Important Innovations Collection

Reconfigurable With Passenger or Cargo Cabins `                                       Source:  Flexcraft Consortium Wings Fly Home On Their Own Portugal's Flexcraft electric flying car design has won the Gold Prize in the Transport category of the International Design Awards.  The technology and innovation tucked into the design of this modular vehicle are disruptive innovation. The vehicle is reconfigurable and capable of a variety of missions.  It can carry a passenger or cargo cabin and can be used for luxury transport, humanitarian cargo missions or medical evacuations. The cabin is connected to the wings for flight.  But after landing, the wings detach and the 3-wheeled cabin drives to its destination as an electric car.  The wings can fly themselves to a pre-programmed location, perhaps to pick up another cabin.  The cabin and the wings a...

 Roc Aces Second Test Flight                                             Source:  Stratolaunch Huge Aircraft Designed to Carry Hypersonic Vehicles for the Pentagon Stratolaunch, the aerospace company founded by the late co-founder of Microsoft Paul Allen, has successfully test flown its huge airplane, Roc, for the second time.  The double fuselage carrier plane is the world's largest aircraft by wingspan.  The wingspan is 385 feet, which is more than double that of a 747 aircraft. Test Flight Roc is powered by six engines.  In the test flight, it reached a peak altitude of 2.6 miles over the Mojave Desert.  The flight lasted 3 hours, 14 minutes and was flawless.  The test demonstrated how the plane handles cabin pressurization and new hardware upgrades. Hypersonic Future Roc is designed to carry Stratolaunch's fully aut...

Cezeri Successfully Test Flights                                   Source:  Cezeri Flying Car, Baykar  eVTOL Quadcopter Turkey's first flying car, named Cezeri, has successfully completed its first series of test flights.  Tethered and untethered, the 507 pound vehicle rose and hovered 33 feet in the air.  The vehicle is an electric, vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) quadcopter.  The test flights, done by remote control in Istanbul, took place a year and a half after local engineers came up with the concept and started drawing designs. Technology The Cezeri is composed of large quadcopter-like blades with a small, glass enclosed pilot/passenger unit and take-off/landing gear grounded underneath.  It flies entirely on electricity.  It has eight electric motors, propellers and a rechargeable battery.  With three redundant intelligent flight systems...

Pill Microneedle Source:  MIT Radically New Technology Delivers Insulin Harvard, MIT and insulin manufacturer Novo Nordisk have invented a pill that attaches to the stomach to deliver insulin.  For many with Type One diabetes, this could become an attractive alternative to daily injections of insulin by needles. The new capsule is being hailed by global experts as a "radically new technology". The capsule is the size of a blueberry. Innovative Treatment The  capsule contains a microneedle made of freeze dried insulin.  It also contains a tiny stainless steel spring that's held in place by a disc of sugar.  The sugar dissolves in the stomach, releasing the spring.  The spring pushes the microneedle into the stomach lining.  The insulin dissolves into the stomach at a consistent rate.  The research team's tests in pigs have proved the capsule to be as effective as daily insulin injections. More Therapies The researchers believe the cap...