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Watch Elon Musk's Boring elevator hide a car underground
Elon Musk is once again updating everyone on the progress of his tunnel-digging operation's first segment. Judging from his latest vid, even the process of entering the underground route will be more elaborate than what we're currently used to. Fittingly, the Instagram clip shows a Tesla Model S driving on to a vertical lift platform and descending into the tunnel. It's enough to make you feel like Batman entering the Batcave.
Elon Musk's first tunnel should be up and running next week
Elon Musk recently announced that his tunnel-digging operation, The Boring Company, is done carving out its first segment. He bundled the announcement with a declaration of love for tunnels -- which he totally loves more than floors, by the way -- but didn't talk about the first tunnel portion's location. Musk's latest tweets, however, are rife with clues about its location, and by the looks of things, The Boring Company's Godot machine has begun digging right across from the SpaceX building in Hawthorne, LA County.
Elon Musk's 'Godot' machine cuts its first LA tunnel segment
SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk just tweeted that his tunnel-carving operation, The Boring Company, just completed cutting out its first segment with its Beckett-homaging drill, Godot. While the plan is to build an entire subterranean network underneath the streets of Los Angeles, it's unclear where this first tunnel portion was cut and how far it went. Last we heard, negotiations for permits to start digging under city soil were promising but not concrete.
Elon Musk says Los Angeles is open to using his traffic tunnels
Elon Musk might just have the first customer for his traffic-skipping tunnels. The tech entrepreneur says he's having "promising conversations" with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti about using The Boring Company's technology as part of a larger underground network that would shuttle cars, bikes and people. It's not clear exactly how well the talks are going, but Garcetti is clearly open to the idea -- he even name dropped Musk's effort during an ABC interview.
Elon Musk's underground traffic tunnel looks like hyperspace
Elon Musk works fast. Just last month the Tesla CEO was showing off a concept video for how his solution to gridlocked traffic: a giant underground tunnel where rapidly propelled cars travel point A to point B on car-carrying sleds. Now we have footage of a recent test, using real cameras and a real tunnel. Of the Instagram video, Musk warned that it might cause motion sickness or seizures thanks to the rapid acceleration and flashing lights.
Elon Musk plays 'Minecraft' differently than you do
Since December, Elon Musk has been discussing plans to build a tunnel to help avoid LA traffic problems. It's been hard to tell if he was serious about "The Boring Company," but a few days ago Wired reported a test trench was already under construction somewhere in the vicinity of SpaceX's headquarters. Musk tweeted that he would start digging on January 27th, and said during last weekend's Hyperloop that the plan is to increase tunneling by "500 - 1000 percent." Now, (apparently away from the president's economic advisory council meeting) he's posted this picture of a massive digging machine at work, simply titled "Minecraft." So what are you doing with your weekend?
Visualized: giant 'metal moles' ready to chew through London's underground
The city of London will soon have a new underground train to climb aboard, dubbed the Crossrail. But, before anyone can ride the line, tunnels will have to be dug. That means its time to break out the TBM beasts. Over 490 feet long and topping 1,000 metric tons, these giant metal moles will slowly carve new tunnels under the city at about 330 feet per week. At that rate the Crossrail won't open until 2018 but, until then, we can all sleep soundly knowing that machines -- more than thrice as tall as a man -- are slowly eating away at the largest city in the British Isles from underneath. For more images of London's mayor, Boris Johnson, standing next to the German-made monstrosities, dressed in his daddy's suit hit up the source link.
Visualized: futuristic AMELIA aircraft (theoretically) soars through NASA wind tunnel
It's the Advanced Model for Extreme Lift and Improved Aeroacoustics, and it's the brainchild of many, many intelligent beings planted at California Polytechnic State University. The aircraft has been in design courtesy of a grant from NASA, touting engines above the wings and the ability to achieve shockingly short takeoffs and landings. And did we mention it looks sexier than a freshly-washed 787? Yeah.
