Fans will make your landspeeder dreams come true

Next to Tattooine, the best place to test out a flying bike that kinda looks like a Star Wars landspeeder is probably the Mojave Desert. That’s where Mark De Roche and his team at Aerofex tested theirs. The design uses two big fans, pointed towards the ground, to lift the bike up to 15 feet in the air and send it whizzing at speeds that tops out at 30 mph. Gizmodo points out that it doesn’t look like it takes much training or effort to hop on one of the bikes and go for a spin.

The human pilot just have to lean and balance in a natural way, much like you do while driving a bicycle or a motor bike. It's all instinctive, says De Roche: “since [the pilot's] balancing movements are instinctive and constant, it plays out quite effortlessly to him.”

Sadly the speeder bike isn’t for public consumption, at least not yet. Aerofex hopes they can sell a finished version to the military. Again from Gizmodo:

The company thinks that it can be used for heavy lifting in rough terrains, without having to care about wheels or caterpillar tracks. And, unlike helicopters and other flying devices, this one can go in between trees and canyons: “they have unique performance advantages [...] as they have demonstrated flight within trees, close to walls and under bridges.”

Twitter heat map shows rudest and nicest places

I’m still not sure that Twitter is the best barometer of who we are as a society. Rarely, for instance, do we shout “RT!” before quoting someone in real life. But the Ukrainian (?!) web development company Vertaline has made some interesting maps of the United States based on where people say “Good morning” and “F*ck you” the most. You won’t believe it but New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago tend to come up a lot among the rudest areas of the country. Those bigger metropolises do pretty well for Good Morning as well but are trumped by the South. Not much seems to be happening in the Great Plains and places like Wyoming, which is probably because not much really ever happens in the Great Plains and places like Wyoming.

Michigan begins a test to see how smart cars can be

The U.S. Department of Transportation began a new phase in a project, joining researchers from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, that will track data from vehicles in hopes to make driving safer. The $14.9 million, yearlong study began yesterday will have cars talking to each other on a dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) system, similar to Wi-Fi but operating on a specified band of spectrum the FCC has set aside for autos. Break it down The Verge:

The deployment includes approximately 2,800 cars, trucks and buses, 300 of which are getting aftermarket safety devices to beam data like position, velocity, and acceleration to and from neighboring vehicles and infrastructure ten times every second. Another 64 will be "fully integrated," with safety systems installed during production, while the remainder will have simple transmission-only devices.

Researchers say DSRC is better than Wi-Fi for a couple reasons. First off, it’s faster and more reliable. Also, be able to track you. It’s specifically being deployed for safety reasons. So when a giant bus comes barreling through a red light, getting ready to crash into that tiny two-seater you drive because it fits into more parking spaces than other cars, you won’t be pressed into the city’s newest manhole cover. DSRC will tell your car and the bus about the impending collision with (hopefully) enough time for you to react or for your car’s auto-brakes to kick in. It won’t, however, use information from the bus’ data to give the driver a ticket. Bonus green points! Again, from The Verge:

… it’s hoped that the project will have green spillover effects for the environment. Drivers will be able to get accurate real-time traffic updates directly from cars ahead of them, and be given alternate route suggestions. If all goes according to plan, fewer accident-induced backups and better use of less-congested roads should lead to less efficiency-sucking idling.

Sites accused of collecting inappropriate data from kids

Big companies want to have successful web sites that draw people in and convert them from web surfers to paying customers. And any marketing professional knows that if you can form brand loyalty early in a customer’s life, you have a shot at putting money in the bank for a long time. But for crying out loud, folks, QUIT COLLECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION FROM CHILDREN. So goes the complaint against several popular websites as reported in the New York Times. A coalition of privacy groups has filed a complaint with the FTC about the practices of six popular sites, charging the sites with attempting to collect email addresses of the friends of people who visit the site. From the Times:

At least one company, however, said the accusation mischaracterized its practices, adding that the law allows an exception for one-time use of a friend’s e-mail address. As of late Tuesday, the companies said they had not received copies of the complaints. Obtaining information about adults’ social networks to e-mail marketing messages to their friends is a common industry practice called “tell a friend” or “refer a friend.” But now an increasing number of children’s sites are using the technique by inviting children to make customized videos promoting certain products, for example, and then sending them to friends. The sites cited by the advocacy groups include McDonald’s HappyMeal.com; Nick.com, the Nickelodeon site owned by Viacom; General Mills’ ReesesPuffs.com; SubwayKids.com; another General Mills site, TrixWorld.com; and Turner’s CartoonNetwork.com. “It really shows that companies are doing an end run around a law put in place to protect children’s privacy,” said Laura Moy, a lawyer for the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit group in Washington that led the complaints. “Under the law, they can’t just collect e-mail addresses from kids and send them marketing material directly. So they are embedding messages saying, ‘Play this game and share it with your friends,’ in order to target the friends.”