I want my flying car.....

Oh, scratch that....The Government would require GPS & a computer to track my every move while using it.  Guess I'll have to enjoy driving my 1963 Jeep instead....

http://xkcd.com/864/

Three German inventors make a practical one-man flying machine

Innovative and a very cool idea. I have seen the Mythbusters try to create a personal flying machine and here is an example of how inventors can come up with workable solutions.

Small powerful electric motors and a light frame make it work....awesome use of the technology.

One-man flying space hopper could become the 'air car' of the future

80kg machine can take off vertically like a jump jet
Powered by Lithium Ion batteries
Inventor claims the 16-rotor machine will make helicopters 'obsolete
Could be used for 'air sports' - or even as a flying car

By Emma Reynolds - UK Mail
4th November 2011

It might look like as space hopper surrounded by model helicopters, but the 16-rotor E-Volo is an entirely new kind of helicopter - which can hover motionless in the air without input from the pilot

Its bold engineer, Thomas Senkel, took the machine on its first manned flight this week - lasting 1 minute 30 seconds.

It's not the first electric helicopter flight - but this is a new kind of machine, steered simply by joystick, with the pilot sitting above the rotors. Senkel says it could revolutionise transport.

Mr Senkel's eco-friendly contraption has 16 rotors, with each flight lasting about 20 minutes before the batteries need a recharge

The three inventors claim their flying machine could be used for inspecting pipelines, as an air ambulance or for taking aerial photographs - as well as just for fun.

Once they have solved the problem of how to keep it in the air for longer - and support more people - Senkel hopes it might replace helicopters for good.

It's far easier to fly than ordinary helicopters - it's steered by rotor speed, which is computer-controlled, so the pilot just needs to use a joystick as if playing a videogame, rather than controlling multiple complex contorols at once.

Senkel describes the easy-to-use machine as 'good-natured' and potentially capable of replacing the helicopter in many situations.

He added: 'Without any steering input it would just hover there on the spot.'

The multicopter is currently only able to fly for around 20 minutes because it runs on lithium-ion batteries. But E-volo hope rapidly developing technology will mean they can complete hour-long flights in the near future.

A hybrid drive, in which a conventional internal combustion engine generates the electrical power, would already show an hour-long flight time.

A one-hour flight would cost around six euros in electricity. The machine has few parts, which could wear out, meaning the aircraft needs little maintenance.

E-volo say their aircraft is special because of the 'simplicity of its engineered construction without complicated mechanics, and redundant engines.'

In an emergency, it can land even if four of its 16 rotors fail. And since the propellers sit below the pilot, a safety parachute can also be deployed.

The controls could be integrated with GPS software, the three friends claim, and the machine could even automatically avoid obstacles and direct itself to pre-determined locations. E-Volo have already completed several successful 'drone' flights with the vehicle, controlled remotely from the ground.

An Apple product a day.....Made Steve Jobs the best at what he does..

Apple is the most valuable company in the world. They achieved this because they gave people what they wanted before people knew they wanted it. Steve Jobs made it happen by pushing the envelope in ways that would get most of us fired.

Even with all the success, his health is still something he has to deal with like anyone else.

What's next for Apple? iwonder, idon'tknow, ihope more great products.

Steve Jobs Broke Every Leadership Rule. Don't Try It Yourself.
Forbes.com

Nocera observes in The New York Times today that Steve Jobs;

“violated every rule of management. He was not a consensus-builder but a dictator who listened mainly to his own intuition. He was a maniacal micromanager. He had an astonishing aesthetic sense, which businesspeople almost always lack. He could be absolutely brutal in meetings: I watched him eviscerate staff members for their “bozo ideas.” . . . He never mellowed, never let up on Apple employees, never stopped relying on his singular instincts in making decisions about how Apple products should look and how they should work.

Likewise, Adam Lashinsky recalled in Fortune a few months ago the moment in 2008 when Jobs gathered the team that had developed the MobileMe e-mail system and demanded to know

“Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” Having received a satisfactory answer, he continued, “So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”

For the next half-hour Jobs berated the group. “You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation,” he told them. “You should hate each other for having let each other down.”

