Posts Tagged ‘airports’
TSA Begins Rolling Out Less-Invasive "Gingerbread Man" Body Scanners to U.S. Airports
These scanners aren't new; they've been used elsewhere in the world at airports like Amsterdam's Schiphol for years, and we've seen before. It shows only a featureless body shape (which looks sort of like a gingerbread man), and if it finds any forbidden objects during the scan, it projects them onto the corresponding location on the gingerbread drawing as yellow "hot spots." Then the offender is hustled out for the regular invasive body scan. Nobody said this new system was perfect, but it does reduce the number of invasive scans: if you're clean and the scanner realizes it on the first try, your body will remain unseen by humorless TSA types.
The new scanners are rolling out to 40 domestic airports at first, for a total of about 240 machines at a cost of $2.7 million. We're not sure exactly which airports are getting the scanners, though the and airports seem a lock.
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Driverless Pod Cars Transport Passengers Around London’s Heathrow Airport
Twenty-two of these automated pods are operating at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, the shiny new terminal occupied by British Airways. They were built to replace a duo of diesel buses that formerly drove in a loop from the car parks to the terminal, pausing at various stations no matter how many people were present.
The electric-power pods, which can accommodate up to four travelers and their bags, travel up to 25 mph along 2.4 miles of paved guideways, which can be customized to fit any path. They don’t require a special railway or magnetic field — just lines that can be used for optical navigation. The pods can even maneuver through light snow, according to their manufacturer, ULTra PRT. The says the autonomous pods have not been in any accidents.
The first trials started in April, and service became fully operational this summer when the buses were removed from rotation, the Times says.
Passengers have to press "start" when they get in, to ensure efficiency and to prevent people from making the pods move while they’re empty. About 800 people per day use the pods, the Times says.
According to the ULTra, American travelers might see them soon, too. The systems are by airports in California and New York; transit systems in California, Oregon and Tyson’s Corner, Va., a Washington, D.C., suburb; downtown Calgary; and even in Mountain View, Calif., where Google and NASA workers battle congestion.
The pods are cheaper than high-speed rail, which might make them attractive to cash-strapped cities. Passengers like them because they’re more convenient than checking transit timetables, ULTra says — the pods come to you, rather than you waiting for them. But the best part may be their simplicity: With a customizable guideway system, they could even be used on regular roads, meaning pods like this could be an easy way to integrate driverless vehicles into commuters’ lives.
Watch one in action below.
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NASA Envisions Neighborhood Micro-Airports To Let Travelers Bypass Pesky Streets
NASA’s Green Flight Challenge, which seeks environmentally friendly and efficient new flight concepts, could inspire systems of SAVs ferrying people between pocket airports, according to the . Micro airports built into neighborhoods could have queues of airplane taxis to take people and goods between various points in a community.
Brien Seele, CAFE’s president, told this week that pocket airports embedded in communities could have several configurations allowing for taxi takeoffs every 30 seconds.
A single runway concept would take up only two acres and could have 120 operations per hour, Gizmag reports. A triangular pocket airport could allow 260 operations per hour on four acres, and so on.
The planes’ flight paths would be coordinated by a master computer system to prevent collisions. Just in case, each SAV would come with a parachute, Gizmag reports.
Of course, this assumes the SAVs are super-quiet — no more than 60 decibels from 125 feet — and can take off in less than 100 feet. Seele also envisions SAVs that get over 200 mpg and cruise at 120 mph. The planes would have to be at least 150 feet in the air by the time they cleared the airport’s boundaries — “high enough to not be heard by the backyard barbecuers in the residences nearby,” Seele said — so they will need to be super-powerful and designed for maximum lift.
NASA is already working on several concepts that could fit the bill. A major Green Aviation Summit in September included discussions of unconventional aircraft designs, super-efficient engines and lightweight materials that can reduce drag and noise while increasing lift. And NASA’s $1.6 million green challenge, which runs through next July, already requires competitors to build aircraft that can take off in less than 2,000 feet, cruise at 100 mph and emit no more than 78 decibels from a 250-foot distance.
The CAFE Foundation wants future challenges that will award $2 million for ultra-quiet, short-runway SAVs, and $2.35 million to whoever can make them autonomous.
