14, March 2018
Pilot-less, electric, vertical takeoff taxis debut in New Zealand 0
Pilot-less flying taxis are being tested in New Zealand as part of a project backed by Google co-founder Larry Page that supporters say will revolutionize personal transport.
New Zealand regulators late Tuesday approved plans for Zephyr Airworks, a subsidiary of Page’s company Kitty Hawk, to develop and test the futuristic air taxis.
Known as Cora, the electric aircraft has a dozen small lift rotors on its wings, making it capable of vertical take-off and landing like a helicopter.
But developers say it is much quieter, meaning it could transport passengers in urban areas using rooftops and car parks as landing pads.
“We are offering a pollution free, emission free vehicle that flies dependably, we think this is the logical next step in the evolution of transportation,” Zephyr chief executive Fred Reid said.
The Cora prototype being tested in New Zealand’s South Island uses three on-board computers to calculate its flight path and is capable of carrying two passengers.
The computers operate independently as a safety measure and the aircraft can deploy a parachute if anything goes wrong.
The aircraft, previously known as Zee.Aero, has a range of 100 kilometers, reaching speeds of 150 kmh and an altitude of up to 900 meters.
The Cora project envisages they will become so common that “air travel will be woven into our daily lives.”
Zephyr said using them would be a simple experience for passengers.
“You wouldn’t have to know anything about flying a plane. Cora could fly for you,” it said in a promotional video. “And it would be all-electric, helping to build a sustainable world.”
Page’s company is also developing a prototype personal aircraft called the Kitty Hawk Flyer and unveiled an early model in the United States last year.
However, it looked more like a recreational plaything than a flying car, suitable only for flying above water and seating the pilot in an open top cabin exposed to the elements.
Cora appears far more robust and is designed more like a traditional aircraft, featuring an 11-meter wingspan, tail and a closed canopy for passengers.
The aircraft will not be offered for sale, instead the public must book trips like they would with an airline or taxi service.
Zephyr said it would operate in a similar fashion to a car ride-share — with Uber the best known example — and is reportedly working on an app so customers could hail the air taxis on their mobile phones.
‘They could have laughed us out of the room’
It said Cora took eight years to design but then developers needed a suitable environment to safely test the new technology.
They settled on New Zealand because of its uncongested airspace and rigorous regulatory environment, with Reid saying local officials had embraced the idea.
“We had no idea what to expect,” he said. “They could have laughed us out of the room. We were pitching something that sounded like science fiction.”
Cora has been given an experimental airworthiness certificate from the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority.
Trialling the flying taxi service will reportedly take six years, with operations based around the city of Christchurch.
“This aircraft represents the evolution of the transport eco system to one that responds to a global challenge around traffic and congestion, and is kinder to the planet,” Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel said.
Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in 1998, starting out in a Silicon Valley garage and transforming into one of the world’s largest companies.
He remains chief executive of Google’s parent Alphabet but the Kitty Hawk and Cora projects are a personal pursuit, not part of the tech giant’s operations.
(Source: AFP)
11, August 2018
On top of the World: 5 Anambra State School girls win gold at World Technovation Challenge in US 0
Five Anambra girls from Regina Pacies Secondary School Onitsha, Amanbra state, Nigeria who represented Nigeria and Africa at the World Technovation Challenge in the Silicon Valley in San Francisco, US have won the Gold Medal in the contest.
The Governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano had personally sent them off to the US in a brief ceremony at the last Executive Council Meeting, where he charged the girls to put Nigeria and Africa on the global technological map with their rare talent.
The team, led by Uchenna Onwuamaegbu Ugwu defeated representatives of other technological giants including the USA, Spain, Turkey, Uzbekistan and China to clinch the gold medal.
The girls, who have now become Africa’s Golden Girls is made up of five brilliant girls including Promise Nnalue, Jessica Osita, Nwabuaku Ossai, Adaeze Onuigbo and Vivian Okoye.
The world champions who are reported to be attracting a lot of attention in the world’s greatest technological hub won the Challenge with a mobile application called the FD-Detector which they developed to help tackle the Challenge of fake pharmaceutical products in Nigeria.
Under the tutelage of Uchenna Onwuamaegbu-Ugwu the CEO of Edufun Technik STEM, the Golden Girls spent five months researching and developing FD-Detector which swept through over 2000 competing applications to get to the finals in San Francisco.
Technovation is a programme that offers girls around the world the opportunity to learn the programming skills they need to emerge as tech-entrepreneurs and leaders.
Every year, girls are invited to identify a problem in their communities and then are challenged to solve them by developing Andriod applications that would address those problems. 115 countries participated in the qualifiers but only 12 teams from all over the world were selected as finalists for the pitch in Silicon Valley.
Source: Africa News