Since the days of The Jetsons and even long before that, mankind has dreamed of a fully operational hybrid flying car.  What would be better than being able to go airborne as soon as you hit some traffic? Moller International, the company devoted to making an affordable flying car, has announced their latest creation, the Autovolantor.

The flying car, although said to be revolutionary, is only capable of flying for about 15 minutes at up to 150 MPH. It’s fast but what happens when time runs out? You share the same fate as Steve Fossett, that’s what. I can’t see this vehicle becoming a commodity in my lifetime, though one can always dream.

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If any of our francophone readers happen to be in France soon, be sure to let us know how your trip was. More specifically, we want to know if French transit company SNCF has expanded it’s trial RFID program. Passengers will receive a USB drive with an RFID chip inside it. You can add money to the account via RFID or hand it to an attendant who will refill it over USB. SNCF wants to have all it’s customers using the system by 2010, so we’ll see what happens. Remember: security always plays a huge part.

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For the opening and closing ceremonies at the Olympics, the Beijing committee included RFID chips with spectators’ passport information and home/e-mail addresses in each ticket to prevent counterfeits and hacker intrusions. Like the RFID-driven Japanese urn system, the Beijing system makes sure that anyone who isn’t supposed to be there, won’t. Much like U.S. airport security, if you were a foreigner with an RFID ticket, you’d still get the ill treatment as if you were up to no good.

According to a Dutch businessman, he was asked to drink his sunscreen to prove it wasn’t an explosive and when he explained that he couldn’t drink sunscreen, he was let through without further inquiry. “The security was less than professional and not completely thorough,” he said.

That really does sound just like airport security here in the states. One time, I was forced to eat a bar of soap simply because it was the same color as Anthrax. After eating it, they let me through. When I went through the gate, I started vomiting up a foamy white solution. This led them to believe I was a terrorist. What a horrible vacation that was.

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If a cop pulls you over for nothing more than driving while calling work to let them know you’ll be a little late, don’t piss yourself just yet. Just because you’ve been ticketed for a traffic violation involving cellphone use whilst driving doesn’t mean you’re in the shitter just yet. You might be able to get a free Bluetooth headset out of it.

Like the Google Prius, you can laugh in a cop’s face. But, not because you work for a multi-billion dollar company that’ll take care of the ticket for you but because Headsets.com is giving away free headsets to anyone caught driving while on their cellphone. A free Plantronics Discovery 925 Bluetooth headset for, depending on what state you’re in, a hundred dollar ticket, sounds like a steal. Take it over to Best Buy to get it set up for $10. Now, that’s a steal.

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Are you one of the stereotypical suckers sitting in an Apple line right now? Are you praying to the baby Jeebus every day that Apple will sell you an iPhone 3G? Most likely. Good news for you, though. Apple
will be opening its stores at 8:00 AM Monday through Saturday in an effort to help ease lines for the iPhone 3G. Awaiting customers will also be pre-screened and if you’re eligible, you’ll be given a ticket for an iPhone 3G which you can pick up anytime before 6:00 PM.

It’s like winning the lottery except you can’t buy anything cool. Just an iPhone 3G.

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Traveling across time-zones can cause hell to your psyche. Jet lag causes some people to lose all sense of night and day. Ticketime integrates both a boarding pass card and a wristwatch into one electronic paper device, in hopes to sync your schedule with your destination before you arrive.

When you receive the Ticketime from your airline, the flight company presets the tear-off wristwatch to your destinations local time. The device is then returned back to the airline on your return flight, in the meantime, keeping you up to snuff with your sleep cycle. (more…)