Crave

Entecho's flying saucer could give the Parajet Skycar and Terrafugia's flying car a run for their money.

(Credit: Entecho)

Ever since I had my first taste of an English Channel crossing on a hovercraft and puking my guts out, it's been a mighty long wait to see a more personal form of flying saucer materialize for public use. Now, thanks to Entecho, we could someday join the Jetsons zipping around in a world teeming with air cars.

Aside from wondering if these are as fun as bumper cars at carnivals if one accidentally knocks another flying pod off its axis, Entecho's application utilizes fan-forced flight. Huge hidden blades spin to give the craft lift, with the skirt around it providing directional manipulation. More on its intriguing takeoff technology here.

According to specs, this Aussie initiative can hover up to 5 feet above ground, cruise at a maximum speed of 75 mph, has a range of just under 2 miles, and can seat three comfortably. Of course, this is still in the development stage, though by the time it emerges from its cocoon, the Entecho Hoverpod should be more than ready to deploy solar or even fuel cell technology to power its flight.

(Source: Crave Asia via Gizmag)

Chindogu, or the Japanese art of un-useful objects, strikes again. Pyocotan's Noriko-san Googles are so silly, they're, well, silly.

(Credit: Pyocotan)

Apparently costing $200 to develop, which could be seen as a waste of good money in the current financial climate, this device flashes a digital sign that tells everyone where you're headed. That way, should you nod off, some kind fellow passenger might be prevailed upon to alert you before your stop.

It's a good thing these cover most of your face, since that means you can still face the world should some camera-phone idiot videotape you for YouTube fame. Speaking of which, check out the clip below as it shows just how much milk of human kindness you can expect to find on packed, overcrowded subways.

Editor's note: CNET News reporter Stephen Shankland says he would never spend money on these, but recalls a time when he could have used them: "(They're) silly, sure, but once I woke up on BART in Lafayette at nearly midnight when I was trying to go to El Cerrito. It was after a dot-com CNET drinking binge."

(Via Crave Asia)

A Nano docked into the Wadia 170i Transport.

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm starting to think the iPod is a true high-end audio component. What's changed? I heard it in my high-end system, docked into Wadia's 170i Transport ($379). I can now testify to the iPod's bona fides.

Thing is, an iPod, even one loaded with uncompressed AIFF or WAV files, isn't all by itself a high-end component, but teamed with Wadia's 170i Transport, aka, dock, an iPod is elevated to high-end status. The transformation takes place when the Wadia transmits the iPod's zeros and ones to an outboard digital-to-analog (D/A) converter in your A/V receiver, or even better, a standalone high-end D/A. Wadia's claims that the 170i is the first and only "dock" to extract a digital output from an unmodified iPod.

The 170i's digital out sends a 16 bit/44.1 kHz PCM digital signal to a D/A. The 170i does that for MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV files, but just be aware that it converts all but AIFF and WAV to 16/44.1. It can also pass 16/48 PCM, but in most cases 16/44.1 is what you'll get.

According to Wadia's national sales manager, Martin Cooper, iPods store MP3, Apple Lossless, and AAC files in Apple's own digital language, and when an iPod is nestled into a 170i it converts those files to 16/44.1 PCM. That way, the signals can be processed by the D/A in your A/V receiver or high-end D/A. MP3, Apple Lossless, and AAC files will sound "good," just not quite the same as the original CD. In other words, only AIFF and WAV files can be heard with bit-for-bit accuracy over the 170i.

A Toyota employee displays a Winglet prototype at the company's showroom in Tokyo. She is riding the medium-size scooter.

(Credit: AFP Photo/Yoshikazu Tsuno)

Toyota Motor on Friday showed off a new stand-up scooter that could one day be seen zipping alongside the Segway on the personal-transporter superhighway.

The "Winglet" has a body the size of an A3 sheet of paper that houses an electric motor, two wheels, and internal sensors that constantly monitor the rider's position and make adjustments in power to ensure stability.

A parallel link mechanism lets riders go forward, backward, and turn by shifting body weight, making the Winglet potentially useful for maneuvering in tight spaces or crowded urban environments.

Riders can cruise around at a leisurely 3.7 mph--not ideal for rushing to a meeting, but nice for scooting around a shopping mall, perhaps. (The Segway, by comparison, can hit 12.5 mph.)

The Winglet comes in small, medium, and large sizes ranging in height from 18 inches to 3 feet 8 inches, with handlebars that also rise to different levels. All three models are about 18 inches wide and 10 inches long. The smallest version weighs 22 pounds, and can be folded and tossed into a (big) bag for optimal shoulder dislocation. All versions of the device take an hour to charge.

No word yet on when we might see commuters atop the contraptions. The company will start testing the vehicle this fall at a Japanese airport and a seaside resort. More testing is planned for 2009 at shopping complexes and other bustling locales.

The Winglet comes in three sizes, which also have different handlebar heights.

