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bongaboi · 3 years

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Panic at Kabul Airport as Afghans Rush to Flee Taliban After U.S. Evacuates Staff

Panic at Kabul Airport as Afghans Rush to Flee Taliban After U.S. Evacuates Staff

BY AHMAD SEIR, RAHIM FAIEZ, TAMEEM AKHGAR AND JON GAMBRELL/AP UPDATED: AUGUST 16, 2021 4:20 AM EDT | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: AUGUST 15, 2021 9:33 PM EDT

(KABUL, Afghanistan) — The U.S. military struggled to manage a chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan on Monday as the Taliban patrolled the capital and tried to project calm after toppling the Western-backed government.

The Taliban swept into Kabul on Sunday after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, bringing a stunning end to a two-decade campaign in which the U.S. and its allies had tried to transform Afghanistan. The country’s Western-trained security forces collapsed in a matter of days, even before the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops.

Thousands of Afghans fearing a return to Taliban rule are trying to flee the country through Kabul’s international airport. Videos circulating on social media showed hundreds of people racing across the tarmac as U.S. soldiers fired warning shots in the air. Another showed a crowd pushing and shoving its way up a staircase, trying to board a plane, with some people hanging off the railings.

Massouma Tajik, a 22-year-old data analyst, described scenes of panic at the airport, where she was among hundreds of Afghans hoping to board an evacuation flight.

After waiting six hours, she heard shots from outside, where a crowd of men and women were trying to climb aboard a plane. She said U.S. troops sprayed gas and fired into the air to disperse them. Gunfire could be heard in the voice notes she sent to The Associated Press.

The U.S. Embassy has been evacuated and the American flag lowered, with diplomats relocating to the airport to aid with the evacuation. Other Western countries have also closed their missions and are flying out staff and civilians.

By morning, Afghanistan’s Civil Aviation Authority issued an advisory saying the “civilian side” of the airport had been “closed until further notice” and that the military controlled the airspace.

Afghanistan’s airspace is often used by long-haul carriers moving between the Far East and the West. Early Monday morning, flight-tracking data showed no immediate commercial flights over the country.

In the capital itself a tense calm set in, with most people hiding in their homes. There were scattered reports of looting and armed men knocking on doors and gates. The Taliban freed thousands of prisoners as they swept across the country and the police melted away.

The Taliban deployed fighters at major intersections and sought to project calm, circulating videos showing quiet city streets.

“There were a few Taliban fighters on each and every road and intersection in the city,” Shah Mohammad, a 55-year-old gardener, said after coming to work in the diplomatic quarter. He said there was less traffic than usual and fewer people out on the streets.

Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman, tweeted that fighters had been instructed not to enter any home without permission and to protect “life, property and honor.” The Taliban have also said they will stay out of the upscale diplomatic quarter housing the U.S. Embassy complex “so as not to create any confusion or problems.” The neighborhood also includes the posh villas of U.S.-allied former warlords who have fled the country or gone into hiding.

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 with a harsh form of Islamic law. Women were largely confined to their homes and suspected criminals faced amputation or public execution. The Taliban have sought to project greater moderation in recent years, but many Afghans remain skeptical and fear a rollback of individual rights.

The Taliban had also harbored Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida in the years before they carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. That sparked a U.S.-led invasion that rapidly scattered al-Qaida and drove the Taliban from power.

But the U.S. lost focus during the Iraq war and the Taliban eventually regrouped. The militants captured much of the Afghan countryside in recent years and then swept into cities as U.S. forces prepared to withdraw ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline.

When the Taliban last seized Kabul in 1996 it had been heavily damaged in the civil war that broke out among rival warlords after the Soviet withdrawal seven years earlier. The city was then home to around a million people, most traveling on dusty roads by bicycle or aging taxi.

Today Kabul is a built-up city home to 5 million people where luxury vehicles and SUVs struggle to push through endemic traffic jams. Many of the younger Taliban fighters hail from rural areas without electricity or running water, and are getting their first glimpse of a modern city they had only previously heard stories about.

___

Faiez reported from Istanbul, Krauss from Jerusalem and Gannon from Guelph, Canada. Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Samya Kullab in Baghdad contributed.

#2021 #afghanistan

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pravasichhokro · 3 years

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Experience of living in different cities

In my life of more than 7 decades, I have lived in some 8 cities starting from Ahmedabad, Pilani, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Yokohama( Japan), Muscat (Oman) and Bangalore, in that order. I will make an attempt to pen down the “trivial”, but not so common, features of my experience.

I was brought up in Ahmedabad from 1954 to 1967, which were mostly my student days. We lived on the outskirt of the city and our society of bungalows was surrounded by open fields where still farming was going on. Other than school and college, I was busy playing different games with my neighbors. I enjoyed Gujarati snacks and would take extra efforts to get them. Our neighbors were very kind and did not complain of our cricket or other games played anytime of the day. City had a very good bus service and it was our main transport. Our bungalow had a few tenants like us but it did have a problem of water and sewage. Water supply was short and erratic, and septic tank sometime spilt over. We loved the festival of Navratri ( Garba/Dandia) and kite flying on Makarsankrant.

