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Japanese maglev train breaks its own world speed record
The Central Japan Railway company reports that its magnetic levitation bullet train topped 366 miles per hour on Thursday during a test run along a length of test track in the Yamanashi prefecture. This was enough to break its own 12-year-old, 361 mph world record set back in 2003. The train reportedly carried 29 engineers during its run. Unfortunately, the record is only expected to last until next Tuesday when JR Central hopes to spur the magnetically-propelled commuter train past 372 mph (600 kph).
R/C trains haul ore in extreme heat so humans don't have to
It gets hot in the Australian outback; like, really hot. We're talking "130 degrees fahrenheit in the shade" sort of hot -- definitely not the sort of place that many people would want to even visit, much less work in on a daily basis. But this inhospitable environment is also extremely well-endowed with iron ore deposits. So how does one extract this valuable mineral from the Earth -- and then transport it more than 200 miles, no less -- without baking legions of miners? If you're the Roy Hill mining company, you just install a 21-locomotive fleet of GE's remote controlled heavy-haul trains. "We don't run a locomotive anywhere in the world that's hotter than here," Fraser Borden from GE Transportation said in a statement.
Government warns US could fall behind in transportation tech
America's roads, railways and public vehicles are aging, and the Department of Transportation believes that if things remain as they are, the system will be a "fossil" that's light-years behind its more high-tech counterparts in Asia by 2045. That's why the DOT has published a study called "Beyond Traffic," (PDF) which warns that if the US government doesn't "encourage... or put a plan in place to regulate" new technologies, the country will fall far behind, with electric vehicles (and similar tech) becoming mere novelties. This study, which is also a draft framework of the department's plans in the next 30 years, suggests the more widespread adoption of transportation tech coming out today. In particular, the paper mentioned anti-collision systems that could prevent more accidents, next-gen location tech that could make airspace safer and plane takeoff/landing faster, as well as apps that relay transit schedules and traffic data to users in real time.
Google Maps will now warn you about UK train delays
Google Maps has incorporated train timetables for a while now, but it's never accounted for the inevitable delays and cancellations that plague UK networks. You would select what you think is the fastest route, only to stand around on the platform wishing you had called a taxi instead. Well, that could be less of a problem in the future, if you're a Google Maps user at least, because today the company has added real-time National Rail data to its travel app. So if yet another signal failure is disrupting your line, the app should reflect that automatically and give you some alternative routes. In addition, you can now swipe around the map and tap on any UK rail station to review the next departures -- helpful if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere and need to start making tracks.
Dutch trains get lasers to zap track debris
You might not see leaves as hazards, but train operators would beg to differ -- foliage on the tracks not only makes it harder for trains to stop, but also messes with anti-collision signals. The greenery might not be much of a danger for much longer, however. Dutch Railways is testing a laser system that zaps leaves (and other organic material) before it reaches the wheels, keeping the tracks clean. You can already use water jets and sand gels to do this, but they have limited supplies and sometimes damage the rails. The lasers run so long as the train has power, and they actually help the metal by drying it and preventing leaves from sticking.
Enter the tech-powered playground of the future
There are playmats where you build the roads in seconds, a ballpit where the balls are as big as you, and a drawing-board where your doodles come to life. This is Team Lab's "Theme Park of the Future" .. but it isn't really a theme park. It's an attempt to bring projection mapping, motion gestures into contact with fundamental playtime activities -- and even expand on kids' creativity. You just need a handful of projectors, some giant walls, and a scanner or two.
