Supersonic Flight, the end for Lawyers and Invisibility
December 17
This week we look at the progress being made on a return to supersonic flight. We also examine an invisibility cloak and consider the end for lawyers as we know them. Finally we will find out what has happened recently in the world of self driving cars.
Supersonic Flight
In 2003 the Concord flew for the last time. The era of supersonic flight was over. Or was it? Boom Supersonic is hoping to restart supersonic test flights in 2021.
The new supersonic aircraft will take advantage of many advances in materials technology and design improvements. The plane will be all business class and will fly twice as fast as a conventional long haul airliner. Seating configuration is window seats only with an aisle down the middle of the aircraft. A flight from Los Angeles to Sydney will take 8 hours 30 minutes instead of 14 hours 30 minutes, New York to London in 3 hours 30 minutes instead of 6 hours 30 minutes.
The plane is being designed for long haul over ocean flights (due to the sonic boom). Takeoff and landing will be at a similar noise level to today’s newest aircraft and will use new low carbon fuels (from Prometheus Fuels). There are 500 routes planned, however actual routes will depend upon the airlines. Japan Airlines is the first customer (and an investor).
The XB-1 demonstrator aircraft was rolled out in October 2020 and will begin test flights in 2021. 5 further test aircraft will be rolled out by 2025 and the aircraft type certification should be completed by 2029.
Invisibility Cloaks
We are not talking about Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak however we are talking about life imitating Harry Potter. Inspired by the cloaking properties of cephalopods, a team of researchers from South Korea developed a soft and skin-like imperceptible device that provides instantaneous cloaking ability in the visible and infrared regions of the spectrum. Like many advances in technology the cloak is being developed for military applications.
The patches of “artificial skin” are made from pixels which contain thermodynamic liquid crystals capable of changing color, depending upon the surrounding temperature. The cloaking in the visible range is achieved by matching the ambient color.
The effect is not the invisibility that we see in the movies (some time before we can make that reality) however it is a strong camouflage effect. The device can also hide the wearer’s heat signature allowing the wearer to hide from heat cameras. The suit can switch from day time to night time use in about 5 seconds.
The team needs to improve the computer vision used to match colors. Colors are currently manually entered however an autonomous camera that will detect and match colors has been developed and is in the process of being integrated. Further work is also required for the cloak to work in extreme conditions found in the desert or the arctic.
The End for Lawyers as we know them?
Alibaba’s Damo Academy have used their deep learning framework to develop an AI that can analyze risks in a contract more accurately than human lawyers. A group of 16 lawyers competed against the AI at Zhejiang University’s Guanghua Law School.
The contestants were given 5 contracts with 20,000 lines of text. They had to identify risks within each contract. The lawyers were split into 2 groups. One group worked independently and the other worked with the AI. The contest was AI v AI plus lawyers v lawyers.
The AI took less than a minute to complete the task compared to the lawyers who were given 30 minutes (no doubt charged at thousands of dollars per minute). The AI alone recorded an accuracy rate of 96% however the team of human lawyers working with the AI was able to beat that score. The team of only human lawyers came in third.
Human lawyers were good at dealing with the difficult problems, while AI was very strong at retrieving information and checking and melding weak points. In the near future this combination of AI working with humans is likely to be the most effective application of AI in many industries. It will be some considerable time before AI replaces the need for human intervention. However if your lawyer gives you a bill for an AI lawyer, make sure they don’t charge you for more than 1 minute of work.
Self Driving Car update
Amazon Zoox has revealed its’ self driving robotaxi. There is no drivers’ seat and no steering wheel. Each pod can carry up to 4 passengers who face each other. The pods can operate for 16 hours on a single charge and travel at up to 75mph (120kph). The pod is symmetrical with no front or back. The car can drive in either direction without reversing or turning around. Each wheel can move independently, airbags are integrated into each seat and a remote operations center can solve strategic problems (however remote teams can not drive the vehicle, reducing the risk of hacking taking control remotely).
Whilst the first application is robotaxies (San Francisco and Las Vegas initially) it is likely that a version of the vehicle will be used for autonomous delivery in the future.
AutoX has deployed its’ robotaxi in Shenzhen. Fully autonomous, no driver at all, the robotaxi is the first of its’ type on the road in Asia. Unlike the Zoox vehicle, the system is built into existing cars and can be retrofitted into private cars.
Testing is also underway in Shanghai, Wuhan and California. The operations center is in Shanghai which suggests that Shanghai is the next launch city.
The pace of development of self driving robotaxies is increasing rapidly and a robotaxi service is no doubt coming to a city near you in the very near future.
Paying it Forward
If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.
If you have any questions or comments please email me via my website craigcarlyon.com or comment below.
I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.
This is the final “What’s on Craig’s Mind?” for 2020. It has been a tough year for all but we have almost made it to the end. All the best for Christmas to those who celebrate it and a Happy New Year to all. I hope that you all stay healthy and happy and that in 2021 we become a little more wise. Thanks for reading and I look forward to resuming the exploration of what is on my mind early next year.