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car

FAA Approves First Flying Car Known As ‘Model A’ 

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This week, the company Alef Aeronautics announced that their “Model A” flying car was granted legal permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to test run the vehicle on both the road and the sky. The vehicle will need to run through testing before it can be made available and released to the public.

Alef Aeronautics is the first company to gain the Special Airworthiness Certification from the FAA, the company said in a news release. This specific certification is also given to limit the locations and purpose for the vehicle and where it’s allowed to fly. 

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Before the vehicle can take flight, it also needs to meet the safety standards of the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. Alef CEO Jim Dukhovny stated that the company is “hopeful” that the “certification will be our next step.”

“The historical significance of this cannot be overstated. While there have been pioneers like Terrafugia, Paul Moller, and Henry Ford, this is the first time a vehicle, in the traditional sense (parks and drives like a car, functions like a car, looks like a car), has received permission to fly,”  Dukhovny said to USA TODAY. 

“It’s also important that Alef is the first electric car which received permission to fly. And, last but not least, the ability for vertical takeoff is central to most people’s conception of a ‘flying car.'”

During the “Model A’s” development and testing, Alef is required to report any issues, malfunctions, and/or defects to the US government agency under the Code of Federal Regulation. 

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Model A is also available for preorder, it will be able to hold up to two occupants, will sell for around $300,000, and is 100% electric. In the release, the company also stated the vehicle will be drivable on public roads and has vertical takeoff and landing capabilities. 

“The car will be a Low Speed Vehicle, meaning it won’t go faster than about 25 miles per hour on a paved surface. If a driver needs a faster route, they will be able to use the vehicle’s flight capabilities,” according to Alef.

Presales opened up on Friday. Interested customers were able to pay a $150 deposit to get on a waiting list, or $1,500 for a priority spot on the waiting list’s queue. 

The company has been test driving and flying the car’s prototype since 2019. The version that customers could receive has a driving range of 200 miles and a flight range of 110 miles. 

“We’re excited to receive this certification from the FAA. It allows us to move closer to bringing people an environmentally friendly and faster commute, saving individuals and companies hours each week. This is a one small step for planes, one giant step for cars,” said Alef CEO Jim Dukhovny.

The company has stated that they plan to start delivering the vehicles to customers by late 2025.

Elon Musk Has Plans For Twitter As The Company’s Largest Shareholder

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The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has become Twitter’s largest shareholder with a 9.2% stake in the company. Musk immediately took to Twitter to announce some of his plans for the social media site.

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Botanical Vodka Is One Of The Newest Trends Shaping The Spirit Industry | Rosa Vodka

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The liquor and spirits industry as a whole is constantly changing and looking for the next best thing. For Rosa Vodka, they believed a liquor made from the botanical essences of the Bulgarian Damascena Rose is exactly what the industry needed to shake things up, so they created one.

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Surgeons

Famous Neurosurgeon, Dr. James Goodrich, Known For Separating Conjoined Twins, Dies From Covid-19

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Dr. Goodrich passed away this March at the age of 73 due to the coronavirus. He was most famously known for separating conjoined twins.

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Foldable Smartphone

Flexible Displays Take Center Stage at CES 2020

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Perhaps the most exciting new development featured at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show is the introduction of foldable displays into a plethora of devices, which promises to revolutionize the way we interact with technology. 2019 saw the premiere of foldable screens in the form of the Samsung Galaxy Fold which, while far from a perfect device, demonstrated the potential that such a dynamic form factor has for expanding functionality in the consumer technology market. Though many of the devices with flexible displays presented at this year’s show are merely prototypes that illustrate a concept, they offer a glimpse into what may very well be the future of how we consume, create, and share digital content.

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One of the more striking innovations on display this year is the use of folding screens in laptop-sized devices, bringing the full experience of the Windows computing environment to the new form factor. Intel showed off their Horseshoe Bend concept at the event, allowing reporters to test the device which unfolds to reveal a continuous 17-inch touchscreen display. The unique device can be used in a number of orientations; it can be held sideways, partially bent, to resemble a large book, or it can be positioned like a traditional laptop with the bottom half of the screen functioning as a virtual keyboard, or it can be unfolded completely for consuming content on a relatively large portable display.

Many of the major tech manufacturers are getting in on the foldable display trend. Lenovo introduced the ThinkPad X1 Fold which, unlike Intel’s prototype, will go on sale within the next several months. Though Lenovo’s device is similar in design and function to Intel’s prototype, it is significantly smaller with a 13.3-inch screen. Unlike the Horseshoe Bend concept, however, Lenovo also offers the “Bluetooth Mini Fold keyboard” accessory, which adds a wireless physical keyboard to the experience which can either sit on top of the lower half of the screen or in front of the device to take advantage of all of the available screen real estate. When folded, the device has a gap in between the two halves of the screen, which makes for a convenient storage location for the bespoke wireless keyboard accessory. Even more impressively, the device wirelessly charges the keyboard when it is stored in this way, reducing the headache of managing the batteries of multiple wireless accessories. In a nice touch, the device’s leather exterior causes it to resemble a traditional Moleskine notebook when folded. The premium look is befitting of the device’s premium price tag, as it will cost $2,499 when it releases later this year.

