Would you like to come to school ... flying?

Uber signs contract with Nasa to develop flying taxi software

 Ambitious plans for electric drone-like flying cabs take step forward as Uber announces plans to test flights in LA in 2020

 

Uber has taken a step forward in its plan to make autonomous “flying taxis” a reality, signing a contract with Nasa to develop the software to manage them.
The company’s chief product officer, Jeff Holden, announced the new service contract at Web Summit in Lisbon, alongside its intention to begin testing four-passenger, 200mph UberAir flying taxi services across Los Angeles in 2020, its second test market in the US after Dallas.
Uber said its flying taxi service would be purely electric and that a journey that would take 80 minutes by car in rush-hour traffic could be reduced to as little as four minutes. Uber intends to have some form of its air service operational for the 2028 LA Olympics, but experts remain sceptical as to whether autonomous flying taxis will ever become a reality.
Holden said: “Doing this safely and efficiently is going to require a foundational change in airspace management technologies. Combining Uber’s software engineering expertise with Nasa’s decades of airspace experience to tackle this is a crucial step forward.”
The Space Act agreement, which has been used by Nasa to contract out the development of rockets since the late 1950s, will see Uber participate in a project to develop unmanned traffic management systems as well as the low-altitude unmanned aerial systems (drones) that will be governed by it.
Uber said it did not plan to make the drones itself, instead partnering with five manufacturers that are working on new types of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft. This year Uber hired two Nasa veterans, Mark Moore and Tom Prevot, to run its aircraft vehicle design team and its air traffic management software programme respectively.
Uber has also signed a deal with Sanstone Properties, which has 20 sites across the greater LA area, for plans to build “skyports” that will serve as takeoff and drop-off points for flying taxis.
Eric Garcetti, the mayor of LA, who backed Uber’s testing in the area, said: “Los Angeles has always been a place where innovators come to build new ideas that can change how we live our lives. LA is the perfect testing ground for this new technology and I look forward to seeing it grow in the coming years.”
Kimberly Harris-Ferrante and Michael Ramsey, analysts at Gartner, said: “Flying autonomous vehicle technology is developing rapidly, but it’s likely to be more disruptive than transformational. High costs, safety concerns and regulatory burdens are likely to limit the use of this overhyped technology.”
Such hurdles include the need for approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration for operation outside of normal aircraft corridors, which will be difficult to obtain due to stringent safety and regulation requirements.
Uber has faced endless regulatory and legal battles around the world since it launched its ride-hailing services this decade, including in London where it is battling to retain its licence after having been stripped of it by city regulators over safety concerns.
The firm said it was attempting to change its methods, engaging with regulators in the US and Europe early to win approval for flying taxis. A senior Uber executive told Reuters the company was “very much embracing the regulatory bodies and starting very early in discussions about this and getting everyone aligned with the vision”.
                                                                                                                        The Guardian

Our first reader this course

I hope you enjoy it!

Wild at heart: how one woman and her husband live out in the woods

Miriam Lancewood has been living off grid, in the wild, for seven years now and she can still pinpoint the exact moment she knew she had truly broken with social norms. “It was when the idea was born to wash my hair with urine,” she recalls.
She had just started living wild, in the Australian Alps, when she developed a persistent dandruff problem. Luckily, she remembered reading about an ancient remedy. “I sat in the sun for a horrible, stinky half-hour to let it soak in.”
I’d expected Miriam to look bedraggled, maybe with a couple of teeth missing, but she’s immaculate and smiling broadly, her teeth shiny white (she usually cleans them with ash); no dandruff, legs shaven, she smells of campfire. She is powerfully built; almost the double of Sarah Connor from The Terminator. A Dutch Sarah Connor – she was born in Holland. Her husband, Peter, proudly tells me she could beat most men in a fight: “Miriam is the hunter and I’m the cook. She’s much stronger than me. Women are better shots,” he says. “And they’re more careful,” adds Miriam. “They are less driven by trophy hunting. They have less of a need to prove themselves.”

Five years into their nomadic life in New Zealand, Miriam decided to write a book about her experiences. The couple have since relocated to Europe, where they’re spending the year walking to Turkey; part two of their life’s dream of never returning to “civilisation”. So here we are in Bulgaria – three hours west of Sofia, upstream from a river where the couple can bathe, sitting around a campfire in a wood (the photographer met up with them earlier in their journey, in Bavaria). I’ve been invited for dinner and Peter is standing over a cast iron pot containing a bubbling bean stew. There are foraged wrinkly plums to start. It’s an exciting occasion for them: they haven’t seen another human being for 11 days. It’s 5pm. What have they been doing all day? “Nothing much. Waiting for you.” In the first few months of their primitive life, Miriam thought she’d go mad with boredom but she soon fell in sync with nature. Half of any given day is spent collecting firewood. They sleep as long as it’s dark. They’ve never had more energy.
It’s a stark contrast to when Miriam was still working as a special needs teacher in Australia. Those were grim days: “I was always stressed. And so bored. And depressed about thinking I’m going to do this forever and ever.” She’s learned so much since she’s been out here but one question remains unanswered: “Where are all the women?”
When they do bump into another person in the wild it’s usually a hunter, and always a man. She thinks that perhaps women have lost their connection with nature, “even more than men. And also,” she adds, passionately, “why do women behave so weakly, physically? As in, ‘I can’t lift that,’ ‘I can’t shit outside,’ ‘I can’t have my period in the bush.’” She thinks it’s a shame women are missing out.
It seems Miriam is not the only woman to think that women are missing out. Her book is coming out in Britain this month but is already published in Holland, where it’s become a small sensation. “Women write to me and say, ‘You inspired me,’” she tells me. “They’re amazed that it’s possible to live this primitive life; but they’re afraid: ‘What’s out there?’”
She says women worry about being eaten by wild animals or being murdered by a mentally unstable predator, like they’ve seen in Nordic noir. Interestingly, the women at her readings in Holland are usually aged between 40 and 50; maybe they are drawn to Miriam’s story because they see hers as the alternative life they could have led if only they’d been bolder and conformed less. Younger women still have the big decisions – and regrets – ahead of them. What do the women who write to her tell her the book inspired them to do? “One woman said: ‘You inspired me to get a divorce.’ If you want to be more content, sometimes you have to change your life completely.”

