Following its original offering back in 2014, Bluesmart has launched its latest product, the Series 2. The luggage is designed for frequent travelers and anyone who is security-minded, offering features like auto-lock that keeps the bag secured, GPS + 3G luggage tracking, and even a built-in 'supercharger' for powering a phone or laptop. The Series 2 is being crowdfunded on Indiegogo.
That odd word isn't some grownup's toy. It is, instead, a coined term that sprung from the genius of famed children's book author Roald Dahl, appearing in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It is a fictional elevator that can travel vertically, horizontally, and even diagonally. Fiction, however, is now a possible reality, thanks to the persistence of German steel mmaker ThyssenKrupp and the power of magnets.
Hotels are notorious for blocking guests' ability to connect their own devices to in-room TVs, and that includes streaming sticks and Google Chromecast devices. AT&T is helping change this alongside SONIFI Solutions' StayCast, allowing hotels with DirecTV service to order StayCast for their rooms. Hotels that take advantage of this will enable guests to cast content from their phone or tablet to their hotel room's television.
While SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic are scrambling to corner the still non-existent low orbit commercial transportation market, a new player has just rolled out its race horse out of the hangar for the public to gawk at. And like those other companies, Stratolaunch also has a Silicon Valley luminary behind it, the oft forgotten Microsoft co-found Paul G. Allen. And just like those companies, Stratolaunch has an ambition whose size is rivaled only by the aircraft it just revealed.
British Airways is having a bad start to this holiday weekend. The airline has announced that its computer systems are having problems around the globe due to a "major IT system failure," and as a result it's had to cancel a number of flights departing from the UK, as well as hundreds more being delayed.
The company formerly known as BASICS has announced the Kickstarter funding success of its latest project, the NOMATIC Backpack and Travel Pack. This campaign has exceeded the $1 million funding mark with more than a month remaining, marking the second time NOMATIC has had a travel bag reach and then pass the million-dollar threshold. These particular bags, says the company, are made 'for daily use and short trips.'
Just when you thought the controversy has died down, the US manages to kick up the dust again. Nearly two months after it first enacted the contentious laptop ban aboard flights from the Middle East, the US Department of Homeland Security or DHS is now expected to expand the restriction to other countries. This time, however, the ban is European countries and could even affect flights coming from the UK, a staunch ally of the US.
While companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are battling it out in the reusable rocket arena, the US Air Force is looking to space in a slightly different way. Just this weekend, the Air Force proudly announced that its unmanned orbital space plane, the X-37B, set two records. First, it had the longest unmanned orbital flight for the craft, circling the globe for 718 days. Second, it landed without a scratch at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the first landing at that facility in over half a decade.
The promise of personal flying cars has always worked better in science fiction than real life, but Lilium is aiming to change that with its electric Jet. The vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) craft was originally intended as the flying alternative to a two-seater sports car, able to launch straight up without the need of a runway, but then transition into jet-mode once airborne. Now, there's the promise of a five-seater too.
It isn't unusual for new administrations to overturn the decisions, mandates, and thrusts of the previous, especially when they come from opposite side. So far, the FCC, under the new chair Ajit Pai has undertaken the process of undoing Net Neutrality rules. Now it is taking aim at another controversial old FCC stance. Although still to be put to a formal vote, Pai has already made it formally known that he intends to maintain rule that bans making phone calls while a plane is in flight.
We've seen VR used to ease patients' pain and increase the thrill of real-life rollercoasters, and now we're seeing it make its way into the travel industry. Booking website Expedia is planning to offer virtual reality tours of rooms to give prospective customers an immersive tour ahead of time. The idea here is that while photos on the website give some idea of what the room is like, VR is as close as the person can get to actually being in the room short of booking.
As the name not so subtly hints, Google Street View was initially launched back in 2007 more as a navigation aid, showing locations, landmarks, and streets from the point of view of a person standing right in the middle of it all. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for people to use Street View as a way of experiencing the vistas of a far-off location by proxy, a use case that Google has officially embraced. Now Street View has become a way to see places you otherwise would never be able to reach. Like the gaping maw of an active volcano.
