If you happen to be in China during a high-rise fire, you might see an aerial assist to the fire fighters on the ground. The latest variant of the EHang 216 is able to carry up to 150 liters of foam and six extinguisher bombs per trip to high-rise fires within a 5 km radius of the station where they're based.
Once this goes into practical use, it really shows how far technology has come over the past few years for Drones and eVTOLS. We have been obsessed with flying cars for some time, but these would be flown autonomously. Check out the video below to see it in action.
It looks like the future is already here, and things are about to get real interesting. New groundbreaking research in optometry has the military examining the plausibility of replacing bulky and costly night vision goggles with eye injections. Read more here. Check out the video below.
There's a new flying machine in town, and they're calling it the speeder. The company Jetpack Aviation that brought you this jetpack, is now making what almost looks like a jet ski that fly's. It looks amazing unless you run out of gas or get sucked into the jet. Here is their info, and now they are taking pre-orders. Check out the video animation at the bottom.
The world’s first flying motorcycle.
JPA's Recreational SpeederTM represents the ultimate in personal transport. It is fully VTOL (vertical take off and landing) capable and can effectively take off from anywhere the size of a small car space. Originally intended only for Military, Government and Commercial clients JPA is also designing a version of the SpeederTM for the recreational market. It will be lighter than most 125cc motorcycles, fully stabilized and simple to fly.
Flying the Recreational SpeederTM will be just light riding a motorcycle but in the sky!
Being fully stabilized means that minimal pilot training will be required.
It will take off from practically anywhere and will fly at over 150 mph*
It will also fly at up to 15,000ft but we don’t expect many of our customers to need this!
We plan to build two versions of the Recreational SpeederTM: The Ultralight Version and the Experimental Category Version.
The Ultralight Version (UVS) will not require a pilot’s license to operate – all training will be provided by JPA or one of our authorized training centers. The Ultralight version will be limited to carrying 5 gallons of fuel and to 60 mph flying speed.
The Experimental Version (EVS) will require a private pilot’s licence to fly and will have no fuel or speed restrictions. As the owner/pilot of the EVS we will host you in our manufacturing facility and you will be part of the aircraft completion process. This will satisfy the FAA rules around Experimental aircraft production.
Full training will be provided at the JPA training facility in California where we remain the only FAA authorized jet-VTOL instructors in world.
As you probably already know if you are reading this blog, it was originally intended to showcase my graphic novel which is a neo-noir futuristic thriller. It's dark and very Blade Runner like in a not so distant future. To keep things interesting while I work on the story and art (which can take years) I post some of the latest or future technologies that can and do appear in my graphic novel.
This year, CES has outperformed to supply us with future tech. These interesting images are of their futuristic self driving cars. You can bet I'm going to include one of these in my story.
The R.E.A.D. (Real-time Emotion Adaptive Driving) system tracks passengers' state of mind by monitoring facial expressions, heartbeat and other bio-markers. Then it optimizes the cabin to influence you in the direction of a better mood, using lighting, audio, climate control, aromatherapy and even seat vibration.
Kia at CES 2019(Credit: C.C. Weiss/New Atlas)
All of this is great news if you are terrified of the sun and birds. Take a look at this bizarre video showcasing the cars mood altering capability.
So, here's a thing made by a company called Youbionic. Things are getting weird now. This is a quote from their site. " This is the first wearable robotic devices that will evolve the human race in a something new, to turn the Native Human to Augmented Human." I would say you are right on that statement.
I am sitting here racking my brain trying to think of what I would use this for... and, I mean the obvious would be if you needed to lift something heavy or pull something larger than yourself. Maybe, something with a pole or maybe push a car stuck in the mud. But, there is a fundamental problem here. No matter how much you push, pull or lift, you are still limited by the users own strength, because it's attached to a human arm. Right? I guess if you covered it in velvet it might be a fun sex toy.
You can check out the video below to see it in action for yourself.
Welcome to 2019 the year when science fiction becomes reality. Oh, wait, it kinda already is.
Who knew that the company that brought us the Hyundai Excel in 1986 for under $5000 new, would develop a concept car that has legs.
The Hyundai Elevate is a blend of car, robot, and Mars rover as a machine for first responders, off-roading and explorers.
A normal car or 4 x 4 truck would get stuck at the edge of an accident site of collapsed buildings, cars and debris. The Elevate can climb over and walk to the area in need of assistance.
Hyundai says that, with its CRADLE modular platform, the main body that sits on top of the walking wheels and drive train can be exchanged for different options, including an autonomous option directed by AI. They have a taxi concept that can climb stairs to an entrance of a building, allowing a disabled person to exit closer to their front door.
Check out the video below to see all of the possibilities.
Things are getting surreal. You've probably already seen this a hundred times but if not check out this robot acting human and athletic.
Atlas does parkour. The control software uses the whole body including legs, arms and torso, to marshal the energy and strength for jumping over the log and leaping up the steps without breaking its pace. (Step height 40 cm.) Atlas uses computer vision to locate itself with respect to visible markers on the approach to hit the terrain accurately. For more information visit www.BostonDynamics.com.
