Terrafugia, a company founded in 2006 by a group of MIT students is set to launch a line of flying cars or as they like to call it a "roadable aircraft". It is as easy as getting in your car driving to a runway unfolding two wings and soaring away. One tank of regular unleaded gasoline will allow you to travel up to 500 miles and at the end of the day you just drive home and park it in the garage. The firm has already taken deposits for over 40 transactions and plans on making deliveries in 2010. The vehicles sell for 194,000. Advances in materials and propulsion technologies are some main reasons that the company feels they can go commercial. Also the loosening of government regulations on private aircrafts and pilot licensing is equally as important. The requirements for sport pilot licenses is about as stringent as getting a license to drive a car. Dick Knapinski who is with the Experimental Aircraft Association says that the rule about licensing is because the aircraft is about as complex as driving a motor vehicle. He adds that you fly in non-complex airspace at relatively low speeds. One of the biggest obstacles the company has found is not the technology but that people do not feel comfortable operating this type of machinery. Which i agree with because flight is very dangerous to perform and people may be a hesitant to put themselves in that situation. I think if the technology was in front of me and I trained and enjoyed the machinery I would want to own the craft. The advantages of the product is very high and extremely interesting. People have dreamed of flying cars since the invention of cars and planes. I am excited to see where this technology goes and what the future holds for the craft. If the technology turns out to be safe and worth the price I think people will begin to see man cars flying through the sky.

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invisibility article site

Invisibility

Recently researchers at Duke University have created a metamaterial with unique physical properties. The material manipulates light to hide an object behind the "cloak". The surface of the material must be much smaller than the wavelengths of the light being passed through it. The cloak was covering a bump and when infra red light was shone on the material the bump was concealed as if the bump were never there. It only took nine days for the researchers to create the material and about 1 dollar in circuit boards to create the invisibility cloak. The researchers also stated that it would cost close to nothing to commercialize the technology. I feel that this breakthrough is just in the beginning stages and has a long way to go until people start having a huge demand for the product. At this time I don't see much use for the product other than the concealment of objects. I can see a need from the military in the form of making tanks and other vehicles invisible to the naked eye. I don't think the cloak can make humans invisible but with the way that science and technology is evolving I would not be surprised about any such advancements. It is a very intriguing idea and one that many people will follow. I fill if invisibility is ever achieved it will be one of the biggest discoveries of the century but i believe it is very far in the future if ever.