I shifted to BITS, Pilani hostel for five years from 1967. The change from day scholar to hostel life was huge. I could do what I wanted and when I wanted (freedom) except class attendance. Other than academic pursuit, I was able to indulge in sports/games. I learnt how to play basket ball, table tennis and contract bridge. I improved my ability to play carom, cricket and hockey. Being confined to the campus for a couple of months at a stretch, I enjoyed food in the mess and also outside at Nutan market/dhabas. I was introduced to black (udad) dal, lemon rice, mawa mutter, stuffed parathas and stuffed capsicum/tomato in the mess. Outside the campus got to taste Titar (partridge), reportedly a banned bird. I was bombarded by Hindi movies as every Saturday a movie was screened for students. I probably saw more than 125 movies in BITS in five years, compared to less than 20 movies seen earlier. Initially the old movies were screened in 16 mm in a quadrangle of the main building but later new movies in 35 mm in a huge auditorium. Once in a while, we escaped the campus life to see late night movie in a makeshift shed called Jayashree talkies.

After graduation in 1972, I lived in South Delhi till the late 70’s, initially as a bachelor and then a family man. Major problem of Delhi was public transport as I did not own a vehicle then. City bus (DTC), autorikshaw or yellow taxi were most unreliable and the operators ( drivers and conductors) most non-cooperative and rude. My wife, who joined me from Bombay, was most shocked as she compared this scene with BEST of Bombay. I did not face much problem as I used a contract bus to go to office. As a bachelor, I used to join others on most Saturday night’s for a party. The liquor law did not permit drinking in public so we sometime managed to cross into Haryana (Faridabad) and consumed beers and chicken. Returning after the fling was not a problem as “drive after drinks “was not an offence. In Delhi, we enjoyed different types of food –Punjabi and Chinese. Our favorite places were Lajpatnagar market, M block market in GKI, Narulas and Hongkong in GKI. Most tasty samosa was made by a small vendor in East of Kailash A block market. At residence, we faced water shortage and had to cook on kerosene stove.

We shifted to Bombay in early 80’s and lived there for 8 years. Biggest difference was a moderate summer compared to Delhi and very efficient city transport whether bus, taxi or autorikshaw. We also enjoyed the sea and its beeches- Girgaon, Dadar, Juhu and Malad. We, however, had to face some water shortage. We once again were able to enjoy street food like batata vada, Frankie, bhel etc. We also loved Irani café menu of maska pav, kheema pav, baida( egg) roti etc. We started going to Marathi plays often and enjoyed the change from Hindi movies. I got to own a flat in 1982 and a Bajaj scooter in 1984. That made life easy.

We moved to Pune in the mid 80’s for a brief period and are staying there till date (more than 20 years) except our breaks to go to Japan, Oman and Bangalore. In first phase, we got to live in a bigger place, owned our own Premier Padmini car and telephone line at residence, all thanks to Thermax, my employer. The major sigh of relief was water availability and good round the year weather-moderate summer, monsoon and winter. These advantages remain even today. Pune offered the advantages of a village and city. Distances were short and day out picnic spots in the surrounding hills were approachable and affordable. I got introduced to music (performing arts) of all kinds –classical, light, gazal, filmy and non filmy. I was able to attend live performances of stars like Pt. Jasraj, Kaushiki Chakravarty, Shaunak Abhisheki, Hariharan, Raghunandan Panashikar, Jagjiy Singh, Alka Yagnik, Shankar Madhavan,Shaan, Sarod by Amjad Ali, dances by Hema Malini, Minakshi Sheshadri. Also new upcoming stars like Vibhavari Joshi Apte, Hrishikesh Ranade.Pune reintroduced us to Lord Ganesh and we love the ten day special festival of Ganpati. I was and am able to indulge in outdoor activities like walking, swimming and going to hills. We got introduced to YOGA-pranayam, Omkar, suryanamskar etc. We do it regularly even today. Our health received a boost as we got to know more about homeopathy medicines as my wife has seen lot of benefits to this alternative therapy. I was able to afford and enjoy different cuisines. My membership of a club once again enabled me to see a Hindi movie every week. Since it was free, one had the luxury to walk out of un-interesting movie without feeling guilty.

We moved to Yokohama, Japan during the 90’s. The change was huge-from “stone” age of Pune, India to space tech level in Yokohama,Japan. The weather was excellent and all the utilities-water, piped gas, electricity and land line were reliable and affordable. First time we used a Microwave oven and rice cooker with a timer. Only my daughter’s international school fee was a huge dent on my pocket but she had the best quality of education. We got initiated into Japanese food and loved visiting China Town for authentic Chinese cuisine. My daughter enjoyed the American fast food at McDonald’s and Pizzas at Shakey’s. Surprisingly there were more than fifty Indian restaurants in Tokyo area and we loved the Naan served there. The public transport (bus, train, taxi) was reliable, clean and convenient even for foreigners like us despite the language hurdle. We also enjoyed a ride on the famous bullet train (called Shinkansen) from Yokohama to Kyoto (400 kms). Like Japanese people, we also started visiting and appreciating the nature in the hills near Yokohama including hot springs and Mt. Fuji. We were surprised and shocked to find all public places-footpath, roads, stations, bus stops and toilets were spotlessly clean (clean like home). Another surprise was that weather forecast was very reliable and available in the lift lobby of the buildings. Being an island country, it would rain any time and this forecast helped. We also got introduced to huge superstores and malls. Some malls were part of railway stations e.g. Yokohama. We also got to know the vending machine culture of Japan. Many daily required items (soft drinks, coffee, tea, snacks, milk, beer, cigarette etc) could be purchased from vending machines which were all over- on footpath, near stations, lift lobbies, parks etc.Even train tickets were on a vending machine. We also made our first visit to entertainment parks like Disneyland. We also got used to the deep tub (OFURO) bath that Japanese used to keep warm during winter. I got introduced to Sumo, the Japanese wrestling and professional baseball.