Train Simulator 2014 choo-choo-chooses to arrive September 26
Train Simulator 2014, the latest in the ongoing locomotive simulation series for PC, will come to retail shelves and Steam on September 26. The game will include a "more personal and challenging career mode, richer creativity tools" and the ability to build and share routes via Steam Workshop. Those that picked up an earlier version of the game will receive an upgrade to Train Simulator 2014 free of charge after the game launches. %Gallery-195006%
Tube Tracker for iOS helps you get around London's Underground, Overground and DLR
Tube Tracker (US$2.99) is the ideal companion for those traveling London's Tube (underground train service), the DLR (Docklands Light Rail) and the London Overground rail service. I've lived in London for over 12 years. Almost everyday I use London's rail network in one form or another to get around the city. To this day, every now and again, I still get excited about using the network. I get overwhelmed by its sheer scale, size and the complexity of it. It's simply an incredible feat of engineering. According to the Transport for London website, there were 1.1 million passenger journeys on the Tube in the 2011 - 2012 period. There are stations and tunnels dozens of meters underground. It is incredible! However, there are days, more often than not, when I can't stand to be on the network. Unexpected delays, overcrowding and getting lost are very real problems train travelers face in London. That's where Tube Tracker comes in. I've spent the last few days using Tube Tracker and I've found it to be one of the most comprehensive apps I've used to navigate the London Underground, DLR and London Overground. When you first open the app, you're presented with a list of stations from the nearest to the farthest from you. Tube Tracker uses your iPhone's GPS to indicate how far away you are from a station -- to the nearest meter -- as well as displaying a GPS compass next to each station to point you in the direction of that station. The colors of the train lines that operate through each station are shown next to the name of each station, so from a glance you can easily see which station you need to get to in order to catch the train you're looking for. For example, if you need the Central Line, which is identified with red, simply scroll down until you see some red next to a station name. As well as the station list being populated according to location, you can also set the list to either show recent stations visited or stations you've indicated as favorites because you've starred them. When you tap on a station name, you're shown a map of the station as well as the platforms at the station. Tapping on the platforms shows you a list of trains due and how long it will be until they arrive. %Gallery-193475% For me, the above features alone are incredibly useful. Say I need to catch a train to Highbury & Islington, which is on the London Overground line, indicated by an orange color. I open Tube Tracker and see that the nearest station to me is Shoreditch High Street, a London Overground Station at 460 meters away. I know that Shoreditch High Street serves the London Overground line because the orange color is displayed next to that station name. I tap on the station name and see that from platform one, a train will arrive for Highbury & Islington in three minutes, then a Dalston Junction train in eight minutes and then another Highbury & Islington train in 11 minutes. Just from a glance and a single tap, I now know what time I need to leave, which train I need to catch, when it will arrive and which platform it will arrive on. This information is pulled directly from Transport For London (TFL), so if there are any delays or cancellations, it will be updated here. Extremely useful! On top of that, Tube Tracker also has a complete and searchable TFL map, live service updates, a journey planner, first and last train times, offline mode and service update alerts, which can be set by date, time and train line. This really is a comprehensive and extensive list of features. I've really enjoyed using Tube Tracker over the last few days. It's well-designed and particularly easy to read and navigate. If you're a Londoner or you're planning on visiting London anytime soon, Tube Tracker is most certainly worth checking out. If you're looking for a couple Underground app alternatives (one of them free), check out fellow Londoner and TUAW blogger Michael Grothaus' post here featuring two of his favorite apps to navigate the Underground.
Daily iPad App: Chuggington Traintastic Adventures
Kids love trains and the locomotives from the British children's TV series Chuggington are downright adorable. As its name implies, Chuggington is a fictional town that is home to several young locomotives that zip around the town and its surrounding countryside. Kids who love the TV show will also love the new Chuggington Traintastic Adventures app from Budge Studios. Chuggington Traintastic brings the world of Chuggington to the iPad and iPhone. The colorful app recreates the town and features model trains that children can drive around. In Build & Play mode, children can design their own Chuggington trains with wacky add-ons that let them fly their locomotive and run it super-fast on the tracks with a booster pack. Kids are free to explore the world of Chuggington by drawing a path for their train using their fingers. Once their path is drawn, the trains will chug along the tracks. Chuggington Traintastic also includes four adventure modes that follow actual episodes. In this part of the game, children must follow directions to complete tasks such as loading and unloading cargo. This part of the app features clips from the TV series that walks your kids through the adventure. Fireworks and other positive reinforcements reward your children for a job well-done. The Chuggington Traintastic app is an entertaining app for train-lovers in the 6-year-old and under group. The adventure mode is filled with challenging, age-appropriate tasks, while the Build & Play mode is whimsical and fun. Even though he can't control all parts of it, my 3-year-old loves playing with his Chuggington friends. Chuggington Traintastic Adventures is a universal app and is available for US$5.99 from the iOS App Store.
Japan unveils prototype of new maglev train, promises speeds of up to 311 mph
More than a year after the Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tokai) received construction approval to get going on its maglev railways, it has finally unveiled a Series L0 prototype that would put its current bullet train system to shame. Designed to travel at 311 mph, a single one of these high-speed marvels is designed to carry about 16 carriages, which translates to about 1,000 commuters. While Japanese travelers already enjoy a speedy 90-minute trip from Tokyo to Nagoya, this new maglev system promises to cut that journey to just 40 minutes. Announced nearly five years ago, the project has since been extended to include an Osaka-Tokyo leg and will cost around nine trillion yen (approximately $112 billion) when all is said and done. Don't pack your bags just yet though; the maglev's Nagoya rail isn't scheduled to go live until 2027, and the boarding call for Osaka isn't until 2045. Of course, if you need to ride electromagnetic rails now, there's always China's Shanghai Transrapid, which has been ferrying passengers to and fro the Pudong airport since 2004 -- it once reached speeds of 501km/h (311mph). China's even planning a whopping 1,000 km/h vacuum-tube maglev train in just a year or so. Of course, those of us on the other end of the Pacific are still waiting for that long-delayed California-Nevada maglev project to work out. Sigh.
