Day: October 27, 2016

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Outlining future plans for Titanfall 2, developers Respawn Entertainment made a blog post talking about what sets their game apart from other shooters. A big one? No paid multiplayer DLC or season pass.

“All maps & modes will be free in Titanfall 2 Multiplayer,” the post reads. “This means no splitting up the community.”

The team stresses that there will be no additional cost to players after they purchase the game. Player who pre-ordered will get three days early access to the multiplayer map ‘Angel City’ before it is released to everyone else.

This practice stands in stark contrast to games like Battlefield 1, which offers a ‘Premium Pass’ that will give players access to DLC as it releases over time. The pass is a pricey $49.99. Respawn Entertainment seems pretty fed up with these sorts of practices if a recent tweet is any indication.

Looking at Respawn Entertainment’s decision, I’m pretty pleased that they are focusing on players and making sure everyone has the same experience. For players strapped for cash or simply sick and tired of long term DLC packages in their games, this is definitely a refreshing change of pace.

Titanfall 2 releases tomorrow on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. I will have a review of the game up on Monday.

Never let it be said that Uber is unambitious. Not content with upending the taxi industry, developing self-driving cars, and making deliveries using robotic 18-wheelers, it now has its aims set even higher. Much, much higher: it wants to build an on-demand urban aviation system.

That’s grown-up speak for flying cars—chosen, no doubt, to make the idea seem a little less preposterous. But Uber, it seems, is completely serious. In fact, it’s gone as far as publishing a white paper that details its ambitions for what it’s calling Uber Elevate.

“Just as skyscrapers allowed cities to use limited land more efficiently,” it enthuses, “urban air transportation will use three-dimensional airspace to alleviate transportation congestion on the ground.” Uber appears to be dreaming of what life will be like in the post-autonomous car future, when simply being able to work at the wheel isn’t good enough (but teleporters, sadly, haven’t yet been invented).

The company envisions journeys being made by a “network of small, electric aircraft that take off and land vertically.” But just as Uber doesn’t build the cars that its drivers currently use, it also has no intention of building these vehicles either. Instead it points to the likes of Zee.Aero, Joby Aviation,eHang, and Terrafugia, amongst others, which are all creating concept vehicles that could in theory be up to the job.

In fact, Uber reckons that the technology for these kinds of VTOL vehicles will mature within five years. Google cofounder Larry Page seems to agree: earlier this year he invested in two flying car companies. But there are still some significant wrinkles that need to be ironed out before that happens, which make the five-year timeframe seem overly optimistic.

To be fair, Uber realizes there are hurdles. In its white paper, Uber lists a number of issues it’s worried about (deep breath): battery technology, vehicle efficiency, vehicle performance and reliability, cost and affordability, safety, aircraft noise, emissions, takeoff and landing infrastructure, and pilot training, air traffic control, and the certification process.

Assuming that laundry list of obstacles is surmountable—a big assumption, to say the least—that still leaves regulatory issues. For one thing, VTOL aircraft have rarely been used outside military operations. They are, Uber admits, “new from a certification standpoint, and progress with certification of new aircraft concepts has historically been very slow.”

And as the drone industry is realizing, air traffic control is a whole matter. The FAA anticipates anticipates getting rules for small, parcel carrying drones sorted out by around 2020. Flying cars aren’t even on the radar.

All in, Uber believes that Elevate could be rolled out within the next five to ten years. That is hugely ambitious, verging on the unbelievable. But as Uber well knows, it’s also incredibly alluring.

(Read more: Uber Elevate, “Flying Cars Now Seem a Bit Less Ridiculous, but Not Much,” “Delivery Option: Drone. Arrival Estimate: 2020,” “Work in Transition,” “What to Know Before You Get In a Self-driving Car,” “Otto’s Self-Driving 18-Wheeler Has Made Its First Delivery”)

While much attention has been paid to China’s growing armed airborne drones program, the PLA is also investing in a major effort to develop a future generation of increasingly autonomous unmanned ground vehicles. "Overcoming Obstacle 2016" is a competition supported by China’s military, akin to the U.S. military’s DARPA Grand Challenges. The month-long contest ended on October 18th in Beijing, with several finalists in each of the five categories.

The first group, Category A, involved highly autonomous cars. The finalists included modified from civilian SUVs, alongside a tracked vehicle, "SMART 1", from the Military Institute of Transportation.

Category B was all-terrain autonomous vehicles. The finalists included two 4×4 robots built from military recon vehicles (by the China Academy of Sciences, and the National University of Defense Technology’s Desert Wolf).

Category C involved small, tracked robots, designed for tasks like urban reconnaissance and bomb disposal. Beijing Motors and Qingdao Hi Tech Corporation were among the five finalists.

Category D’s legged robots provided some of the most interesting Overcoming Obstacle 2016 entries. The three finalists included two "Da Gou" quadruped robots from Shandong University and NORINCO, and the Iron Horse, a ‘crab walker’ from Beijing Jiaotong University, which had pivot-jointed Klann linkage legs to provide greater stability and simplicity. It bears some resemblance to Chinese research on a many-legged, auto-cannon-armed design disclosed in 2014.

Category E was robot cargo trucks. One finalist was a 6×6 truck from 5th Department of Armored Engineering Institute with independently articulated wheels, like similar to the MULE robot. Another 6×6 robot truck built by the Beijing Institute of Mechanical Research was seen carrying a simulated load. Sunward Equipment provided another finalist, consisting of two four-wheeled robots attached to each other, as a sort of robotic road-bound train.