 lives have been saved by civilian drones in 18 different incidents, with one life a week being saved by drones on average.”
The study was published on March 14, 2017, and is based on reports in the news. The majority of the rescues have occurred in USA and China, although instances have occurred in Canada and Turkey as well.
One third were saved by civilians using their hobbyist drones and not by emergency personnel, showing their far-reaching abilities. 31 lives were saved during floods, as drones spotted missing people and delivered rescue ropes and life jackets. 19 missing people were found on land, on terrain ranging from swamps to mountains to snow banks. 9 more people were rescued off beaches or in boats.
Continue reading… “Drones Are Saving One Life Per Week, DJI Study Finds”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.