Showing reactions

I attach here the stucture we saw in the last class. I hope you assimilate the structure and are then able to produce more sentences to make sure you can use it properly.

Showing_reactions

"To her utter delight she  realised that all her students had completely understood her explanations."

VOCAB to talk about books

Here you have the selection you made. Make sure you know if they have a positive or negative meaning.

-          Action-packed
-          Awe-inspiring	(outstanding, impressive)
-          A best seller
-          Boring
-          Captivating
-          Censored
-          Compelling	(very interesting)
-          Devious	(not straightforward)
-          Disappointing
-          Dreary	(gloomy, depressing)
-          Easy-to-read
-          Exciting
-          Finishes “With a bang”
-          Gripping
-          Ground breaking	(innovative)
-          Gut-wrenching	(causing anguish)
-          Horrific
-          Intriguing
-          Life-like
-          A masterpiece
-          Mind-numbing	(extremely boring, uninspiring)
-          Page-turner
-          Pleasant
-          Poignant	(causing sadness)
-          Psychological thriller
-          Realistic
-          Riveting	(holding someone's attention)
-          Spell-binding	(captivating)
-          Spine-chiller	(that arouses terror)
-          A tearjerker
-          Touching
-          Thought-provoking
-          Unpublished
-          Unputdownable
-          Well-plotted
-          Whimsical	(unpredictable)
-          Witty
-          Wrenching	(moving)

2017 'very likely' in top three warmest years on record

The year 2017 is "very likely" to be in the top three warmest years on record, according to provisional figures from the World Meteorological Organization.

The WMO says it will likely be the hottest year in the absence of the El Niño phenomenon.
The scientists argue that the long-term trend of warming driven by human activities continues unabated.
They say many of the "extraordinary" weather events seen this year bear the hallmarks of climate change.
On the opening day of this year's key UN climate talks, researchers from the WMO have presented their annual State of the Global Climate report.
It follows hot on the heels of their greenhouse gases study from last week which found that concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere were the highest on record.
While the new study only covers January to September, the WMO says the average global temperature was 1.1C above the pre-industrial figure.

This is getting dangerously close to the 1.5 degrees threshold that many island states feel temperatures must be kept under to ensure their survival.
The analysis suggests that 2017 is likely to come in 0.47C warmer than the 1981-2010 average.
This is slightly down on 2016 when the El Niño weather phenomenon saw temperatures that were 0.56C above the average.
According to the WMO, this year vies with 2015 to be the second or third warmest mark yet recorded.
"The past three years have all been in the top three years in terms of temperature records. This is part of a long-term warming trend," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
"We have witnessed extraordinary weather, including temperatures topping 50C in Asia, record-breaking hurricanes in rapid succession in the Caribbean and Atlantic, (and) reaching as far as Ireland, devastating monsoon flooding affecting many millions of people and a relentless drought in East Africa.
"Many of these events - and detailed scientific studies will determine exactly how many - bear the tell-tale sign of climate change caused by increased greenhouse gas concentrations from human activities," he said.
Scientists will have to do attribution studies to clearly link specific events from 2017 to rising temperatures. But they believe the fingerprints of climate change are to be seen in events such as tropical cyclones, where the warmer seas can transfer more heat to the gathering storms and increased sea levels can make flooding more damaging.
The Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index, which measures the intensity and duration of these events, showed its highest ever monthly values in September this year.
It was also the first time that two Category 4 hurricanes made landfall in the same year in the US.
Hurricane Irma was a Category 5 storm for the longest period on record. Rain gauges in Nederland, Texas, recorded 1,539mm, the largest ever recorded for a single event in the mainland US.
There were also significant flooding events with large loss of life in Sierra Leone, in Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Peru among many others.
In contrast, droughts and heatwaves affected many parts of Africa and South America. In Somalia, more than half of cropland was impacted with herds reduced by 40-60%.
More than 11 million people are experiencing severe food insecurity in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
"This year saw a multitude of damaging weather extremes which is not uncommon but many of these events were made more severe by the sustained warming influence of increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas levels due to human activities," said Richard Allan, professor of climate science at the University of Reading, UK.
"An increased severity of weather extremes is expected in the decades ahead as Earth continues to heat up and it is only with the substantive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions required by the Paris climate agreement that we can avert much more potent and widespread damage to our societies and the ecosystems upon which they depend."
With UN talks on climate change now underway here in Bonn, the report is likely to reinforce a sense of urgency among many delegates.
"These findings underline the rising risks to people, economies and the very fabric of life on Earth if we fail to get on track with the aims and ambitions of the Paris Agreement," said Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of UN Climate Change, which is hosting the Bonn conference.

                                                                              By Matt McGrath, BBC News
You can read the whole article here: BBC News