(Credit: Toyota Motor)

(Credit: Setgo)

If your gadgets outnumber your pockets but you're not quite resigned to suspender geekdom, there may be a compromise. Setgo's "Transport," as Dvice puts it, is "a kind of wearable man-purse for the 21st century" though we assume it's not necessarily gender-specific.

It's basically the equivalent of an updated tool belt with "strategically placed pockets" that's worn like a big sash over the shoulder instead of around the beer belly. The idea is valid, but we can't see paying $80 for something like this. And if you think that wearing just one strap instead of two will somehow lessen the date repellant factor, you'd be sadly mistaken.

The days of tissue-thin tickets collected by human attendants are over in Beijing's underground. Riders on Monday were greeted by electronic ticketing with automatic gates.

When Beijing's Line 5 debuted in October last year, riders found out what they could expect, as new electronic gates were installed but not yet unfurled. Travelers in Asia will recognize the mechanisms from Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Beijing's new subway ticketing system was previewed with the opening of Line 5 in October 2007. They came into service June 9, 2008.

(Credit: Graham Webster)

Besides removing the human factor from ticket sales and collection, a feat accomplished already with debit-based ticketing cards that have been in place for quite a while, the system puts Beijing in league with advanced systems that can use rider data to adjust service.

According to People's Daily:

As the new system requires passengers to check in and out electronically, it records precisely their entry and departing stations. This enables us to accurately record passenger flow on each line and station.

"The subway company can adjust train schedules to ease traffic. This is especially important when the Olympic Games are held in August in Beijing," Zhang said.

I'm looking forward to giving the new system a shot this week.

(Credit: Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana)

With $4 gas prices looking like a permanent fact of life, consumer interest in jetpacks and other forms of personal air transport might soon go from whimsy to reality. That seems to be driving the engineers at Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana, whose latest project is the "Libelula Rocket Helicopter."

Don't laugh. This may look like something from a '50s sci-fi movie, but its creators have already produced a "Rocket Belt" built to custom specifications. The personal chopper could be also be more reliable than its full-size counterparts because, Dvice says, "by using tiny rocket motors at the tips of the rotor blades, the Libelula eliminates the torque which makes a tail rotor necessary in a conventional helicopter."

There are other potential advantages over the jetpacks we've seen, including price. We assume that the Libelula will be at least a tad cheaper than the Rocket Belt, which goes for $250,000--that's crazy money to pay for anything, let alone something that can fly for only 30 seconds at a time. Then again, the way prices at the pump are going, it might be worth another look.

The idea of personal planes may conjure up dark visions of Blade Runner, but the first batch of two-seater aircraft to fly on electricity rather than fossil fuels could reach more than a dozen buyers by year's end.

This electric glider could become the greenest two-passenger personal aircraft on the market.

(Credit: Pipistrel)

And if some fans of experimental air travel have their way, that's a step closer to a gridlock-free future when relatively ordinary folks will hop to work in small, carbon-neutral planes.

A cozy crowd of several dozen engineers, venture capitalists, and members of clean-tech companies plotted the potential at the Electric Aircraft Symposium held Saturday in San Francisco, sponsored by Foundation Capital and held by the CAFE Foundation, a nonprofit aiming to advance personal air travel. CAFE stands for Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency.

The meeting included Ivo Boscarol, CEO of Pipistrel, which by the end of this year is set to deliver the first commercially produced, two-passenger electric aircraft to customers. The Slovenian company's Taurus Electro can climb to 6,000 feet after taking off on a 30-kilowatt motor. Recharging the glider's lithium-polymer battery is meant to take about as long as powering a cell phone. Depending upon the weather and skills of the pilot, the glider can travel 1,000 miles in a day.

"I'm sure that electric power everywhere will be the substitute for internal combustion fuel engines," Boscarol said. "First, you must develop aircraft that needs so little power that electricity is efficient."

The glider weighs little more than 700 pounds and costs $133,000, only about one-third more than the electric Tesla Roadster, a hot toy for billionaires.

Pipistrel's customers include Formula One driver Pedro de la Rosa. But even Google co-founder Larry Page, who attended the forum, might have to wait to purchase the electric Taurus if he were interested. It is in the final stages of test flights and will be manufactured in a limited run this year. And in the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration would prevent people from flying the glider under the same rules as light sport aircraft.

However, FAA rules could change, possibly within the next year. The Experimental Aircraft Association announced Saturday that it has filed a request for the FAA to change how it classifies electric aircraft. If the group's petition succeeds, the U.S. market could open up for other electric craft on the horizon.

"Changing the way we move through the environment is critical to this planet," Experimental Aircraft Association representative Craig Willan told the crowd. "This is the first step to ensuring not only government compliance but also assistance."

The FAA usually takes about six months to make such decisions, according to agency inspector Matt DeSeelhorst.

Sustainable air travel
Aircraft emissions, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and methane, account for up to 3 percent of the world's greenhouse gas pollution, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Although the bulk of that comes from hulking commercial jets, light aircraft continue to use leaded fuel, which the government moved to phase out in passenger cars 35 years ago.

Larry Page, who with fellow Google co-founder Sergey Brin rents parking space for private jets at NASA's Moffett Field, checks out lightweight motors designed by Greg Stevenson.

