Archive for May 19th, 2008:
Are jet packs a reality?
Well, the year 2000 has come and went and still I have no flying car or jet pack to use to get to the office every morning. I had almost given up hope of this happening in my lifetime until I stumbled upon a video of a Swiss man demonstrating a prototype jet wing that he flew for 10 minutes at speeds up to 186 mph. One of those bad boys could really shave some time off my daily commute.
May 14 – Known as ‘Fusion Man’, a former pilot has stunned crowds by flying a jet-propelled wing for nearly ten minutes at a peak speed of 300 km/h (186 mph).
Yves Rossy, a Swiss former military pilot and Airbus commander for Swiss airlines completed an official demonstration on Wednesday (May 14, 2008) in the Swiss Chablais region, where he was released from a plane at 2438 metres (8000 feet) with his wing folded.
He deployed his craft after a short free-fall and began his flight. After a flight of almost ten minutes, he deployed his parachute, folded the wing and landed at the Bex airdrome.
Zilok.com, a site for peer-to-peer renting, officially launches today
Zilok.com, a San Francisco-based peer-to-peer website designed to allow users to rent goods to each other, officially launched today. Whether you’re looking for camping gear, computers, cameras, party supplies, tools, gardening equipment, sporting goods, or dozens of other rarely used items, Zilok is hoping you’ll consider renting rather than buying. They give the example of a power drill, a tool that only receives an average of 12 minutes of use in its lifetime, as one item that may be more economical to rent rather than buy. Zilok claims that there are thousands of other items that people often buy to use just once. Besides being more economical to rent, the site claims that it’s better for the environment as well.
While I find the concept interesting, I’d be nervous to rent out my hundreds of dollars worth of camping gear, for example, without a significant deposit and some sort of legally binding contract. The site seems to have a much larger potential for scam artist abuse than even auction sites like Ebay. I suppose you could ask for a deposit equal to the value of your items to protect yourself from loss, but this would make it unlikely for anyone to rent from you. Still, it will be interesting to watch Zilok and see if they become the Ebay of peer-to-peer rentals.