We moved to Muscat, Oman for two and a half years in the late 90’s. Other than the high temperatures (summer could be + 50 Deg C), the life was very enjoyable. Oman was an exception in the Middle East and it honored Indians and Hindus. The biggest hurdle to mobility was a driving license and I got it fast luckily. I was glad to drive around in a Camry, poor person’s Mercedes. We were regular visitors to 200 year old Shiva temple and newly built Krishna temple, both built and managed by kutchi community. We were able to buy Indian vegetables and fruits easily and reasonably priced. There was easy access to Indian restaurants and street food. We got introduced to Kerala paratha (laccha paratha) and some tandoori roti from Pakistani outlets. We got introduced to Lebanese cuisine and we loved it. We could go out for dinner, which also offered Indian music or Egyptian belly dance. We were privileged to see Hindi movies on Thursday night, a day before they were released in Mumbai. We were able to drive down to Dubai in 4 hours (400 Kms) and enjoy the shopping. Driving was a pleasure as all had to follow the traffic rules and they were followed. Muscat had lovely road side greenery and flowers, and they were maintained with great efforts. Muscat airport restaurant was open for non-muslims during Ramadan and that was a big relief.

After retiring from a Pune company in 2012, I took a short assignment in Bangalore. We were lucky to stay in huge residential complex in Whitefield. First time in our life, we stayed in high rise building on the 11th floor. We enjoyed the famous Bangalore weather but had to face mosquito menace. The complex had a zero water requirement as it treated and re-circulated most of the sewage. It, however, gave a bad smell in parking area (basement). We had to bear bad water quality. We used aqua guard treated water for cooking and bought Bisleri for drinking. The water quality also reflected in poor quality of green vegetables. Another problem we faced was traffic jams- it took almost 90 minutes from our residence to reach the airport. Most facilities in our area were catering to IT crowd and hence it was re-adjustment for us.

In conclusion, I can say that present day life style is a mixture of what we picked up from different cities. Ironically my wife always wanted and wants things from the cities we left behind. For example, she wants palak, green peas and fulgobi (vegetables) from Delhi, Fish from Mumbai, Farsan from Ahmedabad, Miso soup and Yakisoba from Japan, Mysore pak from Bangalore. These small things keep us connected to the cities we had lived in.

#Ahmadabad #pilani #mumbai #pune #yokohama #muscat #delhi

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rjzimmerman · 6 years

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Not quite the Jetsons. Are we ready to have a bunch of tiny airplanes flying above us at relatively low levels? What about a control infrastructure, so that we don’t have crashes up there with bodies and metal litter falling on us? Is this something that can be “egalitarian,” or will its intended consumer be the wealthy (bet so).

Excerpt:

Autonomous vehicles have only just begun to navigate our streets and already the world’s innovators are setting their sights on the next big transportation trend.

Flying taxis.

Uber plans to create a network of flying taxis in Dubai and the Dallas area by the year 2020. Kitty Hawk — a flying car startup created by Google cofounder Larry Page — is already offering test flights to potential customers.

This week Rolls-Royce entered the fray, unveiling a concept electric vertical takeoff and landing (EVTOL) vehicle at the Farnborough International Airshow in the UK. The vehicle could carry five passengers at speeds of 250 mph for approximately 500 miles, according to Rolls-Royce.

Rolls-Royce said the vehicle could be airborne by the early 2020s, but the company said it plans to create a vehicle prototype within the next 18 months.

Rolls-Royce said the vehicle would fill a niche created by overtaxed transportation systems in increasingly crowded cities. Watson told Agence France-Presse that he envisions an electric version of the vehicle moving passengers around a city but a hybrid propulsion system carrying passengers longer distances, such as between London and Paris. The company noted that the vehicle could be adapted for military purposes as well, though no detail was provided.

“Electrification is an exciting and inescapable trend across industrial technology markets and while the move to more electric propulsion will be gradual for us, it will ultimately be a revolution,” Watson said.

#flying cars #flying taxis

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new-haryanvi-ragni · 2 years

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Fly above traffic! THIS Chinese firm tests electric flying taxi in Dubai

Tired of traffic on roads? Worry no more as commuters will soon be able to fly above traffic as THIS Chinese firm tests electric flying taxi in Dubai, reports AP. source https://zeenews.india.com/aviation/fly-above-traffic-this-chinese-firm-tests-electric-flying-taxi-in-dubai-2520468.html

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dailytechnologynews · 6 years

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Top Ten Predictions FOR 2050

Autonomous vehicles become widespread – this should happen well before 2050 in developed countries (perhaps by 2030). The global road toll, currently over one million deaths a year, will eventually decline by 90% or more. Car ownership will continue for rise for a time (especially in poorer countries) then eventually start to decline. More efficient, autonomous, Uber-like taxis come to dominate road systems. Owning a personal car will eventually be much more expensive (especially as human drivers become increasingly hard to insure). ‘Flying’ versions (of the sort recently trialled in places like Dubai, like small electric helicopters) slowly emerge as well, albeit reserved for the very wealthy.

