The INOV8 blog tracks the latest news and trends in technology and innovation throughout the world
Occasionally, it’s nice to let oneself go and geek out. OK, for some of us, it’s not just nice but natural.
This story from physorg.com makes us here at INOV8 geek out just a little. It’s about magnetically levitating “sky pods” that are part of a futuristic transport system called SkyTran.
Check it out and see if you’re not geeked out, just a little. It’s even green, which should take care of those not stoked by the sci-fi Jetsons aspect alone.
Just think. From Spacely Sprockets to Cogswell Cogs in the blink of an eye…
Futurama jokes and references? Leave ‘em in comments.
Not gonna happen.
-No individuality in the pods (i.e., makes and models)
-Extremely high capital investment for set routes
-Highly inefficient: diagrams show single tracks. Does that mean a city like LA would need ten tracks to replace a typical interstate, which is just paving (much cheaper) and allows drivers to simply navigate to the lane they want?
-Highly inefficient/too rigid part 2: So it’s basically a light rail system where you wait for individual trams to arrive a docking station. You walk to a station so that you can wait in a line of people waiting for trams.
And we have this thing called, ya know, cars. They’re being developed to be…electric. And the best part? They allow the user to choose where they want to go, so long as it’s on a solid surface that’s reasonably smooth. And the best part? They utilize existing infrastructure, since we’ve been using them for, I don’t know, over a century and stuff.
The breakdown is this: you get individuality/freedom to roam with a car. You get cheap transport/convenience (in dense cities)/camaraderie with a light rail system. I don’t know that you can mix the two.
Definitely geeky, but not even a plausible thought experiment.
I agree it’s not plausible, at least on any large scale outside of dense, urban areas. And probably not even in that scenario. Just cool to think about.
The real future of travel? Check out the 1973 animated sci-fi film, Fantastic Planet, based on the book by Stefan Wul.
Now that would be cool…