“My vision of the future is pretty much standard fare. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and there are flying cars.”– Joss Whedon
“Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”–Douglas Adams
These flying car stories just won’t go away. Now hover cars are in the mix as well–though merely hovering might have no great added value other than saving on tires. I still think Douglas Adams has the best idea, as long as he’s not talking about cars.
Flying/Hovering/Self-Driving Cars–Boeing has jumped into the fray with flying cars. They’ve purchased Aurora Flight Sciences, a Virginia-based concerned that has been helping Uber develop flying taxis.
–Yuchen Chai, a student at UK art and design school Central Saint Martin, won a design contest for a hover car. The contest was co-sponsored by Renault. Based on the video at this link, it appears to travel just a few inches over the ground. I don’t know about you, I would rather travel over the traffic then over the road.
Chevy Cruise Car, touted as first mass-producible self-driving car
—Meanwhile, back on the ground, GM has purchased LIDAR sensor company Strobe, Inc. The purchase will help then accelerate their race with Tesla, Alphabet, Uber, and who knows how man other enterprises, to rush self-driving cars to market.
—At least one technology expert says humans should not be trusted to drive. Omar Rohim, CTO of UK concern Energi Mine, says our emotions get in the way of safe driving, and predicts that in 25 years we will be banned from driving ourselves–AI will take over everything. This story comes on the heels of a US Senate subcommittee unanimously passing a measure to enable and encourage self-driving cars by standardizing regulations. The measure was previously passed by the house or representatives.
Artificial Intelligence–How fast and how far is it progressing? This Motley Fool article provides some rather stunning projections.
—Two new scaremongering report on A.I. and jobs project that up to 60% of businesses could be affected by 2022, with jobs replaced in the process. This comes even as New Scientist says scaremongering has us asking the wrong questions about A.I.
Augmented Reality–The world’s first multi-user hologram table is slated to go on sale sometime next year (see image below). It’s made by Australian company Eurclideon and is expected to be used, initially, for city planning and related uses. Down the road? Looks like it would make for a cool game of Monopoly. You’ll need some monopolies to afford; the initial price is pegged at US $47,000.
Multi-user hologram table
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