Other wealthy people and car enthusiasts will continue to own (regular) cars a long way into the future (like horses today). However in many countries, humans may eventually be banned/severely restricted from driving on public roads due to safety concerns (despite how unimaginable this may seem today). In the developed world at least, one of the last holdouts will be the US, as conservative politicians trumpet the rights of law-abiding car owners.

The space program takes off, but slowly – given current plans (especially by private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin) I would give at least 50% odds we will have a man on Mars by 2030 (only 12 years away). In just the last few years SpaceX in particular has proven the feasibility of reusable rockets. Pretty much all the requisite technologies are now here and the pace will slowly pick up as costs come down.

By 2050 several countries/major companies are likely to have space stations in Earth orbit, bases on the Moon and even Mars. Like bases in Antarctica today, these will mainly serve research and tourism purposes (plus a purely geopolitical one in staking out future territory i.e. the US and China build separate bases on the moon and then each claim a hemisphere). More probes will continue to be sent to the outer solar system. The earliest human missions to Jupiter or Saturn space may be in their early stages by 2050. Early efforts to mine the resources of the asteroid belt may be under way. Space-based solar power might have become a reality around Earth (though I suspect that, like nuclear power before it, the public will be sufficiently terrified by the thought of giant space lasers that plans will be stymied even if the experts say the safety concerns are greatly exaggerated). Space elevators remain impractical.

The world successfully finds new sources of energy and copes with climatic changes – for decades many people (some of them highly educated) have predicted that something akin to ‘peak oil’ was imminent and that shortly afterward the world might plunge into a Mad Max-style dystopia. This is unlikely. Not only have the world’s oil, coal and natural gas reserves proven to be vast enough to likely last us generations, but even if all fossil fuels vanished tomorrow, the world has enough uranium to supply our energy needs for thousands of years. CO2 levels will continue to rise and with it global temperatures will continue to tick upwards. However, the industrial capacity and ingenuity of the human race rises much faster. In 2018 your odds of dying from a natural disaster are an order of magnitude less than in 1900. This trend will continue.

The world’s urban population doubles between 2010 and 2050 (from 3.5 to 7 billion). Major coastal cities eventually construct elaborate flood levees as sea levels rise maybe two or three feet by the end of the century. Even in poorer countries, better infrastructure majorly cuts down on deaths due to disease, famine, floods, storms and other disasters (in the long run earthquakes remain the most unpredictable and thus the most dangerous). The predicted ‘climate refugees’ largely fail to eventuate, though millions are always seeking to enter the first world to find higher paying work, especially as automation ramps up and ‘cheap labour’ is no longer the powerful driver of growth it once was.

Fossil fuels remain the primary source of energy in 2050. However, solar, wind, nuclear and now fusion power plants are rapidly coming on line. By 2050 several record breaking tunnels, including from Sicily-Tunisia and Korea-Japan, have been constructed. A number of buildings over 1km tall have been built, with the highest (likely built in a prestige-hungry African country) surpassing 1.5km.

Major confrontations between the US and China over Taiwan and the South China Sea – there will almost certainly be at least one more (and possibly several) sequels to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd ‘Taiwan Strait Crises’. This could take many forms. It might start with a Chinese blockade of the island, or an attempt to seize another, more minor Taiwanese asset (Taiping Island in the Spratlys stands out for instance, or possibly Kinmen and Matsu closer to the mainland). One such scenario is depicted here

Hard to be specific but I would predict better than 50% odds you will see Chinese and US warships shooting at each other at some point. However, I also think the odds are very low it will escalate into WW3. As both sides have nuclear-tipped ICBMs and the American and Chinese homelands are sufficiently far apart battles are likely to be confined to sea, air and fairly remote islands (though space and cyberspace are also likely). Other countries like Japan and Australia could easily get involved.

Hostilities may last for years but the eventual death toll will probably be in the thousands rather than the millions. More dire scenarios see a physical Chinese land invasion of Taiwan (though it is hard to see this succeeding) or a major escalation whereby one side tries to shoot down the other’s satellites, causing a chain reaction that destroys more or less everything in LEO. This, or a China-US trade embargo (10X worse than the current ‘trade war’) plus a prolonged shutdown of seagoing trade in the S. China Sea would cause severe economic disruption. However, again, probably no nukes and no WW3. My ultimate guess is that the US Navy prevails and in 2050 Taipei is still independent of Beijing (indeed – probably openly so).

Global politics will realign as demographic change and economic growth sees the rise of certain countries – in broad strokes this is fairly obvious, but we can take a stab at a few specifics. Despite earlier fears of runaway growth the global population is expected to increase from today’s 7.5 billion to maybe 10 billion in 2050 and thereafter stabilize. Also, despite much misinformation and fear-mongering the world today is much richer and healthier today than ever before.

The existing western world will maintain its dominance for some time yet. The United States in particular is projected to have healthy population growth well into the future. The US population should be around 400 million by 2050 (albeit increasingly diverse) and still third in the world (though Nigeria might overtake them towards the end of this century).

China since 1980 is the obvious model for other poor countries (though worth noting their streak of ‘10% annual GDP growth’ burned out in 2010, they have averaged 6-7% since). India’s economy is now growing faster than China’s and its population will overtake theirs by 2025 but it is starting from a much lower base. Despite many predictions, I suspect the US will remain no.1 in GDP at least until 2030 and will still be 1st or 2nd in 2050 (with China the only real competitor).