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Dell, for their part, sought to emulate the functionality presented by a folding-screen laptop while relying on more traditional display technology in their Concept Ori and Concept Duet, two prototype devices which apparently draw inspiration from the Surface Neo and Surface Duo devices Microsoft announced last year. Like Microsoft’s devices, the Concept Duet features two screens connected by a 360-degree hinge which allows the device to be used in a number of different orientations. While Dell’s products appear to be less polished than the ones Microsoft showed off last year, the Concept Duet, if and when it releases in its final form, will likely offer a competitive experience to the Surface Duo at a reduced price. The Concept Ori, on the other hand, strongly resembles Lenovo’s Thinkpad X1 Fold with a folding display of its own, suggesting that manufacturers are thinking along similar lines when determining how best to incorporate the cutting-edge technology into their hardware offerings. If anything, the multitude of folding-screen devices shown at this year’s CES suggests that the future of consumer electronics will offer a plethora of competitive options for customers excited to take advantage of innovations made possible by cutting-edge flexible display technology.

Mexico

Mexican Community Being Built Using 3D Printer

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A neighborhood in Mexico is being built for families who are currently living on $3 per day, thanks to a 3D printer. Two houses have already been created using an enormous 3D printer in a poverty stricken area of Mexico, making them the first houses in the new neighborhood. However, developers are saying the houses are not prototypes and that they are planning on replacing the current, rickety structures that residents had previously used to build their homes – such as wood or metal – within the next twelve months.

Tabasco in Mexico is a seismic zone, prone to flooding and earthquakes and therefore need structures that can stay upright during an earthquake, and dry during the torrential rains.The community is being built by New Story and their co-founder and CEO Brett Hagler, who told CNN:

“These families are the most vulnerable, and in the lowest income … and they’re living on about an average of $3 a day. They’re living in literally a pieced-together shack that during the rainy season, it will rain and it will flood their shack. Some of the women even said that the water will go up to their knees when it rains, sometimes for months.”

A non-profit whose aim is to help families in need of a home, New Story has already built over 2,700 dwellings in Mexico and South America since Hagler co-founded the company in 2014. However, this is the first project they have opted to use 3D printing for all the properties.

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Partnering with ICON and ÉCHALE has enabled them to work on the ambitious project. The project is using 3D printing robotics that were developed by construction technology company ICON. Mexican non-profit ÉCHALE have been working to locate the families who will eventually live in the properties and therefore have taken their input to help the design of the building.

The printer is a staggering 33-foot and “prints” a concrete mix to build the walls, layer by layer. As the mix hardens while it’s drying it can take around 24 hours – over a couple of days – for two homes to be built. This is nearly twice as fast as a New Story home is built using normal techniques. New Story says that since the mix is stronger than concrete, the foundations are reinforced, helping the properties to stand up to any seismic activity.

Each 500-square-foot home will have a flat roof and curved walls, with a living room, kitchen, one bathroom and two bedrooms. However, the two homes already built are still empty as it would not be safe for residents to live in the construction area. It is unclear as yet how much each house will cost however New Story is keen to work with families, potentially charging them around 20-30 per cent of their income. Many residents in Tabasco just want the opportunity to own something in their own community.

Austin based company ICON took over three years to create a printer that would be able to sustain this type of project, and this printer – named Vulcan II – is perfect for the job. Although in this project the printer is concentrating on two 500-square-foot homes simultaneously, it has the capacity to build one 2,000 square foot house. It can also build walls that are 28 feet wide and nearly 9 feet tall.

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In the last year alone the speed in which the printer works has become a lot faster. In March 2018 ICON announced they had built a three bedroom house in 48 hours. Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO of ICON explained:

“It’s 10 times better than where we were a year ago. I am so proud. It is so rare that the most in need of our sisters and brothers globally get first access to advanced technologies and breakthroughs in materials science. We think part of what 3D printing allows us to do is to deliver a much higher-quality product to the housing market at a speed and price that’s typically not available for people in low-income housing. It is a house that anyone would be proud to live in.”

However getting the printer away from the lab and actually getting it into the construction site was a hard task thanks to some harsh weather conditions. Although the company used a standard shipping container to move the printer to site, border authorities asked many questions when they say it.

Ballard confirmed that the printer had arrived at the height of summer, at the beginning of the rainy season, therefore creating even more logistical issues for the company. With muddy roads, floods and high humidity Ballard says he realized how lucky we are in America.