Tag Archives: Robots

Designs for the future

MonSFFA is planning presentations on mega cities, designs for the future–the dreams we had in the past, the dreamers of today.

In today’s Montreal Gazette there was an article about future transportation: Flying taxis & rail loops with cities for stops .

I found a video for the flying Uber here.

TRANSPORT’S FUTURE IS NOW IN CALIFORNIA
 Uber Air is testing its flying taxi service in San Diego and will launch services in 2023 in Los Angeles, Dallas and Melbourne.

This city sprawls across five counties with an exploding population of 14 million. Its roads are now so choked that this fall Uber, Lyft and taxis were banned from picking up people at its crowded airport. Now arriving passengers must wait, then board shuttle buses to go to remote parking lots to find rides.

TOMOHIRO OHSUMI/BLOOMBERG FILES The transition to autonomous or self-driving cars is gathering speed, and flight and rail are on their way to being transformed. Uber Air plans to launch its flying taxi service in 2023 in Los Angeles, Dallas and Melbourne. The EVTOLs, or electrically powered vertical take-off and landing drones, will make short-haul flights at low altitudes.

So it’s hardly surprising that California is where 22nd century transportation modes are being invented. And those of us at this week’s high-level Abundance360 conference hosted by tech pioneer (and a friend) Peter Diamandis learned that the “robots” that will transport us and everything are coming in a handful of years.

The transition to autonomous or self-driving cars gathers speed. They are permitted in 29 states, with testing permits, while Tesla and others offer partial self-driving features with drivers onboard. But by the end of 2020, Elon Musk will roll out a fully automated version of Tesla which, he claims, will prove that such cars are three to four times safer than human drivers.

With trust in the tech, adoption will leap. Cars or drones on wheels will drive the elderly to doctor’s appointments or children to school or commuters to work while they work or watch television or sleep.

Besides that, flight and rail will also be transformed. Uber Air is testing its flying taxi service in San Diego and will launch services in 2023 in Los Angeles, Dallas and Melbourne. Most important, the FAA, or Federal Aviation Administration, has given a theoretical green light for these low-altitude commuter services along selected air routes, pending trials.

Uber will offer short-haul flights at low altitudes between sky ports that will be built or added on to existing rooftops, vacant parking lots, stadiums, or highway interchanges. Uber plans to take cars off the road and keep costs low by “batching” passengers. People will be picked up and ride-share in vehicles to a sky port for departure, then fly and ride-share from the sky port to their work destinations. The process will be reversed at the end of the workday.

“These are not helicopters, which are unsafe, noisy and expensive,” said Nikhil Goel, head of product development at Aviation Uber. They are EVTOLs, or electrically powered vertical take-off and landing drones, with noise-proof rotors that allow them to vertically take off, then fly between sky ports.

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“A helicopter cost is $10 per mile,” he said, “but with batching (of passengers) to and from sky ports we can get that cost down to $1.50 per mile.”

The ultimate goal is to get cars off the road by making it faster and cheaper to fly than to own a car to commute. Last year, billions were raised for development by various companies and the first one was listed on Nasdaq. Joint ventures between flying car companies like Uber and Joby and giant automakers like Hyundai and Toyota are moving quickly.

“It’s two hours from JFK Airport to Manhattan by car and less than 10 minutes flying,” said Goel.

Such aircraft will also be able to carry cargo and to deliver emergency supplies or ambulance services quickly.

Another Los Angeles pioneer is Virgin Hyperloop One, which will revolutionize railways by moving passengers and freight through concrete tunnels at the speed of aircraft.

Virgin’s CTO Josh Giegel said the company is working on nine projects and 400 test pilots, and expects several lines to be built this decade. These rail systems will link cities, and could be tunnelled, or built above ground along existing highway medians.

“Hyperloop would turn cities into stops,” said Giegel. “For instance, Chicago, Columbus and Pittsburgh would be 30 minutes apart.”

These companies will allow cities to reach their goal of getting cars off the road this decade. The only obstacle in their path will be political will and foresight.

February 12, 2017 meeting

I think we would all agree yesterday’s meeting was one of our best, thanks to our guest speaker Professor Don Donderi, the author of UfOs, ETs And Alien Abductions: A Scientist Looks At The Evidence.

Prof Donderi,  PhD, associate professor (retired), McGill University Department of Psychology, teaches a ten-week course in the McGill Community for Lifelong Learning (MCLL). He was recently interviewed by the Montreal Gazette, you can read it here. 

As it turned out, one of our members, Barbara Silverman, had taken this course in the past and was able to personally pass on our invitation to speak to us. And proving that we do live “in a small world, after all”, Don and MonSFFan Joe Aspler have co-written papers, though not about UFOs.

Prof Donderi signs his book for Cathy

Don has a great sense of humour, and quite enjoyed the MonSFFilm, Encounters of the Very Close Kind. His slide presentation was very interesting, covering many documented cases of sightings and abductions. While many of us tend to be skeptics, the subject of UFOs lies close to the SF fan’s heart!  Members have expressed a wish to have him back again for a sequel, possibly to revisit a particular aspect such as the Roswell incident in more depth. Don brought only three copies of his book for sale, leaving some disappointed UFO fans, but it can be ordered from Chapters/Indigo or Amazon.  At the time of this writing, there is one copy at Indigo Place Montréal Trust.

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programming ideas for future meetings. It’s not too late to contribute, email <president@monsffa.ca> .  Copies of WARP 97 were distributed. Coincidentally, the cover art features Martian war machines! WARP is available for download here.  If you would like a copy mailed to you, please contact Keith <veep@monsffa.ca>  The raffle prizes featured a lot of chocolate in honour of St. Valentine’s Day, and a few members remembered to wear red.

Keith moderated a discussion on future economics. What is technology doing to our workplace? Are robots going to make us obsolete?  Some members argued that business is already pushing human workers out of entry level jobs –even McDonald’s!– so robots are in fact just another way for business owners to enrich themselves at the expense of others.  While having machines do all the work sounds idyllic, some of us need to feel we are contributing to our society. We can’t all be great philosophers!

A snow storm was brewing, which sent some members home early, but five us trudged through blowing snow to the Irish Embassy for good food  by a warm fire.

Members will find many more photos of our Feb 2017 meeting on our website.

Local Earth Sensors Detect…

  • The Moon
  • Space Debris
  • Robots & AIs

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  • Robot & moonThe moon: This week, 14 to 17th, and March 15-18 before 10 PM is the best time to view the moon this year until the autumn.  The sun will be striking it at just the right angle for optimum viewing of mountains and craters.  Even binoculars on a tripod will show a lot of detail. Copernicus is a favourite target for many amateur astronomers, and this is the best time to see it.   http://observethemoonnight.org/

 

  • Space Debris: Wherever we go, we leave our garbage behind.
  • Almost 20,000 pieces of space debris are currently orbiting the Earth. This visualisation, created by Dr Stuart Grey, lecturer at University College London and part of the Space Geodesy and Navigation Laboratory, shows how the amount of space debris increased from 1957 to 2015, using data on the precise location of each piece of junk ( from https://www.space-track.org ).