A complete implosion of China is possible. This could be caused by an economic crisis or a failed military venture abroad which destroys the legitimacy of the communist party and sparks a revolution calling for democratic and other reforms. Perhaps in tandem with this, North Korea implodes and is reunified with South Korea (this is unlikely to occur without a major change in China first, given their status as essentially a buffer state with the US-backed south).

One possible state that stands out as a future superpower is the ‘East African Federation’, an intended evolution of the existing ‘East African Community’ that now includes Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan. At present these states are very poor, with a combined GDP smaller than New Zealand. However, they are now growing at 6% a year. Linked by Swahili as a common lingua franca they are expected to have a population of 410 million by 2050 and 800 million by 2100 – not far behind India and China. If their political integration succeeds and their economic growth continues, the EAF could emerge as a major world power by mid-century.

Population declines and changing resource markets will cause the decline of other countries - on the flip side to the above, countries like Japan and Russia have a bleak demographic outlook. Russia in particular with anaemic economic growth and a growing Muslim minority may face substantial internal instability. The decline of oil (either due to the spread of new technologies or simply a global shortage) will also contribute. The country could even collapse entirely as depicted here

Individual European states face demographic and (relative) economic decline. However if the European Union survives as an institution (I would give better than 50% odds) its combined population of 450 million (even without the UK) and historical economic strength should help it remain a major world power well into the century. The anglosphere countries will continue to benefit from the rise of English to the global lingua franca.

In 2050 I suspect the Middle East, as in 2018 or indeed 1950, will continue to be something of a war-torn shithole. The brewing cold war between Sunni-Saudi Arabia and Shia-Iran is just beginning. Both could eventually get nukes (and then things get real interesting). The decline of oil, increasing calls for democracy/secularism/modernisation and ongoing ethnic tensions will all ensure continued chaos. An independent Kurdistan is likely to become a reality eventually. Turkey, now resurgent and by far the strongest country in the region, could take advantage of the weaknesses of the Arab states to advance south into its historical realm of influence (the entire region having been controlled by them until 1918).

On the whole Africa’s economic outlook is now improving and its demographics indicate that 40% of the world will be African by 2100. However, they still have a long way to go. Major wars, revolutions, epidemics and other disasters are likely to strike numerous times before then as they have in the previous 60 years since the withdrawal of the European colonial powers. I suspect in the next decade or two racial tensions in South Africa will also come to a head and the white minority will be forced to flee the country, i.e. Rhodesia in the 1980s.

Neural implants evolve from today’s smartphones – As we went from room-sized computers to PCs to laptops to smartphones (and maybe smartwatches and smartglasses as well) the ultimate result will be unobtrusive brain-computer interfaces that will quickly become universal (if not exactly mandatory – but trying staying employed without one). As with past computer technologies, the earliest adopters (from maybe the late 2020s) will be tech enthusiasts, time-pressed businessmen, and the young. Over another decade or so they will spread to the rest of the population in developed countries (with some inevitable holdouts, generally the elderly with little appetite to embrace more technologies and those with religious or other objections). Poorer countries (though now catching up) will be another decade or two behind. However, even in darkest Africa neural implants will probably be arriving by 2050 or so, as electricity and the internet already are today.

So what is a neural implant? Think of a smartphone but one that bypasses your ‘traditional’ senses. Rather than looking at a screen or listening via speakers, information will be beamed directly into your neocortex. Images/text/sounds and possibly other sensations will simply appear in your vision/hearing. This would apply to everything. When you walk down a shopping strip advertisements will flash up in your vision. When you want to communicate with someone, text/audio/video messages can be wordlessly exchanged via a little box popping up in the corner of your field of view. You can browse the global internet, check the weather, etc simply via thought commands. You can set a morning alarm that will wake up nobody but you! It’s at least as big a revolution in our lives as everything internet-related since 1990.

Of course, all this would come with staggering privacy concerns (i.e. the government or someone else being able to hack into your very nervous system and observe what you sense/observe – or perhaps even being able to ‘take control’ themselves depending on the nature of the implant). However, society finds ways to deal with these concerns, as we already have carrying smartphones around in our pockets. Expect to see a few neural-implant-Edward-Snowdens.

Major enhancements to the human body, either through gene therapy or surgery, start to become possible – neural implants are one thing, but just one element of our shift into what are essentially cyborgs. Artificial organs are already on the horizon. Designer babies are well on the way. Genetic doping in sports is probably already around. Genetically modified crops are already decades old.

Want to guarantee your kids will grow to be at least six foot? Have perfect vision and teeth? Such gene therapy will eventually not only be permitted, but calls will abound to make it free and universal (like education or healthcare today). On the plus side, our children and grandchildren will increasingly be free of the heavy burdens of genetic disease. On the other hand, if everyone’s kid has a perfect smile and can learn to play the violin with ease – how else does one stand out? Major social problems typical of a ‘modern’ society, such as obesity and drug abuse, will finally start to reverse after decades.

Of course, inequality will be a problem. Just as it is the world’s wealthy offspring who have access to braces or laser eye surgery today, the poor will have to do with their ‘natural’ bodies until such breakthroughs spread. A heart attack will prove fatal to an old man in Africa. In Europe it may mean the installation of a new heart and another decade of life. However, this is just the beginning.

