All posts tagged: Fly

Come fly with me | Radio Times

Come fly with me | Radio Times

Published by Daniella Wilson

Add Propeller One-Way Night Coach to your watchlist John Travolta was already in love with planes before he’d turned five years old. Living in New Jersey, his family home was close to Newark, JFK and LaGuardia airports and, “by the time the planes took off, they were maybe 2000 feet above my house,” the actor recalls. “They were loud in those days, so you could hear the planes coming and leaving, and I would wonder who’s on it, what’s it like to fly?” At 22, before Grease and Saturday Night Fever made him a star, he acquired a pilot’s licence. One night in the early 90s he was grounded in Maine, due to fog, stuck in a hotel until the morning. As he lay awake, childhood memories flooded back. “By the time we left to go airborne again, I had the story in my mind.” In 1997 he published his children’s book Propeller One-Way Night Coach, a story of a boy’s first plane ride. John Travolta on the set of his directorial debut. Apple TV Travolta …

Xreal’s New Budget Display Glasses Can Change Their Look on the Fly

Xreal’s New Budget Display Glasses Can Change Their Look on the Fly

Published by skeptic

Xreal makes some of my favorite display glasses around, functioning as wearable USB-C tethered monitors in glasses form. Xreal’s new budget pair of $299 display glasses, called a01, is part of a new sub-brand called X by Xreal. They’re significantly less expensive than Xreal’s other glasses and have some clever features their other glasses lack. For the most part, the a01 glasses are more feature-limited compared with the Xreal One Pro and 1S. They have a slightly smaller field of view (50 degrees) and lack the dimming lens and chipset that can pin a display in place. But they also offer notable advantages. The 1,600-nit brightness of these micro OLED displays is far higher than that of previous Xreal glasses, and I’m curious to compare them. They also support HDR10 for video, which TCL’s recent RayNeo Air 4 Pro glasses also have. The glasses are also pretty light, at 62 grams. The front faceplates can swap out, giving different looks. Xreal What interests me most is a new “anti shake” mode that promises more stable …

Bee-inspired navigation system lets tiny robots fly without GPS

Bee-inspired navigation system lets tiny robots fly without GPS

Published by Jenni Sidey

Bee-inspired drone navigation could change how tiny robots move through greenhouses, warehouses and disaster zones. By pairing rough motion estimates with learned visual memories, Bee-Nav guides drones home over long distances, opening a practical path for smaller, cheaper autonomous flight. A drone buzzes through a greenhouse, weaving between rows of tomatoes. Another inspects a warehouse ceiling for damage. A third searches a disaster site where GPS signals fail. These scenes sound futuristic, yet one major obstacle has slowed them down for years: navigation. Small drones struggle to find their way without carrying heavy computers and large batteries. Most modern navigation systems rely on detailed maps and powerful processors, making lightweight robots expensive and energy-hungry. Now, scientists led by Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands may have found a simpler answer by copying one of nature’s best navigators: the honeybee. Their new system, called Bee-Nav, allows tiny drones to travel hundreds of meters and still return home using a neural memory as small as 42 kilobytes. The findings were published in the journal Nature. Illustration …

Blue Origin cleared to fly New Glenn mega-rocket after April mishap

Blue Origin cleared to fly New Glenn mega-rocket after April mishap

Published by skeptic

Blue Origin’s new mega-rocket, New Glenn, is no longer grounded. The company said Friday that the Federal Aviation Administration has cleared the rocket to fly again after the upper stage failed to deliver a commercial payload during an April launch. Blue Origin didn’t offer much detail, but said in a post on X that the New Glenn upper stage “experienced an off-nominal thermal condition” that caused one of the three rocket engines to produce lower-than-expected thrust. As a result, the AST SpaceMobile satellite that Blue Origin was supposed to put into orbit instead burned up in Earth’s atmosphere instead. (AST SpaceMobile said it had insurance coverage that covered the cost of the lost satellite.) Jeff Bezos’s spaceflight company submitted a report to the FAA and took “corrective measures,” but did not detail what those measures were. The mishap came on what was New Glenn’s third-ever flight, which otherwise went off without a problem. The company successfully re-used the New Glenn booster stage for the first time ever and landed it for a second time on …

