It’s 2017, and as the refrain goes, where are the flying cars? Boeing is more interested in “personal flying devices” — aka, jetpacks — and is partnering with new organization GoFly to post a $2 million bounty for working designs. Kind of like an X Prize competition, the partners are giving teams two years to develop their tech before whomever impresses the judges at a “final fly-off” takes home money from the GoFly Prize pool. Boeing and other big names in aviation (along with DARPA) will lend their mentorship and technical expertise to the teams over the course of the contest. Winning is simple: The jetpack must carry a person 20 miles without refueling or recharging with vertical (or nearly vertical) take-off and landing. Teams will get technical guidelines — the competition is seeking a solution anyone can use that is ultra-compact, quiet and “urban-compatible” — but how they design or engineer their “personal flying device” is up to them. Competition prize money will be doled out in three phases: Ten teams with interesting written concepts will be given $20, 000 prizes, then four $50, 000 will be handed out for the best prototypes and revised technical specifications, before a winner at the “final fly-off” takes home $1 million. Even if they don’t win, teams may qualify for supplementary prizes at the last event, including $100, 000 for “disruptive advancement” of state-of-the-art aviation tech, $250, 000 for quietest entry and $250, 000 for the smallest. Teams can register for the first phase of competition now on the GoFly Prize site until April 4th, 2018. After that, teams must register for Phase II by December 8th, 2018. Source: GoFly Prize
Read this article:
Boeing offers a $2 million prize for a working jetpack
Long-time Slashdot reader brentlaminack writes: One of the first and best social bookmarking platforms, Del.icio.us has changed hands about four times, one was to Yahoo for > $15M. Its most recent relaunch was over a year back, which was their last blog entry. Now images are broken, little “advertisement” blocks show up with no advertisements, things seem moribund. What’s the deal? The Next Web reports: It’s the end of the road for social bookmarking website del.icio.us. After almost fifteen years, the site has been acquired by rival Pinboard, and will be shuttered on June 15, when it goes into read-only mode. While the site will continue to be viewable, users won’t be able to save any new bookmarks. Del.icio.us pioneered the social bookmarking paradigm. Its influence can be seen everywhere, from Reddit to Twitter… After del.icio.us was acquired by AVOS Systems in 2011, users fled to Pinboard in droves over complaints AVOS was fundamentally changing the makeup of the site. By purchasing del.icio.us, Pinboard is able to coax the few remaining del.icio.us users to jump ship. Depending on how much Pinboard paid for the site, how many users remain, and how many users Pinboard is able to convert, this could be a financially lucrative move. A Pinboard subscription costs $11 per annum. A late update to the article includes a quote from Pinboard founder Maciej Ceglowski. “In a statement, he said ‘I am the greatest.’ Ceglowski also confirmed the purchase price for del.icio.us, which was $35, 000.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
From Hollister, California — population 40, 000 — comes a good update from the Mercury News on Larry Page’s efforts to fund a flying car: Even from a few hundred yards away, the aircraft made a noise strikingly different from the roar of a typical plane. “It sounded like an electric motor running, just a high-pitched whine, ” said Steve Eggleston, assistant manager at an airplane-parts company with offices bordering the Hollister Municipal Airport tarmac. But it wasn’t only the sound that caught the attention of Eggleston and his co-workers at DK Turbines. It was what the aircraft was doing. “What the heck’s that?” saleswoman Brittany Rodriguez thought to herself. It’s just hovering.” That, apparently, was a flying car, or perhaps a prototype of another sort of aircraft under development by a mysterious startup called Zee.Aero…one of two reportedly funded by Google co-founder Larry Page to develop revolutionary forms of transportation… A Zee.Aero spokeswoman said the firm is “currently not discussing (its) plans publicly.” However, a Zee.Aero patent issued in 2013 describes in some detail an aircraft capable of the hovering seen by people working at the airport. And the drawings showcase a vision of the future in which flying cars park in lots just like their terrestrial, less-evolved cousins. Page has invested $100 million in Zee.Aero, which appears to have hired more than 100 aerospace engineers. But the article reports that apparently, in the small town where it’s headquartered, “the first rule about Zee.Aero is you don’t talk about Zee.Aero.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 