Anti-aging efforts start to bear fruit – this one has many question marks attached, but I would expect that substantial progress will eventually be made. Global life expectancy is now 72 years, up from 67 in the year 2000 or 48 in 1950. Most of this has been as the ‘low-hanging fruit’ of vaccines, improved sanitation and nutrition and other changes have finally spread to the third world.

Modern medicine tells us the human body is an immensely complicated machine. Slicing and dicing our DNA is still proving immensely hard. Nonetheless, aging doesn’t seem to be an immutable law (like breaking the light barrier or time travel or anything). Once our understanding of the human body is sufficiently advanced, reversing every aspect of the aging process seems very possible. Maybe I’m falling into the usual trap of hoping for such developments before I get old (I will be nearing 60 in 2050) but I suspect we might finally be getting close. However, for a task of this magnitude, we might have to wait for the next step – the breakthrough to end all breakthroughs.

The singularity – this is the biggest question mark of all. While I feel the world until 2050 is relatively foreseeable (barring a nuclear war, solar flare, etc) the rise of superintelligent AIs is an event so overwhelming as to put all other predictions in doubt. Even if Moore’s law slows it is unlikely to stop, and current trends put the capabilities of silicon computers well ahead of anything our puny human brains can do by mid-century.

Suffice it to say I think the worst predictions about the singularity are unlikely to come to pass. Most apocalyptic scenarios about an AI taking over the world see a massive divide between that AI and the puny humans of 2018 (or earlier). By 2050 many humans will already be well on their way to becoming cyborgs. AIs of all shades will have been developed, doing everything from playing chess matches to playing the stock market. The gap between a ‘superintelligent’ AI and the rest of the world won’t be nearly as great, decreasing the odds that a single rogue entity will be able to hold the rest of the world hostage to its pre-programmed whims.

Nonetheless, the proliferation of superintelligence will strain every institution of our modern world. Major, apparently unassailable concepts like democracy and capitalism and the superiority of human life will come under question. Why bother with the cumbersome nature of a democratic legislature or the chaos of a free market, if a perfect AI can make better decisions? Why respect the world’s existing governments, if all their armies and weapons have suddenly been made obsolete by some godlike alliance of AIs? Why even bother with the ‘real’ world at all, if you can transfer your brain patterns to a hard drive smaller than your thumb and inhabit whatever virtual reality you please? In a world where humans as we’ve known them for the past 100,000 years have suddenly become obsolete, whatever will our silicon offspring do next?

#Futurology #Technology #Tech #Studies #Humanity #Development #New #Gadgets

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pogueman · 6 years

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Look up! A dozen 'air taxi' flying cars are readying for takeoff

yahoo

Well, it may have been 56 years since “The Jetsons” was first on TV, but flying cars are finally about to become real.

The last few months have been filled with news of companies that unveiled, demonstrated, or released videos of their “air taxis,” as they’re often called. They’re basically giant-sized versions of drones — giant enough to carry a person, or two, or five.

Why now? Because all the necessary ingredients have aligned: Batteries with high enough energy density to carry these copters into the air; composite materials like carbon fiber light enough to work; avionics (aircraft software and electronics, developed for regular drones) cheap and reliable enough to adapt; and collision-avoidance systems advanced enough to keep these things from crashing.

The beauty of these personal copters is that since they’re all electric, they’re really quiet. They could fly at low altitude without becoming a nuisance to people on the ground. And, of course, they’re pollution-free: zero emissions.

All of these models can be autonomous. You plug in your destination, and the thing flies you there. Some have a joystick so that you can seize control of it if you want, and most can also be remote controlled.

These air taxis are built with redundancies of the major elements, so even if something goes wrong, you won’t drop out of the air. Many have low-altitude parachutes, too.

Now, don’t get all excited. You can’t buy a passenger drone yet — that moment will probably come in 2020 at the earliest, and they’ll cost hundreds of thousands apiece. Even then, nothing will happen in the U.S. until the Federal Aviation Administration comes up with rules to govern how these things use the airspace.

Oh, and by the way: Even with all the advances in batteries and materials, these things are still super limited in flight time. You’re lucky to get 20 minutes in the air.

But the trend is unmistakable: A lot of companies have working prototypes that are taking real people on real flights.

Who’s taking off first?

Here are some of the flying machines that have surfaced recently:

eHang 184

This Chinese drone maker has been working on the eHang air taxi for four years, and it’s fairly far along. Since the capsule holds only one person, it’s small — about the size of a car. The prototype has made over 1,000 tests in China, sometimes in high winds and at even at night.

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Here are the specs:

10-mile range

80 mph top speed

Partnered with the Dubai government, who wants to develop air taxis to service its cities

Lands automatically in case of a malfunction

A two-passenger model is on the drawing board.

Volocopter

One of the highlights of CES 2018 was watching this gigantic, 18-rotor craft land on the stage during Intel’s keynote presentation. (Also at CES: The Volocopter’s first passenger was Intel’s CEO, Brian Krzanich.)

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The details:

Designed and built in Germany, where it has approval to fly

Autonomous, joystick-operated, or remote controlled

Carries two passengers

18 rotors, parachute

70mph cruising, 17-mile range

Conducting test flights in Dubai

Estimated price $300,000

Passenger Drone

Weirdly enough, this California passenger-drone company is called Passenger Drone, and so is its product — the Passenger Drone. It carried its first passenger in November.

