Futuristic travel more down to earth, collaborative says study

by Chris Owen on

Thoughts of futuristic travel often bring images of commercial low-earth orbit flights, man on Mars or rediscovering the Moon. A new study highlights real-world programs and technology being developed right now that is much more common, affecting us all.

By 2020, all airports will be paperless and bags will be electronically tagged, according to the From Chaos to Collaboration report released this week by Amadeus, a leading provider of IT solutions to the travel and tourism industry Just eight years from now, the report says, travelers will be using fingerprint boarding passes and eye-scanning passports.

“We wanted to avoid making techno-centric assumptions about the future of travel – and painting a picture of flying cars and intelligent robots in a world that is otherwise unchanged from today,” Andrew Curry, director and co-author The Futures Company told Travelmole.
New technological innovation should take the stress out of travel, leaving passengers with nothing to remember and the ability to track the location of luggage at any time. Using fingerprints to check in is hoped to reduce or eliminate the lengthy queues and delays in manual check-in.

In the not too distant future, travelers will cruise through customs and immigration with just a scan of their retina…or a chip implanted in their arm.

“If you talk to a technologist they will tell you it’s perfectly possible to have a chip in your arm, or use facial recognition technology and walk on to a plane or a vehicle without checking in,” Tim Jones, a technology consultant, said in the report. “But it seems as if the regulators or border- control staff are intent on adding extra layers of security, rather than removing them.”

Coming up too, passengers will be able to use virtual tour guides to visit sites of interest through the same principles as gaming on smart phones and computers.

It’s all about harnessing technology to make travel in the future simpler and more efficient, “shifting focus from satisfying the needs and wants of individual travelers to providing the environment for networks and flows of travelers as a group to move and flourish” says the report.

“We hope that this study will challenge, provoke and stimulate thinking around how we will all be traveling in the future” added Curry.

Flickr photo by timo_w2s


Video of the Day: My Jet Pack

by Mike Barish on

We’ve covered jet packs before here at Gadling. We’ve looked at water-powered versions, jet packs used for stunts and attempts to bring jet packs to the masses. However, as a viable means of transportation, jet packs still seem to fall a bit short. That said, they are perfectly suited as inspiration for an epic New Wave travel song. While we might have to wait years about we lift our feet off the ground with a jet pack, we can at least tap those feet to the beat while listening to this little ditty about a jet pack, a girl and a magical trip to space.

Keep the dream alive!

NASA wants hypersonic plane, puts aside $15 million

by Tom Johansmeyer on

If NASA gets its way, layovers will become a thing of the past. It has plans in the works to develop hypersonic jets that would surpass the speed of sound by a factor of five. What’s the implication? Well, you get on a plane in New York and get off in Sydney a mere two and a half hours later. That’s a cut from the current flight duration of 21 hours, according to The Daily Mail. In addition to shortening existing routes, NASA also wants to put faraway places into play … including Mars.

According to the NASA Aeronautics 2010 proposal, it’s putting aside $5million a year for the next three years to support the development of this reusable aircraft. The Daily Mail continues:

The proposal says: ‘The hypersonic heating environment, coupled with the emphasis on reusability, creates additional severe technology challenges for materials, material coatings, and structures that not only carry the aerodynamic loads of the air but also repeatedly sustain high thermal loads requiring long-life and durability while minimizing weight.

It looks like the future may be close. The X-51A Waverider scramjet hit Mach 6 this summer and flew on its own for 200 seconds. But, it had to get started by being dropped from a B-52 bomber. NASA’s plan is for something that can take off and land on its own.

[photo by Bluedharma via Flickr]

Crazy dust storm covers Sydney in red haze

by Katie Hammel on

Residents and tourists in Sydney, Australia, might be feeling as though they been transported to Mars, and in fact, a glance around at the city covered in red dust against a red-orange sky does bring to mind images of what a colony on the red planet would look like. Despite its other-worldly appearance, the haze that converged on Sydney yesterday is earth-bound, composed of red dust from the Outback.

Australia has been suffering one of the worst periods of drought since the 1940’s and an eight-year dry spell and record high temperatures have combined to create the country’s worst dust storms in 70 years. The storms normally only affect the interior of the country, but this time, they’ve covered Sydney as well, all but shutting down the airport and halting the service of passenger ferries for several hours.

According to The Age, air quality in Sydney was reported as 40 times worse than the level regarded as “poor” and 20 times the “hazardous” level. People are being advised not to go outside, especially if they have respiratory problems, and to take care when driving in the poor visibility. Officials said they had received over 250 calls from people reporting breathing problems as a result of the thousands of tons of dust in the air.

The storms were visible on radar and their effects were felt as far away as New Zealand, 1400 miles away.

For more amazing images of the dust storm, click here.

Don’t miss the sky this Christmas!

by Abha Malpani on

I’ve always loved watching the sky, looking out for constellations, spotting the North Star and looking for Mars. Having lived in Dubai for a while, I had the opportunity to see amazingly clear and starry skies — ones only possible to see in the desert.

On that note, in case you haven’t caught the news already: today and tomorrow, the Moon and Mars will be the brightest and closest ever to the Earth.

The moon will be the highest-ever and 98% full, and Mars will be aligned with the Sun and the Earth so you will be able to see its full-face lit-up. They say it’s the first time in 47-years that we are able to see this and it’s unlikely to happen again until 2023.

Also, if you go out right after sunset tomorrow night, you are bound to see satellites and some shooting stars. So if you were wondering how to spend a perfect evening this Christmas Eve, you might want to get your binoculars out and add this to your list.

Happy Holidays!