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Tech NewsTransportationWhat’s the Worst Way You Ever Fucked Up on an Airplane?
Flying is, in theory, meant to make long distance travel a faster and more streamlined experience. In reality, flying is often hectic, cramped, and perhaps even terrifying, depending on your flight’s particular model of flying metal tube and other factors mostly out of your control. This makes for an already precarious situation even without the … Continued
By Catie Keck -
Tech NewsDumbass Thinks He Can Vape Into a Bag on Spirit Airlines Flight, Gets Lifetime Ban: Report
A Spirit Airlines passenger has reportedly been banned for life for vaping during a recent flight and setting off the plane’s bathroom smoke alarm. The incident occurred Tuesday on Flight 985 from Detroit to New Orleans, the Times-Picayune reported Saturday. Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s spokesman Captain Jason Rivarde told CNN that the man, a 30-year-old Florida … Continued
By Catie Keck -
Tech NewsElon Musk’s Boring Company Secures $48.6 Million Contract in Las Vegas Despite Embarrassing Demonstration in L.A.
The city of Las Vegas has approved a $48.6 million contract for Elon Musk’s Boring Company to build an underground transit line that’s scheduled to be completed by January 2021, just in time for the Consumer Electronics Show. But it remains to be seen whether Musk’s high-speed transportation concept can really live up to the … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsGadgetsBoosted Announces Brand New Way to Break Your Body
The popular electric skateboard company Boosted is now making electric scooters. The company just announced the Boosted Rev, a vehicle with handlebars, a rear fender brake, and even a mechanical disc brake. Those bikes will come in handy, too, because this thing has a top speed of 24 miles per hour. That’s speedy for a … Continued
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Tech NewsExperimental Plane Shows Supersonic Blasts of Air Could Simplify the Way We Pilot Aircraft
The more moving parts a machine has, the more likely it is to eventually fail. It’s an especially problematic rule of thumb for aircraft given the fact that a mechanical failure during a flight can be catastrophic. To help remedy this, a British aerospace company recently tested a unique plane that replaces its wing’s adjustable … Continued
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Tech NewsTransportationUber Users in Denver Can Now Buy Train and Bus Tickets Directly From the App
Love it or hate it, Denver is turning to Uber to make navigating public transit a little smoother for anyone with a smartphone. Uber on Thursday announced that its users in Denver can book and redeem public transit tickets directly through its own app via Uber Transit, which officially launched earlier this year and allows … Continued
By Catie Keck -
EartherClimate ChangeScientists Dream of a Future Where Flying Cars Fight Climate Change
The flying car has been just a few years away for, well, years. The predictions aren’t getting more optimistic under President Donald Trump, but now science is offering a surprising new reason for us to make flying cars a reality: We might need them to fight climate change. A study released Tuesday in Nature Communications … Continued
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Tech NewsMisogyny at Microsoft, Farscape, and the New Airpods: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week
It’s April 2019—and perhaps the month that will later be known as the dawn of the Age of Fungus. A concerning report in the New York Times this weekend detailed how multiple strains of Candida auris, a drug-resistant species of pathogenic fungus, have quietly spread across the globe. The Centers for Disease Control reports a … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsThis Amazon Mothership is Terrifying as Hell, Even If It’s Completely Fake
Have you seen that viral video of an Amazon blimp that deploys delivery drones? Twitter users are calling it “borderline dystopian” and “what the last human alive will see.” In reality, the blimp is totally fake, but that doesn’t make it any less scary. There’s still reason to be unnerved by what you’re seeing. The … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsUber Not Criminally Liable in Fatal 2018 Self-Driving Car Accident, Arizona Prosecutor Finds
Ride-hailing giant Uber has been found not criminally liable in the death of 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, who tragically became the first known pedestrian to be killed by a self-driving vehicle when she was struck by an Uber test SUV in Tempe, Arizona in March 2018. Per Quartz, Yavapai County attorney Sheila Sullivan Polk—the official handling … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech News