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16 rotors on 8 spindles

Autonomous, joystick-operated, or remote controlled

Carries two passengers

Top speed: 45 mph

25 minutes per charge

20-minute flight time

Joby

This copter is the brainchild of JoeBen Bevirt, who made his fortune from selling — I kid you not —flexible-arm GorillaPod camera tripods. Now, with the help of $100 million in investments from Toyota, JetBlue Technology Ventures, and Intel, it’s preparing a sleek VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) copter that can carry four passengers and a pilot for 150 miles. (Full disclosure: My wife does PR work for JetBlue Tech Ventures.)

A couple of weeks ago, Joby invited a pair of Bloomberg reporters to witness an unmanned flight. They weren’t allowed to take pictures or even describe the thing, which is a bummer. But they watched it fly, remote controlled, for a 15-minute flight. “Bevirt says thousands of these sky cabs will one day shuttle people around cities, soaring above the conventional traffic below,” goes the article.

Vahana

This prototype, developed by European plane maker AirBus, has propellers that point upward for takeoff, like a helicopter’s, and then rotate forward, like a plane’s. The company flew it, unmanned, for the first time last month.

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Details are sketchy — they don’t even have a website (only a blog) — but here’s what we know:

Single-passenger

“Productzable prototype” in 2020

Parachute

Illium

Unlike most air taxis, which are propeller planes, this one is an electric jet with a 180-mile range.

Here’s the video of its maiden (unmanned) flight:

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The bullet points:

Holds two people

180-mile range

275 mph

Vertical take-off and landing

First manned flight planned for 2019; on-demand flights by 2025

Based in Germany

And the rest

Just about any deep-pocketed company who’s anyone is diving in. For example:

Uber Elevate, its self-driving air taxis, are nothing more than a white paper and a killer CGI video at this point. But clearly, they’re all in on the concept; they expect to launch the air-taxi service within a decade.

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Boeing bought Aurora Flight Services, maker of VTOL planes, in hopes of exploring the air-taxi concept.

Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet, has spent $100 million to fund two electric-craft companies. There’s Zee.Aero, which has prototypes for two VTOL electric passenger planes, and Kitty Hawk, which is making a no-license-required personal hovercraft for use over water.

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Zunum Aero is working on electric versions of traditional passenger jets (700-mile range).

The Zunum Aero will be an all-electric jet.

We know this much about technology and disruptive change: Everything takes longer than we think, everything has unintended consequences, and everything’s subject to government regulation.

But with this much money and so many companies all chasing this dream, it seems likely that air taxis really will take off — at some point.

David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes non-toxic comments in the Comments below. On the Web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s @pogue. On email, he’s [email protected]. You can sign up to get his stuff by email, here.

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wildcat2030 · 7 years

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Dubai is moving full steam ahead toward a futuristic skyline dotted with modern skyscrapers and flying taxis by kicking off trials of the Volocopter two-seater aircraft. The all-electric 18-rotor vehicle took to the skies for the first time over the city on Monday as the city looks to establish what would be world's first self-flying taxi service.

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livioacerbo · 4 years

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Volocopter is researching the best air taxis routes in Southeast Asia

In 2018, Volocopter said it planned to fly autonomous air taxis within five years. So far, its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles have taken flight in Dubai, Helsinki, Las Vegas, Stuttgart and Singapore, where Volocopter recently opened offices. The company has also proven that its eVTOLs can integrate with manned and unmanned air traffic control.

For the upcoming feasibility…

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endenogatai · 4 years

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Volocopter kicks off presales for its first air taxi flights — with a wait time of 2-3 years

If your sad-faced technology mantra is ‘we were promised flying cars and all we got were these shitty Internet trolls’ never fear, Berlin-based autonomous air mobility startup, Volocopter, wants to revive your sci-fi dreams.

It’s just kicked off presales for trips in its forthcoming electric air taxi service, VoloCity — albeit, there’s no date on when exactly (or where) the commercial service will fire up. But if you shell out for one of the 1,000 available pre-launch reservations — which it’s branding ‘VoloFirst’* — you’ll be able to look forward to a future flight of up to 15 minutes, within 12 months of the service’s commercial launch, whenever and wherever that will be.

“Services will start in 2-3 years,” a Volocopter spokeswoman told us. “Cities are not defined yet, as it is not clear which of the many cities we are in contact with for commercial start will make the race.”

The price for the limited edition joyride — which will include a video of your trip and a “limited edition, personalized certificate” — is €300 (~$355).

Volocopter notes that tickets can be reserved with a 10% deposit.

“Based on our public test flights and regulatory achievement record, we have paved the way to make electric flight in cities common in just a few years. With the start of reservations, we now invite our supporters and innovators around the world to join us and be amongst the first to experience this new and exciting form of mobility,” said Volocopter CEO Florian Reuter in a supporting statement.

“While the final certification for air taxis is still pending, we do have a detailed realistic timeline to launch commercial VoloCity flights in the next 2-3 years,” added Volocopter’s chief commercial officer, Christian Bauer, in another, further noting that VoloFirst ticket buyers will be able to get the latest updates on its progress and commercial launch plan.

Reservations for the VoloFirst flights are available via the Volocopter Reservation Platform.