It looks like things are moving along in the flying taxi business. Check out the video below. Vertical Aerospace is building technology to revolutionize how people fly, with the ultimate aim of making intercity air travel personal, on-demand and carbon free. The Bristol-based startup has built and flown the UK's first full scale fully electric vertical take off and landing aircraft. Its unmanned technology demonstrator aircraft weighs 750kg and flew across Cotswold Airport in Kemble, Gloucestershire in June 2018 as part of the company’s flight test program.
We are truly living in fantastic times when it comes to technology and things that we could only dream of or read about in comic books. New research published this week in Advanced Materials describes the process of the 3D-printing an array of interconnected semiconducting photodiode (light receptor) devices on a glass hemisphere. I think you can see that the implications for something like this are pretty endless. See the video below for more.
If you have been following my journey on this site, i am a little bit obsessed with flying cars and overall I try to touch base on all subjects I can find related to our inevitable sci-fi(cyberpunk) future coming true as it relates to the neo-noir graphic novel I've been working on. So far, we're moving a long, not little by little, but noticeably advancing new technologies all the time. The latest from UberAir is their search for a host city to market test their flying taxis. From their site:
To bring uberAIR to market, we plan to partner with three ‘launch cities’. This will allow for a balance between focus and city diversity that will set the service up for long-term success.
Dallas and Los Angeles were previously announced as the first two launch cities, and we are now seeking an international city as the third partner. These three cities will be the first to offer uberAIR flights, with the goals of operating demonstrator flights starting in 2020 and beginning commercial operations in 2023.
Considerations for a Good Launch City
To help understand what would make for a good urban air mobility pilot, we have provided the following considerations:
Cities with a greater metropolitan area population in excess of 2 million people and a density of over 2,000 people per square mile will be able to support pooled ridesharing services and thus benefit the most from an uberAIR network.
Ideal cities are polycentric, with multiple dense nodes of development in an urban area, and face significant traffic congestion. A large and dispersed city layout means that uberAIR will be able to offer significant time saving benefits at speeds of 150-200 miles per hour.
If you haven't been following Cyberpunk 2077, now is the time to get caught up. Up to this point we have had a lot of teasers and trailers and artwork surfacing to show us the incredible scope of this futuristic cyberpunk game. This is the first time we actually get to see game play. The depth and detail of this game is up there.
Check out the Game Play video below and see the action for yourself.
You may have already seen it, but it is worth a look to remind you of what is coming. J Concept is Kawasaki's new 3 wheel hybrid electric motorcycle which has been in the works for about 5 years, supposedly it is launching in 2018.
It was first unveiled at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show, and has been teased in several videos leading up to this year. Check out the Kawasaki Evolution video below to see more details.
You've probably seen Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro's robot double of himself in the past, well his latest creation is a 10 year old child named Ibuki. Interesting enough Ibuki translates from Japanese as "breath." Anyway take a look at the two videos below to watch this little guy move and twitch. It's an interesting concept. After that, try and unsee it if you can.
You can obviously use your imagination to think about where this technology can lead. The applications are almost endless. But here is Rolls-Royce official statement below.
Rolls-Royce today demonstrated an exciting vision of how robotics could be used to revolutionise the future of engine maintenance. Bringing another element of its IntelligentEngine vision to life, Rolls-Royce teamed up with academics from the University of Nottingham and Harvard University to discuss and demonstrate a wide range of potential future technologies at the Farnborough Airshow, from ‘snake’ robots that work their way through the engine like an endoscope, to miniature, collaborative ‘swarm’ robots that crawl through the insides of an engine.
The IntelligentEngine vision, first introduced by Rolls-Royce at the Singapore Airshow earlier this year, describes a world where product and service have become so closely connected that they are inseparable. This vision drives activity across a range of fields, including robotics, with a particular focus on digital technologies.
Straight up FIRE! That's what this trailer is. As a writer and artist, when I think of Cyberpunk this is it. They nailed it. Check out the stills below, and the world premiere trailer at the bottom.
Every little detail in this trailer is fine tuned and well crafted.
There is some tech that looks similar to many others and some cool new stuff too.
Yes, we have flying cars! Finally.
There's always room for a cyber cowboy or two
These dudes, WTF!
Lets not forget the bad ass ride.
I had to watch this about 10 times already. Night City, California. Year 2077. The world is broken. MegaCorps manage every aspect of life from the top floors of their sky-scraping fortresses. Down below, the streets are run by drug pushing gangs, tech hustlers, and illegal braindance slingers. The in-between is where decadence, sex and pop culture mix with violent crime, extreme poverty and the unattainable promise of the American Dream. You are V, a cyberpunk. In a world of cyberenhanced street warriors, tech-savvy netrunners and corporate life-hackers, today is your first step to becoming an urban legend.
Well, not quite. It's an interesting idea, until it loses power or a gust of wind takes it out, then, just like that you'll lose an ear. Check out the video below.
Check out this wild robotic creature. The video at the bottom of the page is worth the watch, advancements in robotics today are really quite amazing.
Like its biological model, the flic-flac spider, the BionicWheelBot can both walk and roll. Together with its discoverer, Professor Ingo Rechenberg, the Festo bionics team has used these unique movement patterns and turned them into a technical masterpiece for the Hannover Messe 2018.