Lashinsky went on to observe that “to Apple’s legion of admirers, the company is like a tech version of Wonka’s factory, an enigmatic but enchanted place that produces wonderful items they can’t get enough of. That characterization is true, but Apple also is a brutal and unforgiving place, where accountability is strictly enforced, decisions are swift, and communication is articulated clearly from the top. . . . Apple’s ruthless corporate culture is just one piece of a mystery that virtually every business executive in the world would love to understand: How does Apple do it?”

Not according to the usual rules, that’s for sure. In the words of Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Stanford University professor, “Most books about leadership read like the Scout manual: CEOs and top managers should be authentic, considerate, sensitive, and modest, as well as creative, smart, and strategically brilliant. All true – but not very useful in the real world, where the person in the corner office might be as approachable as the junkyard dog. Exhibit A: Steve Jobs.”

There’s a reason Steve Jobs is Exhibit A, and not even B or C. It is because his exceptional and unique vision and certainty of what he saw excused his tyrannical behavior. Or, no, they didn’t excuse it but made it necessary. And the power of his personality and the sweep of what he achieved meant that even after all his punishment of disappointing staff and others, all his berating of many of those around him, people at Apple were heartbroken to see him step down from the chief executive’s job this week.

Go ahead and behave the way he did yourself, as a CEO—as long as you’ve got all of Steve Jobs’ charisma, revolutionary vision, and innovative genius, along with his relentless drive and temper.

Lemans - The 24 hour endurance race

LEMANS....This name is the moniker for all things motoring. Pontiac made a car called LEMANS which was one of the most sought after cars as it was the little sister to the Pontiac GTO.....

Steve McQueen made a movie in 1971 called LEMANS based on a race driver in the famous 24 hour long race.....Steve McQueen was the man when it came to racing.....

The WALL STREET JOURNAL recently featured a piece on " The Most Beautiful Cars of Le Mans "...as one who admires all things Automotive, here are my two personal favorites....All I can say is I was always one with a fine eye for all that is fast & sexy....and these two fit that bill perfectly.

1958 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa

Torrential downpours, not to mention the death of a French driver, marred the race in 1958. Still, fans were treated to a wonderful sight: the American Phil Hill's now-legendary performance, in which he drove on the ragged edge at night in the rain with no roof in this red shock of an automobile. The Testa Rossa ("red head" in Italian) is still today one of the most famous Ferraris. The bodywork was designed for Ferrari by Carrozzeria Scaglietti. It charioted Mr. Hill to a Le Mans championship that year, making him the first American to earn such honors. Since it rained for some 20 of the 24 hours, its average speed of 106.2 mph was miraculous

1955 Jaguar D-Type



This car holds the dubious distinction of winning the deadliest automobile race in history while breaking the Le Mans speed record in the process. Nearly 90 people died at Le Mans in 1955 when a car launched into the crowd.

Some 22 hours later, a D-Type driven by British hero Mike Hawthorn (wearing a bow-tie no less) took the checkered flag. The car's body was designed by Malcolm Sayer, a pioneer in aerodynamics (he would go on to design Jaguar's beloved E-Type). The D-type could hit about 175 mph in a straight line and had no seatbelts. Average speed over 24 hours at Le Mans: 107 mph.

A one-man backpack radar that can see through walls

As the Joker said in the first Batman movie, " Where does he get those incredible toys??!!??"

Technology and the innovative use of it is the one advantage we have right now...Just like the new High-tech helicopter they used when they went in after Bin Laden, it provides us with a strategic edge over the bad guys.... I'm glad we are the ones with the kit as the bad guys come out on the short end of the equation, and I'm all good with that......


Backpack radar technology enables surveillance through walls
Significant interest in device expected in United States

By Joel Brown
Boston Globe Correspondent / May 9, 2011

There’s a new tool available for soldiers, special forces, and police officers who must surprise a high-value terrorist or enact a hostage rescue: a one-man backpack radar that can see through walls.