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TSA Scanner Privacy Concerns Could Be Easily Solved With Simple Computer Algorithm, Scientist Says
Distorting images like a funhouse mirror could protect passenger privacy
Willard “Bill” Wattenburg, of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, told the the distortion would also clearly reveal any dangerous objects hidden beneath clothing. He said he suggested the distortion method back in 2006, but Department of Homeland Security officials rebuffed his idea.
"Why not just distort the image into something grotesque so that there isn't anything titillating or exciting about it?" Wattenburg said.
It involves adding a simple algorithm to the scanners’ computer code, he said. He said it’s so simple “a 6-year-old could do the same thing with Photoshop.”
The federal government started installing the scanners last month using funds from the stimulus bill. The emit x-rays that pass through clothing and bounce off passengers’ skin, producing revealing close-ups of passengers’ bodies, private parts and all. The process also exposes people to ionizing radiation for about six seconds.
Consumer groups, pilots and privacy advocates have been up in arms, and at least a couple lawsuits have been filed, including one involving consumer crusader Ralph Nader. Passengers don’t have to use them, but objectors must undergo an that involves the touching of genital areas.
In a pre-Thanksgiving travel message, Transportation Security Administration head John Pistole explained it thusly: “You will receive a thorough pat-down by someone of the same gender. If you alarm either the metal detector or the [body scanner], you will also receive a thorough pat-down by someone of the same gender.”
Some passengers are planning a national on Wednesday, the busiest travel day of the year.
In the face of all this criticism, President Obama said over the weekend that he asked TSA officials if there was a less intrusive way to ensure passenger safety. Pistole said the agency would make screening methods “as minimally invasive as possible,” according to the Washington Post.
Federal officials say the scanners are necessary in light of terrorist attempts like the Christmas underwear bomber. But privacy advocates say the scanners are too invasive.
Wattenburg told the Post that when he first heard the TSA was buying backscatter scanners, he knew people would get upset.
"People are immediately going to scream like hell because they're taking the clothes off everybody,” he said.
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German Airports Using “Biodetective” Honeybees To Monitor Air Quality
Airports in Germany are using honeybees as "biodetectives," regularly testing their honey for a suite of pollutants, the reports. This year's first tests were conducted in early June at Düsseldorf International Airport, and the bees got a clean bill of health. That means the air was clean, too.
Members of a local beekeepers' group keep the bees, and the honey, "Düsseldorf Natural," is bottled and given away as gifts, the Times says. About 200,000 bees are involved in the Düsseldorf program; seven other German airports also work with bees.
A German lab tests honey samples twice a year and looks for compounds like hydrocarbons and heavy metals. The latest tests showed the bees' honey was comparable to honey produced in areas with no industrial activity.
Airplane, taxi, bus and car emissions -- as well as local industry -- contribute to poor air quality around airports, the Times reports. Airport officials say the industry has made progress reducing pollution, but the Times quotes two studies that suggest particulates can be a problem. The Environmental Protection Agency financed an airport air-quality study set to be released soon, and one of the lead researchers says fine ultra-fine particles and lead are a potential public health concern.
Bees are one way to track those toxins because their honey would have telltale signs of pollution. If they use nectar from flowers produced by toxin-exposed plants, that would show up in the honey.
The Times quotes one honeybee expert who said the work seems promising, if inconclusive: "We all believe it can be done, but translating the results into real-world solutions or answers may be a little premature," says Jamie Ellis, assistant professor of entomology at the Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory, University of Florida-Gainesville. Other experts caution that bee-monitoring should not replace traditional monitoring systems.
But at the very least, the work is a simple way for the public to understand the effects of pollution.
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Archive Gallery: Yesteryear’s Airports of the Future
Cotton runways, a runway powered by ocean currents and something called "the Aerotropolis"
Like us, past generations have envisioned a future of efficient, aesthetically-pleasing airports, and our certainly yields a few fantastical gems.
Just three decades ago, wave-powered landing fields, rotating airports atop skyscrapers and football arenas within terminals were all posed to revolutionize travel, or at least to get people to their destinations on time.
Even today's most renowned facilities, like the Hong Kong International Airport, have nothing on the past imaginings of visionaries and architects. Click through our for a retrospective look at the oddest (and most extravagant) concepts of futuristic airports. Only time can tell whether any of these features will be realized—maybe then, we'd enjoy flying a little bit more.