The Transformer is described as a “flying Humvee”, in which it’s a normal Humvee, until it sprouts wings and a helicopter rotor. Then it can fly.

It’s designed to do things like getting soldiers across minefields without incident, or flying a Humvee out of the blast radius of a detected IED, or even do things like reconnaissance or strike-and-raid operations. But DARPA has some pretty big demands for this craft: it wants the craft to carry four people, be capable of vertical takeoff and landing, and have a maximum range of at least 250 nautical miles, with both driving and flying components.

All I can think is, man, would that ever get me to the store in rapid fashion or what? And think about how great it’d be to drive across inner-city neighborhoods in that! You accidentally find yourself in, say, Cabrini Green, you just fire up the rotors and go right over the top of it until you find the highway.

Sadly, this is all still under design, so we won’t be hopping over long trains at crossings any time soon.

Specifically, it’s the flying car–the Terrafugia Transition has just gotten approval from the FAA for sale and operation in the United States. It’s a 1,440 pound car / plane hybrid with retractable wings, and apparently, there was more than a little legal dispute around this car. The problem was that it actually slightly exceeded the maximum weight requirement to be called a plane, so a little legal wrangling later, and the 120-pound overweight car was reclassified as a “light-sport” plane.

Getting licensed to drive and fly a Terrafugia Transition requires 20 hours of seat time, and the vehicle gets a maximum airspeed of 115 mph with a maximum range of 460 miles. It only needs a 1/3 mile runway to take off–much less than the ordinary–and one of these will cost you $194000. Word is, however, some have already put down deposits on their own flying car, so keep your eyes on the sky–you might just see a commuter going by.

Fueled by solar panels along the outer skin, the Airship Traveling can both move through the sky or remain anchored in place for extended term stays. But not only is this a moving vessel, it’s also designed to be a huge, five-star hotel with living modules fully contained inside the airship.

And lest you think you’d go stir-crazy living on board a giant airship for any length of time, fear not–you can go out for fresh air any time the weather accommodates by going out onto the included sun deck mounted at the top of the airship.

Naturally, being a concept, this won’t be built any time soon, but for those of you who like the idea of drifting across the sky like a cloud, this just might be the one to get you there.

Everyone has at some time wished they could own a car that flew them over traffic jams to their destination. No matter whether you own an old banger or a Ferrari the likelihood is that dream has been in your mind at some time.

The YEE car has been designed to fulfil those dreams. It can instantly become a flying machine and take off without the need of a runway. Bye bye traffic jams thanks to designers: Pan Jiazhi, Zhu Wenxi, and Lai Zexin!

The car is designed with innovative wheels that rotate to become propellers to launch the YEE into the air.

It can be charged up at ground docking stations and is complete with a full array of solar panels to keep it powered up whilst airborne.

I just can’t wait for a test fly-drive!

Inventor Glenn Martin has now partnered with an unnamed international aircraft company and plans to make 500 units every year, selling them for around $86,000.

The good thing about the new Martin jetpack is that it requires no pilot license as it comes with a bunch of redundancy systems to ensure any mistakes don’t turn fatal — all you need are a few hours to accommodate with its technology. Weighing in less than 254 pounds (115kg) and powered by a two-liter V4 two-stroke engine (with rotors made from carbon / Kevlar composite) that sports 200 horsepower (150 kW), for now, the flying machine achieves to stay 30 minutes airborne.

The only drawback is you’ll have to lose some weight if you’re over 240lbs, or put some on you if you’re below 140lbs.

Looks cool, isn’t it?

Cyber Technology’s CyberQuad UAV is an entirely new style of unmanned aerial vehicle– and unless you’re piloting it, it’s a rather scary little device.  The Cyber Technology CyberQuad is a Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with an on-board camera that can execute nearly silent operation when hovering above its target.

The CyberQuad UAV is powered by four electric propellers that carry its on-board camera and battery pack.  The camera sends a video feed back to its pilot who controls the CyberQuad with an RC transmitter and video goggles.  While the CyberQuad is primarily a reconnaissance device, it can also carry a payload of up to 3.3 pounds.

Now for the fun stuff– the Cyber Technology CyberQuad can fly at speeds of up to 43 miles per hour or hover on a dime.  At 100 feet in the air, the CyberQuad is inaudible, providing stealth operation for your sneaky spy maneuvers.  If you’re a handy pilot, you can take-off and land on flat, secure areas and continue to operate the camera, giving its battery a nice little life extension.  In constant operation, the CyberQuad UAV can run for 40 minutes per charge on a range of one kilometer.

