GPS Gets Handy

The Global Positioning System is becoming woven more and more into everyday life, and we could be on the brink of an explosion of new applications. GPS receivers are becoming lighter, more portable, more versatile and cheaper. Consequently they are moving off the dashboard and into the hands and pockets of pedestrians. An article in the current Economist outlines the rapid developments in portable GPS receivers and their uses.

Catch a ride in a Cybercar

Tired of driving the same old way? Want a new form of mobility that bridges the gap between an automobile and public transportation? Can you envision yourself in a cybercar? See what the Europeans are doing ... and will it ever catch on in the U.S.?

Some new and old wonders

The current issue of the Economist's Technology Quarterly contains some interesting items on innovations in transportation, including German research in small hovercraft, news of a sea-going automobile, and the story of the introduction of electric buses in London a century ago.

(Picture courtesy of The Economist)

Flying cars and airborne saucers

A page from the BBC highlights the research of aviation engineer Dr. Paul Moller and his prototype of a flying car, which he sees as an answer to traffic congestion. The small VTOL craft ascends to just ten feet off the ground. Moller, based in Davis, California has been building and researching unusual aircraft for many years. In 1967 he developed a saucer-shaped hovercraft, as shown in a page from the Transportation Futuristics online exhibit.

(Picture courtesy of the BBC)

Paul McCready, aviation pioneer

National Public Radio has a web page with interviews, photos and audio celebrating the life of Paul McCready, Jr., the pioneer of human-powered flight who has died at the age of 81.

This photograph shows the Gossamer Albatross, powered and piloted by Bryan Allen, as it crosses the English Channel in 1979. Mr. Allen is interviewed on the NPR site.
(Photo courtesy of Don Monroe)