The radar technology is a few years old, but the device — the Prism 200c system from Cambridge Consultants — fits into a small pack and weighs less than 15 pounds. It provides data on the location and movement of people inside a room or building on a handheld device, meaning only a single operator is needed. That’s a big advantage in the field; previous systems were heavier and required a second person with a laptop computer to receive the data. The new system also offers improved battery life.

The company that makes it is headquartered in Cambridge, England, but has a second office in Cambridge, Mass., and expects significant interest in the Prism in the United States.

“We’ve had a number of phone calls about it here,’’ said Wayne Booker, the company’s vice president of government systems, who works in the Kendall Square office. “We’ve had systems in the country already, but . . . I can’t really tell you where they are.’’

Confidentiality is a key concern; the company does up to 10 percent of its business with special forces and law enforcement. “It’s fair to say we are normally very, very shy about talking about the work we do’’ in those areas, said Hugh Burchett, director of defense and security business, speaking by phone from Britain.

The bulk of the 50-year-old technology development firm’s business is in wireless and medical technology, and it was to serve the latter field that it opened its US office in 2005. The company was attracted to Boston by medical technology firms as well as its hospitals, along with the rich talent pool provided by area universities, Booker said. Cambridge Consultants employs about 30 in its Massachusetts offices; the company is a fully owned subsidiary of Altran, the European consulting giant.

To operate the Prism 200c, an individual stands with his or her back against a brick, wood, block, or concrete wall; the device can’t peer through steel.

The radar delivers a detailed image of the location and movements of people on the other side, even in a cluttered environment. Radar signals from a single transmitter bounce back to four built-in receivers, and the system creates a clear, three-dimensional image.

“It’s just a great example of the private sector contributing to national security and national defense in new and exciting ways,’’ said James J.F. Forest, former director of terrorism studies at the United States Military Academy, and an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he teaches courses on terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and security studies.
The advances in the Prism 200c will make it more field-adaptable and easier to deploy, he added.

“I think it’s going to be especially useful for hostage situations or kidnappings,’’ Forest said. “In terms of counterterrorism, there are situations when you may suspect a bomb is being built or weapons are being assembled or stored in a particular location, and being able to gather that kind of intelligence without having to break down a door and look for it, that’s very handy as well.’’

Cambridge Consultants has also just unveiled a prototype of an even smaller radar device called the Sprint, which can be swiped over walls or floors to reveal what’s inside them. More than a fancy stud-finder, it could be used to detect hidden explosives, or reveal the location of utilities such as gas pipes.

“Special forces operators, sometimes when they go through a building, they don’t use the door,’’ Burchett noted.

The products offer a relatively rare chance to promote the company’s expertise publicly, since much of its other work is confidential.

Joel Brown can be reached at jbnbpt@gmail.com.

The US Navy will have a more powerful laser to burn incoming missiles out of the sky or zap through an enemy vessel’s hull

Now all we need are Sharks with Frickin' lasers and we would be making some serious progress....

The US NAVY....Using technology to make the Oceans and the World a safer place.
Let the CHI-COMS yack about their new hi-tech....we are still the masters of the seven seas and way ahead in tech innovation - Chinese are good at copying but we are the ones who invent & create.


Unexpectedly, Navy’s Superlaser Blasts Away a Record
By Spencer Ackerman February 18, 2011 3:36 pm Categories: Lasers and Ray Guns

NEWPORT NEWS, Virginia — Walking into a control station at Jefferson Labs, Quentin Saulter started horsing around with his colleague, Carlos Hernandez. Saulter had spent the morning showing two reporters his baby: the laboratory version of the Navy’s death ray of the future, known as the free-electron laser, or FEL. He asked Hernandez, the head of injector- and electron-gun systems for the project, to power a mock-up electron gun — the pressure-pumping heart of this energy weapon — to 500 kilovolts. No one has ever cranked the gun that high before.

Smiling through his glasses and goatee, Hernandez motioned for Saulter to click and drag a line on his computer terminal up to the 500-kV mark. He had actually been running the electron injector at that kilovoltage for the past eight hours. It’s a goal that eluded him for six years.

Saulter, the program manager for the free-electron laser, was momentarily stunned. Then he realized what just happened. “This is very significant,” he says, still a bit shocked. Now, the Navy “can speed up the transition of FEL-weapons-system technology” from a Virginia lab to the high seas.