Asteroid 2026 JH2 Is About to Fly Right Past Earth—Relatively Speaking

Asteroid 2026 JH2 Is About to Fly Right Past Earth—Relatively Speaking

Published by skeptic

look up! Asteroid 2026 JH2 is now approaching Earth; the object, which is about 20 meters (66 feet) in diameter—comparable to Chicago’s Cloud Gate sculpture—will pass by on May 18. Enthusiasts will be able to observe it using a telescope or during a live broadcast organized by Virtual Telescope. The object will pass at a minimum distance from Earth of about 57,000 miles—much closer than the moon, which is about four times farther away. Among the tracked near-earth objects, or NEOs, that will pass near the planet over the next few months, it will come the closest. There are tens of thousands of NEOs, which are generally of no particular concern; they are, of course, monitored, and some do have a (small) risk of impacting Earth in the next few years. According to New Scientist, 2026 JH2 is not among them, despite the widespread use of hyperbolic terms like “grazing” to describe how near it will come. An Apollo-Type Neo Asteroid 2026 JH2 is technically an Apollo-type NEO, according to a classification system that takes …

Best Time Of Day To Fly With Kids, Per Age

Best Time Of Day To Fly With Kids, Per Age

Published by Sam Flores

If you’re considering booking flights for your family, you might want to think carefully about the times you book in order to try and swerve jet lag and the inevitable meltdowns that can happen when kids are overtired. One badly-timed flight can end up with children refusing to sleep at 3am, emotional airport meltdowns and exhausted parents spending the first three days of the holiday trying to “fix” everyone’s body clocks. Omar El-Gohary, CEO and superintendent pharmacist at IQ Doctor, suggested the time families choose to fly can have a bigger impact on children’s jet lag than most people realise. And while many parents assume overnight flights are always the best option, he argues that isn’t necessarily true for every age group. Here, El-Gohary recommends the best time of day to fly with children depending on their age, plus practical tricks to reduce travel exhaustion. The best flight times for each age group 0-2 years old Mid-morning flights often work best (9am-12pm), said the expert. “For babies and young toddlers, consistency matters more than forcing …

Asteroid set to fly very close to Earth

Asteroid set to fly very close to Earth

Published by skeptic

An asteroid in our solar system will come close to Earth, but don’t worry, it won’t be that close MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images An asteroid with the potential to ruin a city will pass Earth next week. 2026JH2, as it has been labelled by the astronomy community, is predicted to zoom by our planet at an estimated distance of 90,917 kilometres – only a quarter of the distance between us and the moon. “In astronomical terms, it’s as close as you can get without hitting,” says Mark Norris at the University of Lancashire, UK. Within the next year, there are only five known asteroids that will pass within the orbit of the moon, and only one other will come closer than 2026JH2. 2026JH2 – which was spotted only this week by observers at the Mount Lemmon Survey in Arizona and the Farpoint Observatory in Kansas – will pass closest to Earth at 9.38pm UTC on 18 May. Norris says it will only be visible from the northern hemisphere very briefly and that even astronomers …

Brits from hantavirus ship prepare to fly back to UK – 20 to return | UK | News

Brits from hantavirus ship prepare to fly back to UK – 20 to return | UK | News

Published by Sam Flores

A British repatriation flight carrying passengers from the virus-hit cruise ship has taken off from Tenerife South Airport and is now en route to the UK, as a major international evacuation operation continues under strict health controls. The aircraft, carrying 20 British nationals, departed slightly behind schedule on Sunday and is understood to have flown over the quarantined MV Hondius during its return journey, Sky News reports. The vessel has been at the centre of a major outbreak response involving the rare Hantavirus. Passengers on board are being transported under strict infection control measures. Once the flight lands in the UK, the group will be transferred to Arrowe Park Hospital, a designated managed clinical facility. The site, previously used during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, will host passengers for initial medical assessment and testing. According to official plans, the travellers will remain at the facility for 72 hours under observation before being instructed to complete a further 45-day isolation period as a precautionary measure. Throughout Sunday, a coordinated multinational evacuation effort has seen …

Cybertruck recall warns that its wheels may fly off

Cybertruck recall warns that its wheels may fly off

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. The wheels may be falling off the Tesla Cybertruck. No, seriously. According to a recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recall alert, an estimated 173 of the stainless steel electric vehicles (EV) may be at risk of cracks forming in the brake rotor studs. These cracks could separate from their wheel hubs. “Wheel hub separation can cause a loss of vehicle control, increasing the risk of crash,” the NHTSA explained in its recall. Such emergencies may even include an entire wheel falling off the EV. The 173 EVs span the Cybertruck’s 2024-2026 models, specifically those equipped with the optional 18-inch steel wheels. According to Kelley Blue Book, the EVs may start vibrating or issuing a noise before the wheel stud separates. Tesla is now offering affected vehicles free wheel hub and rotor replacements, as required by U.S. law. The latest NHTSA alert is the latest in a string of recalls to affect the Tesla Cybertruck. Although the regulatory …