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Uber Lays Out Vision for Flying Commuter Transit

posted by martyb on Monday October 31 2016, @11:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the Bring-on-Korben-Dallas-and-Leeloo dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Uber on Thursday laid out a vision for on-demand aircraft that can whisk commuters to home or work in a fraction of the time it would take on the road.

The ride-sharing giant assessed the feasibility of what it called "vertical take-off and landing" vehicles in a 98-page white paper, inviting innovators and entrepreneurs to take flight with the idea.

San Francisco-based Uber said it will be reaching out to cities, manufacturers and others about the concept.

"Just as skyscrapers allowed cities to use limited land more efficiently, urban air transportation will use three-dimensional airspace to alleviate transportation congestion on the ground," said the white paper, authored by Uber chief product officer Jeff Holden and product manager Nikhil Goel.

"A network of small, electric aircraft that take off and land vertically will enable rapid, reliable transportation between suburbs and cities and, ultimately, within cities."

Diagrams in the paper showed aircraft bodies of various designs with propellers that can rotate to allow for vertical lift-off or landing, then move into position for flying forward.

Perhaps Vitalstatistix was onto something.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @02:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @02:04PM (#420862)

    It won't. They will replace all the drivers with AI before the service can be widely banned or drivers are recognized as employees. They could even start the roll out of driverless in the cities that impose the most human costs. Like London [ft.com].

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @02:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @02:46PM (#420877)

    Something something... job creators... something...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @02:50PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @02:50PM (#420881)

      Something something... fabulous new jobs of the future that everybody with an IQ of 80 can just retrain for overnight!... something...

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @03:01PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @03:01PM (#420885)

        So really, what you're saying is that there will be an oversupply of workers for these jobs, resulting in wages that are below-livable?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @03:11PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @03:11PM (#420892)

          That's a best case scenario that requires you to eliminate the minimum wage while the robots don't get cheaper and more capable.