Hiriko is a city car concept developed by MIT and named after, predictably, the Basque word for "urban." With "robot wheels" at each corner incorporating independent motors, suspension, and control systems, the car has more in common with the Mars rovers than conventional cars.
Are MIT's 'Double Bubble' Planes The Future Of Air Travel?
Fuel continue to be the largest operating expenditure for airlines and is expected to cost them an extra $40 billion this year. So, MIT's developing a new style of aircraft that could run on as little as 30 percent as today's 737's.
Autonomous Drones Could One Day Recognize Flight Crew Gestures
The flight deck on an aircraft carrier is like a perfectly choreographed ballet. And to ensure that unmanned autonomous aircraft fit right in, researchers at MIT are developing a system that will let drones recognize and follow gestures from the flight crew.
How Car Crash Modeling Technology Could Predict Offshore Drilling…
It's the billion-dollar question for offshore drilling giants: Could the Deepwater Horizon disaster have been prevented? Researchers at MIT's Impact and Crashworthiness Laboratory may have found at least a partial answer—the same kind of computer modeling that predicts whether car components can hold their own in a…
MIT's AIDA GPS Navigator Will Dazzle You with Information and then…
MIT's last AIDA driving concept seemed dubious enough—a robotic backseat driver who'd give you navigational (and emotional!) feedback. Still, annoying at worse. But 2.0, amazing as it seems, looks like it would amaze you into a flaming wreck.
DARPA Grand Challenge: A Battle of Wits
[Jalopnik's desert stringer Curtis Walker is following the DARPA Grand Challenge, an annual race of autonomous ground vehicles, with a serious case of the techies. We'll have his reports today on the National Qualifying Event semifinals, like this one, as soon as he can type them into his digital audio-visual receipt…
MIT Developing Spark Free Engines
Working to improve the efficiency of gasoline engines, researchers at MIT have demonstrated technology that could enable ordinary spark-ignition engines to shift into a spark-free mode. Crucially, the Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) creates simultaneous ignition throughout the combustion chamber,…
Living for the City: MIT's Stackable Urban Car
Futurists have been hot on the robotic urban pod model of transportation since the last flight of Laika, the dog cosmonaut. But with technology catching up with ideas, researchers are starting to come up with tangible prototypes. Take, for example, this folding-car concept from MIT Media Lab. Less a car than a CPU…
'Plasma-Turbo' Is Certainly One of the Best Hyphenates Ever: Wacky,…
Remember back when everything used to be "atomic?" Then somehow "nuclear" became the preferred phrase? But it seems to us, something as important of the fission and/or fusion of the atom should be a simple, agreed-upon pronunciation, so figures as important as presidents don't look like assholes when talking about things…
