DAILY INNOVATION BRIEF by Edward Kane, Journalist
DAILY INNOVATION BRIEF
By Journalists Edward Kane & Maryanne Kane
PERSONAL FLYING MACHINE TO REPLACE CARS
Source: Zapata
- French entrepreneur Franky Zapata, the man who flew his hoverboard over the English Channel, has designed a personal flying machine that anyone can fly with minimal training
- Here's what we know:
- Called the Airscooter
- Developed as an alternative to cars
- Cockpit is egg-shaped
- Flies as high as 9,800 feet
- Travelling at 62 mpg, Airscooter could take 10 minutes to complete a 2-hour car commute during peak traffic
- Uses 6 hybrid-powered rotors for propulsion
- Its carbon footprint is close to that of a passenger car
- VTOL that doesn't need a runway
- Range of 2 hour flights
- Only 1 person can fit inside
- Maximum payload 242.5 pounds
- Currently the company has no plans to sell Airscooter
- They do have plans for people to pay to fly it by themselves for 40 minutes
- First flight center will be in Lake Havasu, Arizona
- This new personal aerial vehicle is getting ready for a big takeoff with its first flights for paying operators in Arizona.
ADDING SOLAR PANELS TO EVs - NEW MEGATREND
Source: Stock
- A new ecofriendly automotive megatrend is developing: more and more automakers are adding solar systems to their EVs to extend the range with free sunshine
- Here's what we know:
- Toyota's next-generation Prius has an option of a solar roof that can charge the EV's battery
- Hyundai's Ioniq 5 offers a solar roof option that adds 1,200 miles of range a year
- Mercedes plans to offer the Vision EQX with a solar roof by the end of 2023 which will add 3,750 miles a year
- Fisker offers a full solar roof that adds 1,500 miles a year
- Sono Motors has covered the roof of its 5-seat Sion with solar panels, giving it 5,700 miles of free additional range
- Lightyear is putting solar panels on the roof and hood of its cars adding 500 free miles of range between charging
- Trucks, buses and trains are being outfitted with solar systems
- This is an emerging megatrend that will only grow bigger as solar systems advance and more vehicles become fully powered by solar power alone.
DIDN'T KNOW I COULD SPEAK 30 LANGUAGES!
- New York City-based ElevenLabs' AI Voice Generator can convert your voice into 30 languages that you didn't know you can speak
- Here's what we know:
- ElevenLabs, which specializes in AI voice intelligence, has developed a new Multilingual V2 model that can produce "emotionally rich" audio of a voice in 30 different languages
- 2 AI tech tools are being offered: text-to-speech and VoiceLab, which imports fragments of a voice to create a voice clone
- ElevenLabs says it has addressed any deep fake issues by requiring users to verify the voice is their own
- This is a controversial zone of AI usage as voice cloning technology has been used to impersonate the voices of well- known people and attribute the content to them
- ElevenLabs claims to have installed protections against it.
For more news stories like this, FLIGHT PATH TO THE FUTURE
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