Larry Page’s flying car startup Kitty Hawk is shutting down
Source: The Verge added 22nd Sep 2022Skip to main content
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Funded by Google co-founder Larry Page, Kitty Hawk promised small electric flying vehicles designed for recreation and transportation — but in the years since its 2017 reveal, it hasn’t delivered any of them.
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Kitty Hawk, the ambitious “flying car” startup funded by Google co-founder Larry Page, is winding down, which the company confirmed in a brief post on LinkedIn earlier today.
According to a report from Insider, sources inside the company said Kitty Hawk had already shut down work on the 100-mile-capable Heaviside vehicle. Insider also reports that Page had become increasingly hands-off from the company but said he was more closely involved with its shift to research and development after the end of the Heaviside project.
Although Kitty Hawk is shuttering development of its own aircraft, at least one project will live on in its joint venture company with Boeing: Wisk Aero. “Today’s news does not impact Wisk. We remain in a strong financial and strategic position, with both Boeing and Kitty Hawk as investors,” Wisk spokesperson Chris Brown tells The Verge. At the beginning of this year, Boeing sunk another $450 million into Wisk Aero during its last funding round.
Kitty Hawk revealed itself in 2017 when the company released a video of its “Flyer” personal transport vehicle, ahead of another autonomous aircraft it developed called Cora, which spun off to become Wisk Aero.
The Flyer was among the first vehicles to appear during an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) boom that eventually included others like Toyota-backed Joby Aviation, Volocopter, and Lilium, as well as projects from established names like Bell Helicopter and Uber. And in 2018, The Verge discovered that Larry Page owns another flying car company called Opener.
But when the startup couldn’t find a viable business path for the Flyer, it shifted focus to Heaviside — and now even that is toast.
Crypto tokens are just “decentralized Ponzi schemes,” says JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon.
Previously, Dimon has called Bitcoin “a fraud,” before deciding whoopsie, no, “The blockchain is real. You can have crypto yen and dollars and stuff like that.” Okay, babe, now please explain how the London Whale happened just one more time.
Twitter has disclosed yet another security issue.
In some instances, accounts would remain logged in on mobile after a user voluntarily reset their password, according to a blog post. It’s not a great look for a company already under significant scrutiny for its security practices following explosive allegations from its former head of security.
We fixed a bug that didn’t close all active logged in sessions on Android and iOS after an account’s password was reset. To keep your account safe, we logged some of you out. You can log back in to keep using Twitter.
For more details on what happened: https://t.co/OmjLKOe5bs
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) September 21, 2022
Meet the staffer behind Chancery Daily, a specialist publication that has been explaining Twitter v Musk.
“Chance,” one of the people behind the Chancery Daily Twitter account explains why the Delaware court is special. “Every little thing is going to be fought over in a $44 billion transaction, right?” Chance says. “Every little blessed thing.” If you were wondering how the Twitter v Musk sausage is made in Delaware’s Chancery Court, this is the inside-baseball podcast for you.
The real victims of Facebook catfish scams are the scammers, who have been human trafficked into scamming as a job.
Extraordinary investigative work from Cambodian news outlet VOD, interviewing Indonesian migrant workers who were allegedly brought to Cambodia and set to work as pretend beautiful women who would like you to invest in their cryptocurrency platform.
The workers say they lived and worked in the same building, and that their personal phones were taken away; one said he was beaten and tased for a mistake. The workers were rescued after one of their siblings saw a “TikTok describing forced labor and detention” that made him suspicious of his sister’s working conditions — he eventually sought out an NGO that intervened.
Turns out the Apple Watch Ultra is about the same size as a Fig Newton.
In a TikTok video, Victoria Song, who reviewed the Apple Watch Ultra, compared the large smartwatch to a bunch of common household objects, like an AirPods case and a stack of quarters. One of the closest comparisons? A Fig Newton.
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The collapse of Three Arrows Capital has not put a dent in unsecured crypto lending.