Translated from the Nerd: Thanks to Hernandez, the Navy will now have a more powerful death ray aboard a future ship sooner than expected, in order to burn incoming missiles out of the sky or zap through an enemy vessel’s hull.

“Five hundred [kilovolts] has been the project goal for a long time,” says George Neil, the FEL associate director at Jefferson Labs, whose Rav 4 license plate reads LASRMAN. “The injector area is one of the critical areas” of the whole project.

The free-electron laser is one of the Navy’s highest-priority weapons programs, and it’s not hard to see why. “We’re fast approaching the limits of our ability to hit maneuvering pieces of metal in the sky with other maneuvering pieces of metal,” says Rear Adm. Nevin Carr, the Navy’s chief of research. The next level: “fighting at the speed of light and hypersonics” — that is, the free-electron laser and the Navy’s Mach-8 electromagnetic rail gun.

Say goodbye to an adversary’s antiship missiles, and prepare to fire bullets from 200 miles away, far from shoreline defenses. No wonder the Navy asked Congress to double its budget for directed-energy weapons this week to $60 million, most of which will go to the free-electron laser.

It won’t be until the 2020s, Carr estimates, that a free-electron laser will be mounted on a ship. (Same goes for the rail gun.) Right now, the free-electron laser produces a 14-kilowatt beam. It needs to get to 100 kilowatts to be viable to defend a ship, the Navy thinks. But what happened at Jefferson Labs Friday shrinks the time necessary to get to 100 kilowatts and expands the lethality of the laser. Here’s why.

All lasers start off as atoms that get agitated into becoming photons, light that’s focused through some kind of medium, like chemicals or crystals, into a beam operating on a particular wavelength. But the free-electron laser is unique: It doesn’t use a medium, just supercharged electrons run through a racetrack of superconductors and magnets — an accelerator, to be technical — until it produces a beam that can operate on multiple wavelengths.

That means the beam from the free-electron laser won’t lose potency as it runs through all the crud in ocean air, because its operators will be able to adjust its wavelengths to compensate. And if you want to make it more powerful, all you need to do is add electrons.

But to add electrons, you need to inject pressure into your power source, so the electrons shake out and run through the racetrack. That’s done through a gun called an injector. In the basement of a building in Jefferson Labs, a 240-foot racetrack uses to a 300-kilovolt injector to pressurize the electrons out of 200 kilowatts of power and send them shooting through the accelerator.

Currently, the free-electron laser project produces the most-powerful beam in the world, able to cut through 20 feet of steel per second. If it gets up to its ultimate goal, of generating a megawatt’s worth of laser power, it’ll be able to burn through 2,000 feet of steel per second. Just add electrons.

And that’s why Hernandez’s achievement is so important. He shrugs, concealing his pride. A powerful accelerator at Cornell University is “stuck at 250″ kilovolts, he grins. And he’s on a roll. Hernandez’s team fired up the injector in December with enough pressure to prove the FEL will ultimately reach megawatt class. Steel: Beware.


“It definitely shortens our time frame for getting to 100 kilowatts,” Saulter says, and it produces a “more powerful light beam.” But he won’t speculate on how much sooner this means the laser can get into the fleet. In any case, the Navy doesn’t yet have the systems to divert the amount of power from its ships’ generators necessary to operate the laser, but anticipates it will by the 2020s.

There are still a lot of obstacles to getting the free-electron laser onto a ship. The 240-foot racetrack that Neil built at Jefferson Labs — a scale model of one that’s underground here, seven-eighths-of-a-mile long — is way too big. Boeing has a contract to build an initial workable prototype by 2012, but by 2015 the racetrack has to be much, much smaller: 50 feet by 20 feet by 10 feet. And as the model shrinks, it’s got to get more efficient in harvesting photons from electrons.

But that starts by getting more electrons out of the power source.The better the injector is at that, the more powerful a beam results, even presuming that the engineers can’t keep finding efficient ways of getting their photons. Walking into a conference room, Saulter is still stunned. He figured he’d just wind Hernandez up by putting the project’s ultimate goal in his colleague’s face. “I had no idea he’d get up to that today.”