Amtrak Train Stranded in Oregon for 36 Hours Honestly Seems Pretty Chill
National news broke early this morning that an Amtrak train near Oakridge, Oregon on its way to California had been stranded with 183 people for over 30 hours. And many people reasonably assumed that it would be an apocalyptic situation by now. But aside from some modest inconveniences, it actually sounds pretty relaxed now 36 … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsThis 1920s Concept for a Drive-Through Grocery Store Completely Failed
Today, the grocery delivery battle is being waged between companies like Amazon, Walmart, Target, FreshDirect, and Instacart. But there once was a time when the most futuristic thing in food shopping was the car. Specifically, drive-in shopping like these stores from the 1920s. The car was invented in the 1890s, but it wasn’t until the … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech NewsTransportation
Off-Duty TSA Officer Jumps to His Death at Orlando International Airport
A man who officials say was an off-duty Transportation Security Administration officer fell to his death from the balcony of the Hyatt Regency Hotel at the Orlando International Airport on Saturday. The incident affected flights and reportedly led to hours of delays. The airport said shortly before 3 p.m. that affected gates 70-129 had reopened … Continued
By Catie Keck -
Tech NewsPregnant Lyft Driver Stabbed to Death by Passenger in Arizona
Kristina Howato, a 39-year-old driver for the transportation company Lyft, was murdered by one of her passengers in Tempe, Arizona on Sunday. Authorities believe Howato was stabbed to death by 20-year-old Fabian Durazo with a kitchen knife. Durazo has reportedly admitted to the crime but hasn’t given any motive. Howato was still in her vehicle … Continued
By Matt Novak -
Tech News
Uh Oh, Uber Might Be Thinking About Self-Driving Scooters and Bikes Now
Uber—the company that had to pull its self-driving cars off the road for most of 2018 following a lethal accident that allegedly came after warnings of routine accidents—is hiring for a program that may work on self-driving “micromobility” devices, TechCrunch reported on Sunday. Details are, as TechCrunch noted, “scarce,” but there’s a lot of speculation … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech News
E-Scooter Startup Bird: We’re Sorry for Sending Wild Legal Threats to Media Over Scooter Hacks
On-demand electric scooter startup Bird has backed down from its legal threats against Boing Boing editor Cory Doctorow for publishing a piece detailing how a $30 kit from China could be used to rewire the hoards of abandoned Bird scooters sitting around city impound lots, the BBC reported on Monday. Doctorow’s December 2018 piece detailed … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech News
Kids of the 1980s Imagined the Year 2020 With Robot Butlers, Bubble-top Cities, and Nuclear War
Earlier this month we looked at predictions from kids at the turn of the 20th century. But what about more recently? Say, from the 1980s? Well, you’re in luck, because today we have predictions about the future from kids in 1984. And some of them are as dark and terrifying as you might guess for … Continued
By Matt Novak -
EartherClimate Change
The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Just Announced a First-of-Its-Kind Plan to Put a Dent in Automobile Emissions
Nine states between Virginia and Vermont are taking steps to clean up their biggest source of carbon pollution. On Tuesday, they along with Washington, D.C., announced they’re building a regional cap-and-trade system to cut vehicle emissions and reinvest in low-carbon transit. The details for what that program and how much it will cut emissions will … Continued
By Brian Kahn -
EartherEnergy
California Regulators Vote to Require All Transit Agency Buses Produce Zero Emissions by 2040
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has ordered the state’s bus agencies to switch to entirely emissions-free vehicles within 20 years, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Sunday, as part of a larger overall push to push back against Republicans’ efforts on the national front to undermine state emissions regulations. The policy is the first … Continued
By Tom McKay -
Tech NewsTransportation
Uber Employee Warned Self-Driving Cars ‘Are Routinely in Accidents’ Days Before Fatal Crash: Report
On March 13, 2018, an Uber manager reportedly sent an email to company executives, alerting them to the safety concerns of the self-driving car software, the high rate of self-driving car accidents, and the “dangerous behavior” of the backup drivers, according to a new report from the Information. Five days later, an Uber self-driving test … Continued