Flying car startup backed by Google founder offers test flights
San Francisco (AFP) – A flying car project backed by Google co-founder Larry Page was closer to take-off on Wednesday, with a model for test flights by aspiring buyers.
Kitty Hawk, funded by Page, unveiled a “Flyer” model it described as “an exciting first step to sharing the freedom of flight.”
The company was created last year in Google’s home town of Mountain View, California, and has been testing a prototype in New Zealand.
Images and details were available at a freshly launched website at flyer.aero, and CNN posted coverage of a reporter taking to the air in a Flyer over a lake at a test site near Las Vegas.
Kitty Hawk chief executive Sebastian Thrun, who founded the Google X lab devoted to “moonshots” such as self-driving cars and internet-synched eyewear, was quoted by CNN as saying piloting Flyer was as easy playing the video game “Minecraft.”
Google bars uses of its artificial intelligence tech in weapons
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google will not allow its artificial intelligence software to be used in weapons or unreasonable surveillance efforts, the Alphabet Inc <GOOGL.O> unit said Thursday in standards for its business decisions in the nascent field.
The new restrictions could help Google management defuse months of protest by thousands of employees against the company’s work with the U.S. military to identify objects in drone video.
Google will pursue other government contracts including around cybersecurity, military recruitment and search and rescue, Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said in a blog post Thursday.