Pricing and availability for the Cyber Technology CyberQuad UAV has not yet been published.

Have you been good or bad this year? Either way Santa Claus is going to pay you a visit in just a few days. No matter if he’s bringing you a brand new toy to play with or a few pieces of coal, he still needs a powerful sleigh to carry all the gifts for all those kids of all ages on our overcrowded planet.

It looks like GE Global Research has decided to come up with a new sleigh for Santa and the machine they have designed is going to blow your mind. As you can already see from the picture the reindeer are gone for a while and the sleigh itself looks pretty compact. Which makes me wonder as to where will Santa deposit all those gifts. Oh, and don’t worry, Santa will still rely on the reindeer to drive the sleigh.

GE’s Santa sleigh concept features 10 Global Research technologies that “could improve Santa’s experience.” So let’s take a look at each of them:

• Icephobic Coatings – sprayed on the exterior will prevent ice buildup while travelling through new fallen snow
• Self-powered OLED lighting – these OLEDs do not require a power outlet thus Santa will have the best lighting conditions available
• Ceramic Matrix Composites – the sleigh blades are made of super durable CMC
• Carbon Fiber Composites – the sleigh will be easier to pull for the reindeer as it is made from a material lighter than metal but just as strong
• GE Sodium Batteries – the batteries will help Santa power the sleigh when the reindeers go on coffee breaks
• GE Trip Optimizer – cruise control is definitely something Santa needs in order to travel around the globe as efficiently as possible
• Wearable RFID Sensor – the sensor can check the freshness of the milk and the cookies in order for Santa not to get a bug while travelling around the world
• 500GB Holographic Disc – what else should Santa use for storing all those Christmas wishes?
• Wireless Medical Sensor – the sensor monitors Santa’s heartbeats. Better have one on board although Santa will never be in any danger.
• Asset Intelligence Tracking Tech – the elves at the North Pole can keep an eye on things from the distance.

Santa’s new sleigh – interactive animation:

As you can see, GE has everything figured out for Santa. Although I bet Santa’s sleigh is already packed with a lot of high tech material we don’t even know about!

Are you still dreaming about going to Mars one day? Well I can’t promise that you’re actually going to make it as an astronaut but I still have some good news for you. It looks like travelling to Mars is a lot easier nowadays thanks to a new Ion propulsion rocket engine.

Regular trips to Mars take up to two years with current technology with the crew having to wait a full year before the planets realign for a safe return. Well in all honesty, no man or woman has ever gone to Mars although we did send probes and various missions in the past.

Now we find out that in the near future we will be able to go to Mars and back in just 39 days. That would be an impressive achievement for mankind but we shouldn’t expect to see man on Mars in the very near future.

The new Ion propulsion engine has been designed mainly by Canada although it was an international effort as more countries were involved in the project. The engine uses electrical power which could be obtained directly from the Sun and then transformed into thrust. The engine would work non-stop half-way to Mars and it will decelerate the other half. And that’s how you go to Mars in a 39-day period.

All this sounds great in theory but conclusive testing will have to prove that the engine can run for 39 days straight without any problems. The engine will probably be thoroughly tested around the moon so NASA scientists can look at in action in the vacuum of space. The Ion engine could also be used on the space station in order to counteract the current drag which forces astronauts to burn fuel regularly in order to boost their orbit.

In other words, man’s first trip to Mars will not be possible immediately, let alone public tours of the planet. But by the time we get to tell our grandkids Neil Armstrong stories, Mars missions will probably become a lot more popular and much easier to accomplish.

We’re a little late in posting about this particular gadget but, whereas ordinarily we’d simply not post about something already so widely covered, the MicroDrone remote surveillance drone from German company MicroDrones GmbH genuinely gets our pulses racing – besides that, it’s guaranteed to feature in TFTS on the premise that ‘if it flies it’s in’.

The MicroDrone is by no means alone when it comes to remotely piloted surveillance craft – after all, UAVs have seen action the world over for many years – but what serves to distinguish this particular drone from the others is its ease of use and its relatively diminutive cost (though, at $60,000 a shot its certainly out of the reach of your average RC jock).

