Arconic – The Road Ahead from WIRED Brand Lab on Vimeo.
“Until we get to that driverless era, we’ve got a slow-moving parking lot that’s working at a glacial speed in major cities literally all over the world,” says Futurist Thomas Frey, founder of thinktank DaVinci Institute.
Continue reading… “Understanding the Disruptive Impact of Tomorrow’s Transportation”
China is planning some serious upgrades to its public transportation system in the next few years. By 2020, the country hopes to have increased its high-speed railway coverage by 18,650 miles. The project will cost an estimated 3.5 trillion yuan, or about $503 billion USD. Not only will the population be more mobile, but the rails will significantly cut down on carbon emissions and air pollution.
Continue reading… “China spends over $500 billion to expand high-speed rail”
The aspiring asteroid miners at Planetary Resources have struck pay dirt in Luxembourg, the tiny (but wealthy) European country positioning itself as an ally to commercial space. The country is directly investing €12 million, with another €13 million coming from public investment bank SNCI.
Continue reading… “Planetary Resources is mining Luxembourg for $28M in asteroid funds”
Pittsburgh is installing traffic lights controlled by artificial intelligence, and they could be coming to your city soon.
Your commute could get a lot shorter without you even knowing thanks to traffic lights with artificial intelligence brains inside.
Over the past couple years, a startup named Surtrac has been mentally upgrading traffic lights in Pittsburgh with artificial intelligence. These lights collect data on the amount of traffic from cameras and radar signals, and the network of lights coordinates to ensure that all the traffic passes through intersections as fast as possible.
Continue reading… “AI Traffic Lights Could Shorten Your Commute”
There will be two million electric cars on the road by the end of 2016.
Despite low oil prices, plug-in electric vehicles (EV) are charging forward worldwide, with more than 2 million expected to be on the roads by the end of 2016, according torecent market figures.
Around 312,000 plug-in electric cars were sold during the first half of 2016, according to analysts at EV Volumes — a nearly 50 percent increase over the first half of 2015.
Continue reading… “Electric car market is growing 10x faster than its dirty gasoline equivalent”
In 2016, those who still say battery-electric vehicles don’t have a future probably haven’t spent much time in California. The California Air Resources Board (CARB)’s policies, which predate those of the federal government, treat the internal-combustion engine as a chronic offender that is beyond hope for reform. For 26 years, the state has been keeping the faith in a single solution: zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), a category that includes both hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles and battery-electric vehicles.
Continue reading… “What Replaces Gasoline?”
A giant gets behind a cutting-edge idea.
Billing it as a solution to urban congestion, Airbus has announced a new effort to build helicopter-like autonomous flying vehicles to transport both small parcels and, even more radically, passengers. The battery-powered passenger vehicles, currently dubbed CityAirbus, would be summoned by smartphone and travel along aerial urban roadways, constituting a system of robotic flying taxis.
Continue reading… “Airbus Plans to Build Autonomous Flying Taxis”
After twelve months, eight patients and 2,052 sessions spread over 1,958 hours, Duke University is publishing some promising results from a study seeking to demonstrate the ability for brain-machine interfaces to help restore mobility in humans.
Continue reading… “VR and exoskeletons help paraplegics regain movement”
China’s long-awaited ‘straddling bus’ received its inaugural test run in Qinhuangdao, Hebei province this week.
The Transit Elevated Bus, to give it its official title, is designed to help combat gridlock by letting passengers soar over the tops of cars on the increasingly-congested roads of China’s major cities.
Continue reading… “‘Straddling bus’ soars over cars in China”
In a weird and clearly reactionary move after Elon Musk announced that Tesla will venture in the semi-truck business, electric truck startup Nikola Motor, which like Tesla borrowed its company name from Nikola Tesla, announced that it will unveil a working prototype of its first truck, the Nikola One, on December 2nd in Salt Lake City.
The spectacular growth of the New Energy Vehicle (NEV) market in China continues; state media reports that sales were up a massive 162% to 170,000 units in the first half of the year. NEVs include pure-electric vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV).
The 170,000 NEVs were divided by 134,000 EVs and 36,000 PHEVs.
Continue reading… “Chinese Electric Car Sales Up 162% So Far This Year”
Electric power could be the dominant form of propulsion for all new cars sold in the UK as early as 2027, with more than 1.3 million electric cars registered each year, according to forecast analysis by Go Ultra Low, the government and industry-backed campaign.
This means that, according to Go Ultra Low, the UK is on target to meet a government forecast that all new cars and vans will be electrically-powered by 2040.
Continue reading… “Electric cars could eclipse fossil fuels by 2027”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.