(Credit: Elsa Wenzel/CNET)

Making air travel more sustainable will be tricky in the United States, where the number of aerospace engineering graduates has plummeted by 57 percent since 1990, said Brien Seeley, CAFE Foundation president.

By contrast, support for light aircraft development is strong in the European Union, which contributed about 20 percent of the $2.3 million that Pipistrel spent creating the Taurus Electro, according to Boscarol.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has supported the development of lightweight, stealth aircraft, but its innovations aren't necessarily reaching the civilian level soon. The federal government yanked its support more than two years ago for NASA's personal aircraft research group.

However, NASA is spending $2 million over five years on contests held by the CAFE Foundation and backed by Boeing Phantom Works. Last August, the inaugural NASA Personal Air Vehicle Centennial Challenge handed out $250,000 in prizes rewarding the efficiency and noise reduction of personal air vehicles. The top place went to the owner of a Pipistrel Virus motorglider.

This year's contest will include its first Green Prize of $50,000 for a craft that achieves at least 100 miles per hour and the equivalent of 100 miles per gallon. Renamed the General Aviation Technology Challenge, the contest will dole out a total of $300,000.

Supporters of such competitions hope they can convince people that air travel could become the greenest form of transportation.

"It will change society, the way we work, the way we live, the way cities grow," said Richard Jones, a technical fellow at Boeing Phantom Works.

The research group is designing a plane-car hybrid to travel up to 300 miles at a time. Jones believes that by 2030, precision navigation systems could make it easier to pilot a compact plane than to drive a car.

Because the Taurus Electro is a glider, the controls are relatively simple. The most a pilot would need is a GPS and a gliding computer, according to Pipistrel.

(Credit: Pipistrel)

"People will probably be reading a newspaper rather than flying the vehicles," he said.

The trick is equipping aircraft with a brain as smart as a seagull's, said NASA aerospace engineer Mark Moore, who headed NASA's now-shuttered personal aircraft research group. And responsive tactile controls, such as steering mechanisms that resist a hand's wrong move, can prevent human error.

Coming closer to that goal is the Garmin G1000 Synthetic Vision System, noted several attendees. Released earlier this month, it enables pilots to view topographic details even in foggy conditions within a Google Earth-like interface.

Hertz Rent-A-Plane?
CAFE Foundation's Seeley displayed a mock-up interface that would draw a virtual pathway in the sky to keep a pilot on track.

"This is how we're gonna get eventually to Hertz Rent-A-Plane," he said.

However, developing batteries and engines light enough for small commuter aircraft remains tricky. Pipistrel is working with the University of Stuttgart in Germany to design hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered aircraft, as is Lange Aviation with the German Aerospace Centre, but results remain distant.

Others are working to improve upon readily available lithium-ion batteries. Yi Cui, a Stanford assistant professor of engineering, is exploring the use of nanowires as battery electrodes to pack more power into a smaller package. Unpublished results from lab tests have been promising, said Cui, who hopes to commercialize the technology within the next five years.

The secretive EEstor, also working to improve energy density in batteries, presented at last year's Electric Aircraft Symposium. In January, Lockheed Martin announced plans to buy EEstor's ultracapacitors, which reportedly weigh one-tenth less than lead-acid batteries but hold 10 times more energy.

Self-funded start-up Windward Performance of Bend, Ore., is working to build a light aircraft that would fly on a battery at 15 kilowatts per hour for about $1.50 per charge.

"This would be a completely off-the-grid and off-oil passenger plane," said creator Greg Cole, who hopes to raise $2 million. His redesign of the Sparrowhawk sailplane is known as the first with wings and fuselage made of all carbon composite materials.

Hybrid airplanes that blend electric and biofuel engines could be the bridge to off-grid, oil-free air travel, according to some proponents of personal, "green" air travel.

Engineer Greg Stevenson displayed a two-cycle diesel engine that weighs 18 pounds and can run on biofuels. "It's as omnivorous as it's gonna get," he said.

At a fraction of the 200-pound weight typical of commercial diesel engines, that type of innovation might help pave the way for powering hybrid, lightweight biofuel/electric aircraft.

The Taurus Electro could be the first electric aircraft of its kind in serial production, reaching buyers by the end of the year. Click photo for more pictures of green aircraft.

(Credit: Pipistrel)

Apparently the people behind the Segway are finally starting to listen to the incessant mocking of the personal transporter as the ultimate in dorkdom. The evidence: It's preparing to debut a new RMP (Robotic Mobility Platform) at the RoboBusiness conference that looks more appropriate for a desert battlefield than a paved sidewalk.

It's a far more macho version of the first RMP released more than a year ago, which was developed for use by robots. The new model--which could cost as much as $50,000--can carry up to 400 pounds, according to MAKE, and has omnidirectional wheels for ultimate maneuverability (as long as doesn't have the same flaws found in the original, that is.)

We don't know why it so long for them to come up with this idea. After all, the "Tri-Clops Mutant" has been doing this for ages.