German startup Lilium has unveiled a new “flying taxi” that can vertically take off and be the basis for an on-demand air service within six years. The Guardian reports: The electric jet-powered five-seater aircraft is designed to travel up to 300km, a journey that would take it an hour at top speed. While a smaller version of its novel plane flew…
Tag: Engines
Class-Action Lawsuit Says TurboTax Tricked Taxpayers Into Paying For ‘Free’ Tax Prep
Less than a week after ProPublica found that TurboTax lied to taxpayers about its free filing program, “a new class action lawsuit against TurboTax maker Intuit claims the tax service breached its agreement with the Internal Revenue Service by intentionally obscuring its free filing service and charging qualifying taxpayers anyway,” reports Gizmodo. From the report: The complaint was filed Sunday in…
‘I Bought Some Noise-Canceling Headphones. They Don’t Cancel Noise’
“Many are seduced by the idea that they can listen in silence,” complains ZDNet columnist Chris Matyszczyk. “This doesn’t seem to be true,” he writes, describing a typical experience with some $279.95 Beats Studio3 wireless over-ear headphones: I could still hear so much of what was going on beyond the soccer match or movie upon which my headphones were supposed to…
Falcon Heavy Launch Close up
Twenty seven Merlin rocket engines are firing in this Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html…
Utah Bans Police From Searching Digital Data Without a Warrant
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: In a major win for digital privacy, Utah became the first state in the nation to ban warrantless searches of electronic data. Under the Electronic Information or Data Privacy Act (HB 57), state law enforcement can only access someone’s transmitted or stored digital data (including writing, images, and audio) if a court issues…
The Dirty Truth About Green Batteries
If we’re going to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need an energy revolution. But there’s a big problem. Making that future a reality will, among other things, require a lot of batteries: batteries to charge our electric cars; batteries to store solar power collected while the sun’s up and wind power harnessed when it’s gusty out. And as…
Boeing’s 737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals
The Boeing jet that crashed twice in five months relied on decades-old systems and left pilots without some common safety features. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/business/boeing-737-max-.html?partner=rss&emc=rss