Transportation

Imagine a souped-up Google Glass built into a motorcycle or bicycle helmet that superimposes information and directions in front of your eyes as you speed down a highway or move through a congested downtown area.

LiveMap, a startup based in Moscow, is developing a motorcycle helmet with a head-mounted display, built-in navigation, and Siri-like voice recognition. The helmet will have a translucent, color display that's projected on the visor in the center of the field of vision, and a custom user interface, English language-only at launch, based on Android.

Unlike visor-mounted heads-up displays, which have been available for a … Read more

The solar-powered Solar Impulse is on its way to the nation's capital -- with a slight layover in Cincinnati.

The plane took off from Lambert-St.Louis International Airport early Friday morning with Solar Impulse co-founder and CEO André Borschberg at the controls. But before heading all the way to Washington, the Solar Impulse will make a pit stop at Cincinnati Municipal Lunken Airport to avoid "challenging weather."

"The flight will be split in two because strong cross and head winds would slow the aircraft and make it impossible for the pilot to reach the nation'… Read more

Pigs may not be flying yet, but a bicycle just recently took to the air in a successful test flight. The flying electric bike is the creation of several Czech companies that have been developing a prototype. The proof-of-concept bicycle looks a bit like a regular bike crossed with a giant RC quadcopter.

The unusual vehicle demonstrated its chops with a flight that lasted a few minutes, carrying a dummy onboard. It was radio-controlled from the ground. The 220-pound bike got off the ground thanks to six battery-powered propellers. This is enough to spark dreams of peddling down the road and then suddenly taking off to fly over obstacles or impress strangers.… Read more

British TV series "Top Gear" is known for building some pretty outlandish automotive creations. The latest in that lineage is a Honda FH2620 mower. That doesn't sound very exciting until you learn just how heavily modified it is, from the tires to the engine.

"Top Gear" called in Honda racing group Team Dynamics to help turn the lawn mower into a lawn monster. The steering rack is from a Morris Minor. It got a fresh set of racing wheels and tires. They managed to stuff a VTR 1000cc motorcycle engine into the thing. The theoretical top speed is 130 mph.… Read more

The solar-powered Solar Impulse is another leg closer to completing its mission across America.

Flown by Solar Impulse co-founder and Chairman Bertrand Piccard, the plane landed smoothly at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport at 1:28 a.m. local time Tuesday.

Taking to the skies on Monday morning from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Piccard -- and the plane -- stayed in the air for 21 hours and 21 minutes, marking his longest flight to date.

The landing in St. Louis also saw the debut of an inflatable mobile hangar, which will be the aircraft's home until it takes off … Read more

If Google and many auto manufacturers have their way, we'll be ditching our steering wheels and letting computers take control of our cars in the not-so-distant future. And if the thought of robots taking the place of humans on the road makes you nervous, you're not alone.

With this new technology needs to come regulations -- or so says the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which on Thursday released its new policy on autonomous, or self-driving, cars. The agency said self-driving vehicles show promise but urged safety regulations and recommended that states … Read more

Better Place wanted to make the world a better place by replacing gas stations with battery switching stations that would remove the driving mileage limitations from electric cars and eventually rid the world of fossil-fuel burning vehicles. But after six years and burning through $850 million, the company is filing for liquidation in an Israeli court.

As reported by the Associated Press, Better Place's Board of Directors issued a written statement Sunday announcing that the company was winding down.

"This is a very sad day for all of us. We stand by the original vision as formulated by … Read more

The solar-powered Solar Impulse plane has set a world's record, and its journey across America still has a few more legs to go.

Flying the second and longest leg of the journey, pilot Andre Borschberg landed the plane in Dallas/Fort Worth on Thursday, achieving a record for the longest distance flown by a solar-powered aircraft. The 1,541 kilometers (957 miles or 832 nautical miles) beat the previous record of 1,116 kilometers (602 nautical miles) held by Borschberg when he flew the Solar Impulse from Switzerland to Spain in May 2012.

Borschberg, the CEO and co-founder of … Read more

The latest round of cutting-edge aerospace technology feels very Zen to me. Much like SpaceX's Grasshopper Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing vehicle, this Lockheed Martin F-35B jet is capable of vertical take-offs and landings and appears to hover in the air in a sort of meditative state that seems odd for a military fighter.

The first vertical take-off and landing test of the production model was successfully conducted earlier this month and captured in the official video below. … Read more