For everything from family to computers…
Lunch break? Like planes? Watch this old documentary on the story of the Concorde, the first and only turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner in history. It was created by the French and the British. The 20 planes flew for 27 years, mainly between London Heathrow and Paris-Charles de Gaulle to New York JFK. More »
from Gizmodo
Terrafugia’s Transition could finally be making its way to the production line. The “flying car” has journeyed far beyond the concept phase, achieving its compulsory nod from the DOTlast summer, and now reaching production prototype status. On March 23rd, the latest Transition flew past one more hurdle, completing its first airborne trial. The hybrid vehicle rolled down the runway at Plattsburgh International Airport in New York before ascending to 1400 feet — the entire flight lasted a mere eight minutes, and marks the first of six planned phases of flight testing during the aircraft’s voyage past experimental stage. There’s still no word on when the Light Sport Aircraft will be making its way to soon-to-be Transition owners, but those hankering for a preview can catch a glimpse of the craft at the New York Auto Show from April 6th through the 15th. You can also taxi past the break for a tail-level view of the test plane’s trek to takeoff.
Continue reading Terrafugia Transition production prototype completes first flight, set to land at NY Auto Show this Friday
from Engadget
If you grew up like me, watching the Jetsons jet around in their aircrafts, commuting to work in their flying hovercars, flying them on air highways, and spend a holiday on the Moon, or Mars, or Saturn then this might jerk a tear from your eyes.
Starting in 2014, space tourism will begin to spread its wings in the United States, rocket planes and spaceships to carry passengers beyond the atmosphere, similar to the suborbital hops taken by Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard and Virgil “Gus†Grissom in 1961, are being built and tested, with commercial flight services targeted to begin in 2013 or 2014.
Another perk will be commercial flights that will take passengers from one location to another on Earth, but that will be flying at an altitude of 62 miles, allowing the passengers to experience weightlessness and giving them a view of the Earth’s curvature and of black space.
Will I go to space? Tragically not. I don’t have the physical fortitude for that kind of trip (read I’m a wimp, I can barely stand on a chair because I’m afraid of heights…) but I’m sure they’ll have plenty of customers. George Nield, associate administrator for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation also testified that they expect commercial space tourism to take up to a 1 billion $ marked within 10 years.
from The UberReview
from Engadget
The Pirate Bay (TPB), a popular BitTorrent website, experienced a brief stint of downtime this week. After restoring service, the site’s operators confirmed that the outage was caused by routine maintenance and not a law enforcement raid. According to a blog post published by TPB, system upgrades were needed in order to accommodate the website’s continuing growth.
In the blog post, TPB also announced plans for a future infrastructure upgrade. The group plans to move its front-end proxy servers into the sky, creating a network of small mobile computers that are tethered to GPS-enabled aerial drones. The airborne computers, called Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS), will supposedly be harder for law enforcement agencies to terminate. TPB contends that any attempt to ground its vessels will be viewed as an act of war.
from Ars Technica
Musk said he’s sad that American space heroes like Armstrong and Gene Cernan don’t approve of his work
