Flying taxis are one step closer to lifting off in the US with paying passengers, with Lilium inking a deal with Orlando, Florida to put its first "Vertiport" hub in the state. Lilium is one of a number of companies working on all-electric, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet aircraft, figuring that relatively short-range hops between locations are the future of transportation.
As Boom Supersonic continues efforts to build the world's fastest airliner, they've revealed a sort of proof-of-concept. The Boom Supersonic XB-1 is a "supersonic demonstrator" aircraft. It's also the first independently developed supersonic jet ever made. Boom CEO and founder Blake Scholl reminded us that the company remains steadfast in their aim of "making the world dramatically more accessible."
Hovercrafts, personal rockets, and backpack jet engines have tickled the fancy of people, technologies, engineers, and aviators for decades, tapping into the human desire to fly without wings or even planes. They are, however, often painted as something more for personal enjoyment or travel, at least when such machines finally take off, no pun intended. Two companies in the UK, however, have joined forces to develop a system that will let paramedics fly to an emergency site when helicopters won't even do.
New rules concerning who can enter the US during the COVID-19 pandemic have been rolled out, with the CDC tearing up its old policy and replacing it with one that focuses less on coronavirus screening. The updated process kicks in on September 14, 2020, and will end enhanced entry health screening for passengers arriving in the US from countries with known COVID-19 hotspots.
A great deal of talk and work has been made towards reducing the carbon footprint of cars but, sometimes, the best way to accomplish that is to reduce the use of cars entirely. Of course, that's not really a viable solution these days but there are definitely times when having more than two wheels can be excessive. Whether it's for a last-mile deliver or taking short solo trips, an electric scooter could be a more economical solution, one that the Turboant X7 Pro is trying to provide.
As some parts of the world begin to open back up to more extensive activities and travel, many people are left wondering where they can go, what the related travel rules are, which places are accepting visitors, and more. Here to help with that is an update to Google Search that adds relevant COVID-19 and lockdown-related information for travelers, including what percentage of hotels are available, how many flights are operating to the destination, and more.
A startup aims to take space sightseers to the edge of Earth's atmosphere, with Space Perspective planning to launch balloon rides from Space Florida. The latest example of space tourism, the six hour balloon trips will include two hours at the very fringes of space, 100,000 feet above sea level.
Google is notorious for making experiments that it eventually shuts down, regardless of the popularity of said experiment. That's especially true with apps or software where the investment and costs are far lower than with physical products. Of late, however, Google has mostly relegated those app experiments to its Area 120 skunkworks team and it is indeed permanently shutting down one such project but not exactly on a whim.
SpaceX has made history twice last week in launching two NASA astronauts and docking the Crew Dragon capsule with the International Space Station, a first for a commercial spacecraft. Although it was just the first of many planned crewed missions, CEO Elon Musk seems intent on making sure the company remembers what it's really all about, launching 100 or more people into space aboard the Starship and its future kin.
The TSA is changing the way you'll go through airport security, with screening updates to try to stem the COVID-19 pandemic ahead of an expected uptick in travel over the summer. The US Transportation Security Administration had already adjusted its policies as coronavirus took hold in states across the country; now, it plans to make new changes nationwide by mid-June.
Coronavirus has cut US air travel to a fraction of what it was, with COVID-19 guidelines including stay-at-home orders reducing flyers to a bare trickle, the TSA has confirmed. With many US states on lockdown by governor order, and the general advice being to maintain social distance and avoid unnecessary travel, the knock-on impact to how many people are passing through airports has been huge.
The Real ID deadline has been pushed back, giving travelers a temporary reprieve from having to swap their driver's licenses and state ID cards in order to fly. Though it promises to bring more security to forms of identification used by airlines to allow passengers onto planes, Real ID has been criticized for confusing travelers and forcing them to visit the DMV in order to apply for the upgraded cards.