Lifeboat Foundation

Driverless cars, like the one Google launched in 2012, are touted for their potential energy savings, but engineers say we should consider the possibility that the technology will intensify car use.

If people can work, relax, and even hold meetings in their cars, they may drive more.

Sydney has been having a big problem with oversized trucks driving into tunnels that are too low. So Sydney needed a stop sign that is absolutely impossible to miss. Here it is and it’s amazing.

It’s a curtain of water with a stop sign projected onto it. You can have as many overhead stop signs as you want, but as this 10 News video report shows, truck drivers still crash their trucks into these low-overhead tunnels. Sydney was tired of the delays, the costs of the damages, and the threat that a truck crash would get someone killed.

That’s why in 2007 they put in this water curtain sign on its harbor tunnel, designed by light show company Laservision. They work brilliantly.

Continue reading “Australia’s Water Curtain Stop Signs Are A Great Idea” »

NASA has commissioned engineers to design a new kind of jet that can travel faster than the speed of sound, but without the telltale sonic boom. Instead, the aircraft will produce a soft thump as it breaks the sound barrier, which the researchers are adorably calling a “supersonic heartbeat”.

It’s hoped that the new jet could eventually fill the commercial gap left by the retirement of the Concorde — which travelled at twice the speed of sound (Mach 2) and could get passengers from London to New York in just 3.5 hours — but without all the noise complaints.

From an engineering point of view, we’ve long had the ability to travel at supersonic speeds — which is generally anything over 1,234 km/h — but when we do, it triggers a sound explosion that can travel thousands of metres in a jet’s wake, rattling houses and cars as it goes. As you can imagine, not exactly ideal for heavily trafficked flight paths.

Continue reading “NASA’s designing a passenger jet that’ll break the sound barrier WITHOUT the boom” »

When The Verge began covering “drones” three years ago, we got a lot of grief about using that word: drone. These were just remote control toys, they couldn’t fly themselves! When drones got smart enough to navigate using GPS, and to follow people around, the naysayers pointed out they still couldn’t see anything. It could follow you, sure, but not while avoiding trees. At CES the last two years we finally saw drones that could sense and avoid real-world obstacles. But those were just tech demos, R&D projects which so far haven’t been made commercially available.

That all changes today with the introduction of DJI’s new drone, the Phantom 4. It’s the first consumer unit that can see the world around it and adjust accordingly, the next big step towards a truly autonomous aircraft. Try and drive it into a wall, the Phantom 4 will put on the brakes. If you ask it to fly from your position to a spot across a river, and there is a bridge in between, it will make a judgement call: increase speed to clear the obstacle or, if that isn’t possible, stop and hover in place, awaiting your next command.

The Phantom 4 accomplishes this feat with the help of five cameras: two on the front and two on the bottom, plus the main 4K camera that has always been onboard to capture video. The images captured by these cameras are run through computer vision software which constructs a 3D model of the world around it that the drone can intelligently navigate.

Continue reading “DJI’s revolutionary Phantom 4 drone can dodge obstacles and track humans” »

Israel is building a train that travels using magnetic levitation.

A simple electric train made of neodymium magnets, copper wire and a dry cell battery. It runs not only inside but also “outside” the coil.

First ever crash reported with a self-driving car at (some) fault.

Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google said on Monday it bears “some responsibility” after one of its self-driving cars struck a municipal bus in a minor crash earlier this month.

The Internet full of incredible DIY projects that make you wish you had the years of experience required to build your own Batmobile, flaming Mad Max guitar, or hoverboard. Thankfully with the underlit miniskirt, we’ve come across a DIY item that looks awesome and is still easy to make.

This wearable was inspired by the Hikaru skirt, a programmable LED miniskirt that took certain corners of the Japanese Internet by storm earlier this year.

I have been encouraging my nephews to consider this as well.

After nearly three decades of searching for ways to build superfast computers that operate on the principles of quantum mechanics, the reality of a fully-fledged quantum computer is moving closer, says professor Andrew Yao Chi-chih, dean of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing.

“Quantum computing is no longer viewed as a fad, or a scientist’s pie in the sky,’’ Yao told an audience of students, faculty, and invited guests during his presentation at a Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) 25th Anniversary Distinguished Speakers Series event on January 28. Yao also took the opportunity to explain his rationale for quantum computing to be recognised as a Great Science. “Great Science involves the intersection of different scientific disciplines to create new knowledge that allows the exploration of the previously unimaginable,’’ stressed Yao, adding that Great Science also lifts the human spirit.

Continue reading “HKUST students should consider careers in quantum computing, expert says” »