The 'Beast of Kandahar' Stealth Aircraft Quietly Resurfaces

One of the best unkept secrets in Kandahar Airbase is that " The Beast of Kandahar" is regularly seen flying over and around the skies of Afghanistan....There are many variants that have borne this moniker, but the latest is the RQ 170 Sentinel. Taking pictures of the flightline is strictly verboten but obviously it happens all too frequently.

Like most military vehicles, each specific type of drone has it's own specific tasking. Many are no more than mobile camera platforms. designed to be the eyes in the sky while others are tasked with finding the enemy and sending him "greetings" from above.....We like both but I personally find the 2nd type to be most effective. The enemy can't hear'em, can't see'em but sure has hell FEAR THEM....Awesome.

The existence of these vehicles is not a secret and a quick search on Google will show hundreds of example including the pics at the top of this column...Like I said, one of the best unkept secret in the AFGHN AOR.....also because the Taliban have seen what happens when one of these magnificent machines finds some of their brethren..Hopefully, the use of this technology will save Afghan civilians lives as it will take out the terrorists where they stand....Again, very awesome.


The 'Beast of Kandahar' Stealth Aircraft Quietly Resurfaces
By Clay Dillow - Popsci.com

All of a sudden it was there, but then like any good stealth aircraft it vanished. Now the “Beast of Kandahar” has resurfaced in new photos, spurring aviation and defense wonks to once again speculate about the function and purpose of such a stealthy-looking unmanned aerial system.

The Beast, also known as the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, first appeared in 2009 in the skies over Kandahar in Afghanistan. It was later revealed to be a product of Lockheed’s Skunk Works and property of the U.S. Air Force, but that’s about all that was revealed. What the RQ-170 is designed to do—or is doing in Afghanistan—remains under wraps.

Bill Sweetman, keeper of Aviation Week’s Ares blog and the civilian authority on the drone at this point, has speculated that aside from the obvious reconnaissance functions, the Beast could perhaps be configured to carry “a high-powered microwave source” to fry computers and electronic equipment on the ground, or an electronic jamming platform to support other aircraft. But at the official level, silence surrounds the Beast of Kandahar and its potential combat (or non-combat) functions, and quiet is exactly the way a secret stealth drone likes it.

The mad scientists at Volkswagen wheel out a bullet-shaped diesel-electric plug-in hybrid that gets 261 mpg !!!

OK....I confess that I am head over heels in love with my old VW....it is in piecesin the barn awaiting a rebuild and will likely take a long time to return to working status. It was new 45 years ago in 1966 and it is an iconic piece of automotive history.....

NOW, the guys at VW have made a quantum leap in hybrid technology....Wow, they have come a long way since my Beetle.....Lightyears.


Sexy Futuristic VW Diesel-Electric Gets 261 MPG
By Chuck Squatriglia January 25, 2011
Wired.com

The mad scientists at Volkswagen have wheeled out a bullet-shaped diesel-electric plug-in hybrid that gets a stunning 261 mpg. VW claims it is the most fuel-efficient hybrid ever, and it shows what’s possible when you let your engineers run wild.

It is with supreme irony that the Germans will unveil the XL1 concept car at the Qatar Motor Show this week. The car, the latest in the company’s ongoing experiments with ultra-efficient vehicles, was born of the simple question, “Just how much could the energy consumption of cars be reduced if all the stops were pulled out for efficiency?”

This is a question Volkswagen chairman Dr. Ferdinand Piëch posed to his engineers almost a decade ago, and one automakers around the world are grappling with as they face tightening fuel economy and emissions regulations.

Piëch challenged his team to build a car capable of going 100 kilometers on a single liter of fuel — the equivalent of 235 mpg. VW’s been at it ever since, turning out concepts with stellar fuel economy but less-than-stellar practicality. The XL1 is the latest project, the one you’d most likely want to live with and the one most likely to see production.