YouTube Japan adds new 'original content' channels: trains, horror and drawing on faces
We've seen our fair share of out-there Japan TV programming -- and that looks likely to increase. YouTube has struck a deal with 13 companies that will add original shows and videos to the constantly-growing Japanese library, new videos promised daily. There's a pretty broad array of partners, with a slight focus on comedy and pop-culture, which should mean a shorter language hurdle for us occasional global viewers. Into high-speed trains? There's a whole channel dedicated to the Land of the Rising Sun's unsung tech export. We've got Catherine The Thirteenth (computer-generated chat show host, obviously) discussing the convenience of iPads after the break, but if we had a say in future channels, it'd throw in more mechanized beetle tanks and robot hotplate chefs.
Indian Railways launches RailRadar, lets you track trains via Google Maps
Indian Railways has just made it a little easier for rail travelers with a new web app called RailRadar, which uses Google Maps to track trains on a real-time basis. This is certainly welcome on one of the largest rail networks in the world -- it operates more than 10,000 trains everyday -- though the service is only available on 6,500 trains for now. To find out where your train is, simply search for its name or number and RailRadar will spot it for you. You can also find trains by entering the name of the station. Blue highlights indicate trains that are on time while red means it's behind schedule. If you click on a train, it'll show its entire route from start to finish. The logical next step would be for this to be on smartphones like how it is in Japan, though we're not sure if that's in the cards just yet. [Thanks, dil]
Hitachi boarding gate can sniff explosives on passes, keep the transport queues flowing (video)
Anyone who's hopped on a flight at a major airport, or even some land-based transit, knows the agonizing wait that certain agencies demand while they scan for explosives and check boarding passes. Hitachi is working with Nippon Signal and the University of Yamanachi to build a new boarding gate that hopefully kills those two security birds with one stone. As you're swiping your boarding pass (or smartphone), the machine also scans it for particle-sized traces of explosive materials and sends the all-clear or no-go in less than two seconds. If all goes well, the system could check up to 1,200 passengers every hour at a single gate -- a rate quick enough to prevent a logjam at even the busiest terminals. Our chief reservations surround its scope. Hitachi has earned enough trust to get trial installations at Narita International Airport and a Tokyo subway station this coming spring, but we have a hunch that some airport officials would demand a more thorough screening, no matter how much it's actually needed.
Apple nabs patent for NFC-based travel check-in, doesn't quell NFC iPhone rumors just yet
Apple has been chasing NFC patents for years, but it's just now been granted a US patent for its own approach to a transportation check-in -- one of the most common uses of the technology in the real world. The filing describes a theoretical iTravel app that would store reservation and ticket information for just about any vehicle and stop along the way: planes, trains and (rented) automobiles would just have the traveler tap an NFC-equipped device to hop onboard, and the hotel at the end of the line would also take credentials through a gentle bump. Besides the obvious paper-saving measures, iTravel could help skip key parts of the airport security line by providing passport information, a fingerprint or anything else screeners might want to see while we'd otherwise be juggling our suitcases. It all sounds ideal, but before you start booking that trip to the South Pacific with ambitions of testing an NFC-equipped 2012 iPhone, remember this: the patent was originally filed in 2008. We clearly haven't seen iTravel manifest itself as-is, and recent murmurs from the Wall Street Journal have suggested that Apple isn't enthusiastic about the whole NFC-in-commerce idea even today. Still, with Passbook waiting in the wings, the patent can't help but fuel speculation that Apple is getting more serious about an iPhone with near-field wireless in the future.
MMO Family: Open-world combat and old school gaming in Free Realms
There are many times lately when I've experienced the full power of the generation gap. As my kids get older and more game-savvy, I sometimes find myself trying to catch up with how the younger generation games compared to how I did it during the good old days of gaming. So it was a pleasant surprise to see a little taste of old school gaming in the latest update to kid-friendly MMO Free Realms. The normally peaceful Shrouded Glade has come under attack, and players have been swarming to the zone to help turn back the tide of invaders. It's a prelude event that will usher in some new content to the game, and it features several fun activities while the event continues, but the most notable change is the introduction of open world combat. For the first time in Free Realms, the bad guys are out and about in the Glade rather than corralled safely away in instances. That's brought some interesting changes to how players are interacting in game. In this week's MMO Family, we'll look at the Shrouded Glade event in Free Realms and see how it's bringing a little throwback-gaming to the pint-sized gaming generation.
