800px-Sapporo_Underground_Pedestrian_Space_Station_Road01s3A German city puts traffic lights in the sidewalks for distracted smartphone users.

Authorities in the city of Augsburg have installed traffic lights in the sidewalks for all those who walk along while staring at their screens. The sidewalk signals have been placed near a couple of tram stops. The floor-level traffic lights flash red when a tram is approaching and warn smartphone users when they’re about to walk into the path of a train.

Read more on the topic here.

220px-Jaguar_X-type_front_20070521A lucky buyer has purchased the Queen’s Jaguar X-Type for £15,000 and doesn’t even know it.

The monarch’s Jaguar, that comes complete with parking sensors, heated seats and a dog grille, was sold for £15,000 after being offered online. The three-litre V6 Sovereign model had just 7,600 miles on the clock at the time of the sale despite being seven years old. The automatic vehicle was described as being “the next-best thing to buying a top-of-the-range X-type.” More »

800px-Handcuffs01_2008-07-27A U.S.-registered cargo jet was impounded in Zimbabwe after blood was seen dripping from the plane and a dead body and cash were later discovered on board, authorities said.

It was reported that the Boeing MD11 trijet cargo plane, owned by Florida-based Western Global Airlines, that was traveling from Germany to South Africa “with millions of rands” on board. At today’s exchange rate, 1 million rand is worth approximately $62,500. More »

Beautiful_LandscapeA 40-year pilot from San Francisco has captured the southern states in a way you have never seen before. An array of scenery as well as man-made landscapes look remarkably impressive when photographed from above.

These stunning aerial photographs were taken by Jassen Todorov who spent three weeks flying in a 1976 Piper Warrior plane across the southern U.S. including Florida, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. More »

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERANew York to London in half an hour? Just sign me up for the Screemr. The new supersonic plane concept, dubbed Skreemr, could be the passenger airliner of the future. Getting you from New York to London in just half an hour with a top speed of Mach 10, which is 10 times the speed of sound, or around 8,000 miles per hour, it will make the Atlantic seem more like a lake than an ocean.
The jet concept is the brainchild of Charles Bombardier, a Canadian engineer and inventor who describes in details his futuristic prototype designs in the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. More »

745px-Google's_Lexus_RX_450h_Self-Driving_CarGoogle and Ford are in talks on self-driving car partnership.

According to sources familiar with the plans, the second-largest U.S. automaker, Ford Motor Co is set to form a deal with Google’s parent firm, the search engine giant Alphabet Inc about forming a partnership to develop autonomous car technology.

the two companies will announce a joint venture at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2016, said a person familiar with the talks. More »

Lose_weight_now (1)An Orange County, California man claims American Airlines almost kicked him off because he weighs a few more pounds.

Chris Shelley, a retired marine,  said he is outraged by the way he was treated after another passenger complained that he was too fat for his seat.

Shelley says he flies more than 100,000 miles every year. The Huntington Beach engineer said his nightmare began shortly after he boarded an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Orange County last Friday. When an elderly petite woman sat in the aisle seat next to him, he noticed she was not happy that Shelley was spilling into her own upholstered personal space. She “got up and left and went towards the front of the aircraft.” Shelley was approached by “a young gentleman” in a vest with an American Airlines emblem on it.

Shelley was shoked when the airline employee told him to gather his personal belongings and leave the plane with no explanation other than “anyone two inches over the seat can’t sit in the aircraft”. Shelley convinced the employee to ask the elderly woman if she would switch seats with someone. The woman agreed and then he was able to reboard the plane and return to his seat.

“The worst part”, according to Shelley, was that he was treated as “criminal.” Not only a criminal but a “fat criminal.”

American Airlines sent two apology emails and Ross Feinstein, a company spokesperson said that the airline has launched an investigation.

800px-FEMA_-_37752_-_Residents_at_the_airport_preparing_to_leave_LouisianaA new X-ray scanner that uses 3D-imaging and can identify precisely what material an object is made of, is being developed for use in airport security. The technology could revolutionize airport security by making it easier to spot weapons and explosives inside bags. The new X-ray scanning technology could eliminate physical bag searches and speed up screening.

The scanner is being developed by a team of scientists from Nottingham Trent University and the Cranfield Forensic Institute at Cranfield University. The Halo technology uses funnel-shaped X-rays to build the image More »

799px-Tesla_Model_S_Indoors_trimmedA stolen Tesla Model S 85D was tracked down using a smartphone app and  returned to owners within hours.

Katya Pinkowski, a Vancouver resident and Tesla Model S owner, went to see a concert a few days ago. When it was over, she returned to the car in an underground parking lot and found out it was missing. It is never fun to find an empty space at the place you left your car. After a car theft, it usually takes owners weeks or even years to retrieve their property. More »

Belber_Crocodile_Trunks_and_LuggageTwo Italian researchers have developed an entirely new mode of autonomous public transportation. Tommaso Gecchelin and Emmanuele Spera have created self-driving pods, called “Next” that could change the way we travel.

Different modes of autonomous public transportation vehicles are beginning to emerge all over the world, but what makes “Next” different is that it combines personal transportation with public transportation and it can act as a train, bus, or personal vehicle. “Next” consists of modular, energy-efficient pods that can travel on their own, like a personal self-driving vehicle, or can connect while in motion.

When the pods connect, passengers can walk through them the same way we walk to different compartments on a train. “Next” is electric and has six seats. More »