“When the new millennium was ushered in, Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Piëch formulated the visionary goal of bringing to the market a production car that was practical for everyday use with a fuel consumption of 1.0 liter per 100 km,” the company said in a statement. “In the new XL1, Volkswagen is demonstrating that this goal is now within reach.”

The Volkswagen 1-liter concept got 235 mpg.

The XL1 is the most practical and refined of the so-called 1-liter cars. The first, the Volkswagen 1-liter car, was a tandem two-seater that looked a bit like a Tylenol.

It was a technological marvel when it appeared in 2002, with lots of carbon fiber, magnesium and other exotic materials. Power came from a tiny diesel engine good for 235 mpg. Efficient, yes, but completely impractical because it was absurdly expensive. Still, Piëch was confident the cost of the technology, and the exotic materials it featured, would tumble, and he suggested the car might see production by 2012.


The Volkswagen L1 concept, being unveiled at the Frankfurt Auto Show in 2009.
Then came the Volkswagen L1 concept car, a definite step forward when it was unveiled in 2009. It was more refined, with a diesel-electric hybrid drivetrain. It was a little bigger than the 1-liter, with more power, superior performance and increased roominess. It wasn’t so futuristic, but still a bold redefinition of the term “car.” It was good for 1.38 l/100 km, which comes to 170.4 mpg. VW claimed the L1 emits just 36 grams per kilometer of carbon dioxide. For the sake of comparison, the 2010 Toyota Prius emits 89 g/km.

And now we come to the XL1.

The coolest thing about this car is the drivetrain. The diesel-electric combo features a 2-cylinder TDI engine with a displacement of just 0.8 liters. It’s essentially the company’s ubiquitous 1.6-liter engine cut in half, and it’s bolted to a seven-speed DSG gearbox. The engine is good for 48 horsepower and 88 pound-feet of torque.

The electric drivetrain sports a 20-kilowatt (27-horsepower) electric motor that draws power from a lithium-ion battery of undisclosed size. It’s a plug-in hybrid, and VW says the XL1 can go 35 kilometers (21 miles) in electricity alone.

This combination provides remarkable efficiency. Fuel economy is pegged at 0.9 liters per 100 kilometers, which comes to 261 mpg by our math. Emissions are just 24 grams of CO2 per kilometer. More remarkably, VW says the 1,700-pound XL1 can cruise at 62 mph on just 8.4 horsepower. That’s about half what the Golf TDI requires. Under electric power, the car needs less than 0.1 kilowatt-hour to go one kilometer.

Stomp on it and the electric motor assists the diesel engine in accelerating, and VW says the XL1 will do zero to 60 in 11.9 seconds. Top speed is limited to 100 mph.

The XL1 differs from its siblings in that it offers side-by-side seating, a nod to increased practicality. It’s also got proper doors instead of jet-like canopy. It’s still made of high-tech stuff including carbon fiber polymer parts attached to a Formula 1-style carbon fiber monocoque. That’s expensive stuff, but VW says it’s making progress bringing costs down through a patented production process it calls advanced resin transfer molding.

All told the car weighs about what a first-gen Honda CR-X HF weighed. There’s a lot of aluminum under the carbon-fiber bodywork, including the suspension components, brake calipers, shocks and other components. Other tasty bits include carbon-fiber anti-roll bars, ceramic brake rotors and magnesium wheels.

This is one super-slick car, with a drag coefficient of 0.186 and a frontal area of 1.5 square meters. That makes it more aerodynamic than the General Motors EV1 but not quite so slippery as the Aptera Motors 2e. The car is 12.7 feet long and 5.4 feet wide, roughly the size of a VW Polo. It’s just 3.7 feet tall — roughly the same as the Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder.

Volkswagen has long hinted we could see a car based on a 1-liter model in showrooms, and it said something based on the L1 Concept shown 2009 might be available in 2013. But it seems unlikely we’ll see anything resembling this car anytime soon given the exotic (and expensive) materials and outlandish styling (which, frankly, we love).

It’s more likely that we’ll see some of the technology underpinning the XL1 in production models as VW, like everyone else, scrambles to increase the fuel efficiency of its lineup.

Plug-in diesel hybrid polo, anyone?

Images: Volkswagen