OLED Lego train station emerges from Adafruit and Arduino gear, minifigs to get home on time
Who knew Lego characters had to be somewhere in a hurry? Adafruit did, as it just whipped up a minifig-sized train schedule. The invention mates one of Adafruit's own 1-inch OLED boards with an Arduino Uno controlling the schedule behind the scenes. It looks to be a straightforward project for the DIY types, although the display is currently all show: the schedule doesn't (yet) pair up with the train tracks to automatically let your minifigs know if their trip to the pirate spaceship castle has been delayed by ghosts. You can check the source link for the full instructions. Duplo builders, alas, are kept out of the loop.
Amtrak readies conductors to trade in their hole punchers for iPhones
Pilots aren't the only ones updating their workflows with modern technology. Amtrak conductors have been getting schooled on how to use iPhones to scan passenger tickets on select routes since November -- forcing hole punches to collect dust on a lonely shelf at the station. By the latter part of this summer, 1,700 conductors will be using the aforementioned smartphones on the outfit's trains throughout the US which allows them to track passengers with more ease than manual ticketing. The $7.5 million system affords passengers the choice of printing the tickets or loading a bar code on their smartphone of choice before getting the iPhone's scan. Inside the dedicated app, riders can book and modify reservations easily without having to worry with a refund from an agent first. There's only one small hiccup: currently Amtrak's app is only available for iPhones. But, the government-owned corporation says that an Android release is in the hopper and should see daylight this fall. For now, non-iOS users must load their tickets though a mobile site in order to save a tree or two.
Headphone-wearing pedestrian injuries triple as audiophiles stop noticing onrushing trains
The number of pedestrians injured or killed while wearing headphones has tripled in the last six years: 16 oblivious PMP users were offed in 2004, the number rising to 47 for last year. The research, carried out by Dr Richard Lichenstein at the University of Maryland found that headphone wearers became "inattentionally blind" to dangers such as passing cars and on-rushing trains. That's not us being flip either: 55 percent of the incidents involved locomotives. The majority of victims were male (68 percent) and under the age of 30 (67 percent): which puts your average Engadget reader in the center of the danger zone -- take it from us guys: sometimes it's better to press pause, "Baby, baby" will still be there when you've crossed the railway.
Apple just arrived at Grand Central Terminal, we hop aboard (video)
For many New Yorkers, Grand Central Station Terminal is where you go to escape the island -- not to leisurely browse aisles of iPhone accessories, or pop in for a Genius Bar appointment. But apparently Apple has a slightly different vision for the city's transportation hub, opening its fifth NYC store along the main hall's 23,000 square foot east balcony. We dropped by for the grand opening this morning, which came complete with the standard Apple Store t-shirt giveaway and what seemed like hundreds of red shirt-clad retail employees. As NYC's gateway to Connecticut, Grand Central is typically incredibly crowded during rush hour, but the enormous sunlight-filled main hall was packed to the brim today with spectators -- eager customers queued up in a hallway out of view, beginning early this morning. The store itself is huge, occupying the entire east balcony and several side rooms, with a large genius bar, training area and accessory alcove at either side. Eager to pop in for a visit? Thumb through the gallery below to step inside, and jump past the break to experience the cacophonous chaos at Grand Central.%Gallery-141464%
AmtrakConnect free WiFi added to 12 East Coast routes, snack car will still cost ya
Remember when we noted the existence of AmtrakConnect WiFi on the Adirondack train (number 69) about two weeks ago? Although it wasn't official at the time, it is now -- and it turns out that was just a sliver of what to expect. Amtrak recently announced that the free service is currently available on twelve of its East Coast routes, which should please many a railway commuter accustomed to WiFi deprivation. Eight of those routes (Northeast Regional, Keystone and Empire services, Carolinian, Downeaster, Ethan Allen Express, New Haven – Springfield Shuttle and Vermonter) feature full wireless connectivity from head to caboose, while the others (Adirondack, Maple Leaf, Palmetto and Pennsylvanian) have designated cars that allow for internet access. Factor in its Acela and Northwest Regional lines, and Amtrak says 60 percent of its fleet is now WiFi-capable with more additions due in California before the year's out. Better yet, "4G speeds" are also in the cards for the future, but we won't hold our breath waiting for an equally swift rollout. Full press release after the break.