The German startup undertook the first-ever manned flight of a purely electric multicopter back in 2011, and has gone on to demo numerous public flights with its full-scale aircraft — including public test flights at Singapore’s Marina Bay in October 2019 and the world’s first autonomous eVTOL flight in Dubai in 2017.

The company topped up its Series C funding round to $94M earlier this year, bringing its total raised to circa $132M.

It’s one of a number of flying taxi startups vying to get a commercial service off the ground. Others include EHang, Lilium and Airbus with its Vahana VTOL.

*Volocopter doesn’t guarantee ‘VoloFirst’ trip buyers will be the first public users of the air taxi service — rather it says these early birds will have “among the first” bragging rights

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warmdevs · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://warmdevs.com/the-future-of-blockchain-technology-partnerships-with-ai-bots-and-iot.html

The Future of Blockchain: Technology Partnerships with AI, Bots, and IoT

Each technology we use offers some type of benefit. However, advantages rapidly increase by integrating numerous technologies. While Superman can save the day, there is no chance for evil to win when he joins the Justice League.

In this case, the blockchain, which is the decentralized ledger behind cryptocurrency and smart contracts, is the superhero. It can seemingly accomplish impossible by providing solutions to long-standing security and efficiency issues. Yet, its powers can be strengthened by combining it with other technologies and tools, such as artificial intelligence and bots.

Here’s what integrating these technologies can mean for industries, companies, and cities.

A Retail Powerhouse Platform

Even when a technology offers solutions that previous tools did not, it still may not be able to address every issue. However, when combined with other technologies, the synergies tend to cover more of these problem areas. For example, OSA DC is an AI-driven blockchain that helps by collecting real-time data from multiple channels, including retail, manufacturing, and consumer, to provide insights for better decision-making. The machine learning-enabled system takes all this data to quickly uncover patterns. However, it goes beyond this benefit with other services.

Consumers can receive more transparent product information so they know exactly what they are buying and more about its origins. Smart contracts keep retailers honest about what they are doing, which builds trust and holds everyone to a higher standard. Additionally, the AI mechanism collects consumer feedback that retailers can immediately incorporate into their strategy.

Service, Marketing, and Customer Engagement

Then, certain combinations of technology provide a more universal benefit like when you combine AI, chatbots, and blockchain. And, more businesses and consumers are becoming accustomed to the idea of interacting with a chatbot. According to Chatbots Magazine, “Chatbots that operate in various immediate message exchange systems is a growing tendency, which doesn’t seem to show any signs of slowing down in the nearest future. A Facebook IQ research presents the following data: 67% of pollees expect to communicate with vendors and service providers via chat more often in the future. The clients and the business on the Facebook Messenger platform reportedly exchange over a billion messages a month.”

As these chatbots become increasingly more knowledgeable through being put through the paces of assisting with customer service requests and marketing interactions, they will be able to do more and become more seamless in their communication capabilities. For example, the current natural language processing is still rudimentary, but the future shows the promise of more sophisticated conversations. Chatbots will be able to handle complex requests from prospects and customers. That means more satisfied customers. They get answers to their questions or concerns on their terms rather than between set hours.

Smart Cities: IoT, Blockchain, and AI

With more companies looking to undertake digital transformations, cities have also started considering what this same process might mean for key issues related to infrastructure, crime and security, energy consumption, and social issues. As The Hill explained, “Smart cities can reduce resource consumption, using IoT devices to optimize the use of electricity and water; reduce traffic congestion and air pollution through smart coordination of traffic lights, parking availability, and public transportation; and harness the power of big data and ubiquitous IoT devices to enhance the efficiency and livability of the urban environment.” Adding artificial intelligence to smart city development has allowed for the implementation of distributed computing for real-time data analysis and immediate actions.

A new group is working toward getting 100 cities to implement the same smart city standards and connect with each other for further benefits. Coin Telegraph offered four case studies on how blockchain, AI, and connected devices are helping develop the cities of the future. For example, “Dubai is considered one of the most digitally progressive cities in the world. With unmanned trains, automated sensors, flying taxis, solar panels, and Wi-Fi benches, perhaps it has everything that an avid futurist needs. The authorities of the Emirates are not stopping at what has already been reached and are actively implementing the most innovative ideas in order to turn the city into the first blockchain-based smart megapolis by 2020.” This is just one example of what can change thanks to the blockchain, AI, and IoT

Addressing Blockchain and AI Limitations

Although the blockchain can do some amazing things, there are still limitations to this relatively new technology. A Medium article on these limitations listed some of the blockchain’s limitations. These included significant energy consumption during the mining process, scalability problems, and some security vulnerabilities. Other problems include privacy, efficiency, hardware, and a lack of talent that understands the real power of this technology. Enter AI. Integrating machine learning to the blockchain can efficiently power the blockchain in a cost-effective way. Plus, it adds virtual talent to improve on what this technology can do.

Also, blockchain can help AI progress. As the article stated, the blockchain can help AI explain itself. “The AI black-box suffers from an explainability problem. Having a clear audit trail can not only improve the trustworthiness of the data as well as of the models but also provide a clear route to trace back the machine decision process.” Additionally, the blockchain has already proven it can add efficiency and speed to transactions. Therefore, it can do the same for AI, propelling it to learn at a faster rate. The blockchain’s model offers a good benchmark for organizing information in a more efficient way.

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