Measuring in at a mere 2ft in diameter, the MicroDrone can fly for up to 20 minutes on a single charge of its on-board battery pack and its already been trailed by Staffordshire Police in the UK during the V Festival. It’s also rumoured that none other than MI5 are showing an interest in the device.

Operated by a Wii style remote GSM modem based controller, the MicroDrone is has the ability to fly unnoticed above ‘hot-spots’ whilst offering a birds eye view of events thanks to its on-board high-resolution, infrared zoom camera that beams its imagery back down to earth in real-time. Alternatively, the drone can work in semi-autonomous mode using GPS navigation.

You can view the MicroDrone in action in the video below which, apart from including the obligatory shot of an unsuspecting woman sunbathing in a bikini, was assembled from numerous videos made available via the official MicroDrones GmbH website by BotJunkie (who we will subsequently duly credit).

Very Cool – though, admittedly, it’s not quite as cool as the previously featured RoboSwift Morphing Surveillance Bird concept (but at least it’s made it off the drawing board).

[Source | BotJunkie]

Having posted only recently about TU Delft’s trials of a solar powered computer mouse, namely the Sole Mio, we find ourselves referring to yet another one of their projects, known as the RoboSwift, that could result in us seeing birds in a wholly different light in the near future.

Presently being developed with the Department of Experimental Zoology of Wageningen University, the RoboSwift is a micro aircraft – or, rather, Micro Air Vehicle – that, as one would suspect, is modelled on its real life counterpart and is capable of performing ground surveillance whilst going undetected courtesy of three inbuilt micro cameras.

Operated remotely, the imagery received from the on board cameras – one mounted in each wing looking forwards and a third mounted in the belly looking downwards – will be beamed back in real time to the pilot’s head mounted display unit allowing the operator to hone in on and loiter at will around targets of interest.

What makes the RoboSwift particularly fascinating is its ability to morph its shape in-flight by changing its wing sweep according to its flight profile, just like a real Swift, the result being a remotely piloted vehicle that is highly manoeuvrable at both high and low speeds. Not only that, but as variable sweep is used for directional control, the RoboBird can dispense with a traditional rudder – hence retaining the shape of the bird it’s modelled on so as to avoid suspicion.

We cannot help but wonder whether, what with the current development of remotely operated robotic flying insects, the future of RoboSwift will be to act, not only as a surveillance platform in its own right, but also as a drone killer or MAV countermeasure device, swooping down on insect robot drones to taking them out, thus taking after its real life counterpart even further.

You can gain further information concerning this intriguing TU Delft project via the official RoboSwift Website.

In the meantime, however, the closest most of us will get to owning a RoboSwift is by purchasing the previously featyred remote controlled CyBird which is, alas, camera free.

Weighing in at a mere 1.34 grams, which is considerably lighter than the Carbon Butterfly (which is already lighter than its equivalent size in paper), this indoor remote control aircraft, which comes complete with its own means of propulsion in the form of a propeller, is crafted from painstakingly shaved balsa wood and extremely thin aluminium foil.

Only one slight drawback as, from what we can gather, the plane has no rudder, elevator or aileron control so is only able to circle the room – albeit rather gracefully. Additionally, with its diminutive weight in mind, it’s reserved for indoor use only as even the slightest of breezes could reap devastating results.

You can view the 1.34 gram remote control aircraft in action in the video featured below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHRzFHo06NY]

[Source | Gizmodo Japan]

Unlike the fabulous previously featured CarterCopter – covered, complete with video, in this posting – the Hummel (meaning ‘Bumble Bee’) is only a concept, but it’s a rather remarkable one.

Conceived by industrial designer Daniel Kocyba, the Hummel is capable of carrying two people and is envisaged to serve in either the air taxi or emergency transport role where the ability to take off and land in restrictive areas that would prove problematic for conventional helicopters is paramount and what is especially fascinating about the Hummel is the fact that it can be folded up so as to allow easy storage when not in use.

Unfortunately, as this is merely a concept the chances of the Hummel ever seeing the light of day appear to be distinctly remote, however, it does serve to give a tantalising insight as to how personal transportation devices may evolve in the near future.

You can link the Daniel Kocyba’s website via this link where you can download his portfolio in PDF format – and, believe me, its well worth a look as all of his concepts are breathtaking (and the presentation is faultless).