And because crypto is a relatively “concentrated ecosystem,” there are systemic risks, S&P analyst Alex Birry tells Reuters. Which means the domino effect we saw this summer? That could absolutely happen again.
Iran blocks mobile internet and social media in an attempt to curb growing protests.
For days, Iran has been gripped by major protests after the death of 22 year old Mahsa Amini at the hands of the “morality police.” The latest data from NetBlocks shows how the regime is responding: by making it all but impossible to access Instagram and WhatsApp, some of the only major social media apps accessible in the country.
⚠️ #Iran is now subject to the most severe internet restrictions since the November 2019 massacre.
▶️ Mobile networks largely shut down (MCI, Rightel, Irancell – partial)
▶️ Regional disruptions observed during protests
▶️ Instagram, WhatsApp restrictedhttps://t.co/8cCHIJA2Oi— NetBlocks (@netblocks) September 21, 2022
Meta and Google’s definitely-not-layoffs prod employees to compete for new jobs.
Meta isn’t saying it’s laying off employees, but the WSJ reports department reorganizations are sending “a significant number of staffers” into a purgatory internally referred to as “the 30 day list” as they seek other jobs internally.
When Google cut half of the incubating projects within Area 120 last week, it gave people until January to find new jobs, a longer than usual window. 1,400 staffers petitioned for more time for internal job searches in the spring.
Today on The Vergecast: GTA, TikTok, and iPhones.
We tried to figure out what’s next for Grand Theft Auto after a huge leak, whether TikTok is the future of Google, and why Apple won’t just make a camera. It’s a fun Vergecast, available wherever podcasts are sold!
I regret to inform you that phones are not good for cloud gaming.
Logitech announced the G Cloud Gaming Handheld earlier today. The new device comes with apps for some of the biggest cloud gaming services pre-installed, and you may be wondering what the point of it is when we all have very powerful phones with great screens. Don’t worry, I answered this question months ago when I wrote about just how bad phones are for serious cloud gaming! I cannot wait until we can run this thing through its paces and see if it gives us the cloud gaming hardware we need.
I need to see Deathloop’s new, longer ending.
Deathloop’s perfunctory endings were a weak spot in a game full of great ideas, so I’m intrigued to hear that on top of new weapons and trinkets, the Goldenloop update contains an enigmatic “extended ending.” I’m not sure what that means, but it’s enough to make me consider booting the game up again. Besides, I could murder Aleksis much more elegantly this time.
Here come the Dynamic Island clones.
It’s no secret that once Apple does something, the industry tends to follow, so it’s not much of a surprise that we’re already seeing Dynamic Island clones materialize. Last week we saw MIUI (the Android-based software on Xiaomi phones) themers incorporate Dynamic Island-like ideas into their software, and today 9to5Google reports that Redmi is asking its fans to come up with ideas for what a “Redmi Island” could look like. Apparently Redmi wants to use to display alerts like incoming calls, notifications, and more.
Sure sounds familiar.
Tesla is buzzing with robot fever.
Elon Musk’s company is getting ready to debut its supposedly not-fake humanoid robot, Optimus, during its “AI Day” event September 30th. What evidence do we have that it won’t just be another a person in a spandex robot costume doing an extremely awkward dance? There have been meetings! And job postings! And Elon tweeted that there may be a working prototype! Look, this will either be a major breakthrough in the field of robotics or a spectacular flop. But considering Musk has already solved the problem of self-driving cars, I’m inclined to— what’s that? [touches earpiece] I’m being told he hasn’t solved the problem of self-driving cars? And that humanoid robots could prove even more difficult? Oh well, then bring on the spandex dancers I guess.
I cannot stop laughing at Trombone Champ.
You have to watch this video, and PC Gamer’s writeup is also great.
Accuracy and timing determine how well you play, with little words popping up to tell you how you’re doing. Words like Perfecto! Or Nice! If you’re sucking, as I typically do, you’ll get a Meh or sometimes a Nasty, which is maybe the funniest word to use to describe someone playing a trombone poorly.
media: 'The Verge'
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