Paramount Pictures, BitTorrent team up to distribute feature film (video)
In case you haven't heard, there are websites out there that will let you download movies and software using a little something called the BitTorrent protocol. And while the majority of cinematic fare available is of a non-DMCA-approved nature, filmmakers and organizations are increasingly turning to torrent sites to get the word out. For instance, in 2009 a filmmaker named Hanna Sköld worked with the folks at The Pirate Bay to distribute her film Nasty Old People. And indeed, there seem to be as many zany ways to get your work out to audiences these days as there are filmmakers. One scheme that recently piqued our interest was concocted by the folks at Distracted Media. The Australian company is crowdsourcing its latest production, The Tunnel (not to be confused with Chunnel: 32 Miles of Danger) by selling individual frames for a buck a pop. Of course, "owning" a frame gives you nothing more than the opportunity to say that you helped an indie filmmaker out, but it's a worthwhile cause. And at 135,000 frames that's a lot of dollars! When the film is done, it will be distributed via BitTorrent for free -- alongside an actual DVD release by Paramount Pictures which, when you think about how reluctant Hollywood has been to embrace the internet, is pretty wild. Check out the (NSFW) trailer after the break, and then hit the links below for more info. Tunnel should make its premiere this May.
World's longest railway tunnel sees completion, should be zipping beneath the Alps in 2017
While a few nations in Asia battle it out for the world's fastest maglev train, some cool cats in Switzerland are cutting up the Alps in order to make North America's railway system look even more inadequate. According to AlpTransit, the longest railway tunnel in the world has just been completed, with the final drilling of the Gotthard wrapping up today. Miners drilled 30km from the north and 27km from the south, with the breakthrough point being just over 6km south of Sedrum. Granted, these miners aren't getting nearly the attention of a crew in Chile, but transport officials in Europe are still pretty stoked about this here accomplishment. In fact, it's also being described as the most deeply set rail tunnel in the world (there's a rock overburden of up to 2500 meters), with the Gotthard base tunnel aiming to provide a level track through the Alps that should become operational by 2017. When it's humming along, it'll shorten the Zurich-Milan journey time from 3 hours 40 minutes to 2 hours 50 minutes, not to mention make every rider feel as if they've truly traversed the ultimate Bat Cave. And that, friends, is worth the seven year wait. [Thanks, Fabrice]
Meerkat 1.2, 100% more AppleScript support
If you work from non-secure networks (coffeehouses, airports, hotels, etc.), or if you've ever wanted to bypass a firewall (YouTube or TUAW blocked at work?) you may be familiar with SSH tunneling. It's come up more than once here on TUAW. It allows you to conduct your Internet business through a secure proxy and makes the process transparent (once you set it up, you don't have to think about it). It's typically handled via a shell command, but some GUI-based programs can make life a lot easier -- both for the less technically-inclined, and for those who want to handle multiple tunnels and automation. Enter Meerkat, the SSH tunnel tool with the friendly face. I mentioned Meerkat about a year ago, and apparently things have been busy at the Code Sorcery Workshop since that release. The latest version of Meerkat -- version 1.2 -- sports an array of new features, from AppleScript support to a command line utility, as well as improvements to existing features like Bonjour sharing and the tunnel editing interface. I've been using the previous version for quite some time now, and I can say that this version adds some great features to an already great application. AppleScript support means automation, and Meerkat plays well with location managers like NetworkLocation (a plugin is available on the Meerkat page), or any location manager which can run AppleScripts or shell commands. With such a setup, you can have your system automatically detect a change in networks and set up specific tunnels depending on your location. I won't go into the details of location managers right now, but it's something to look into for laptop owners on-the-move. Additional features, including Application Triggers, Bonjour support and automatic reconnect for dropped tunnels all make Meerkat a valuable tool. At a current price of $19.95US, Meerkat provides features for a spectrum of users, from the Tunnel Setup Assistant for newbies, to advanced automation possibilities for veteran SSH'ers. I'd be negligent if I didn't mention at least one similar app in the freeware realm: SSHTunnel is a nice, easy-to-use GUI for setting up and managing tunnels. It lacks some of the automation and integration capabilities, but is a definite must-see if you're not ready to fork out for something more full-featured. A trial of Meerkat is available for download, and a license can be purchased for $19.95US.
Take your PC anywhere with RingCube's MojoPac software
If your remote access setup just ain't cutting it, RingCube Technologies has developed software that allows your iPod, external HDD, USB drive, or other fancy form of storage to be utilized as a "private and portable PC." MojoPac manages to cram your Windows XP desktop, settings, accounts, and even programs and preferences onto any portable storage medium to be accessed as a virtual desktop. The software essentially relocates your data to an on-the-go device, while it borrows the resources from any other Windows XP computer you manage to locate. RingCube touts the software's ability to run "side-by-side" with the host PC, allowing you to work in both domains while keeping all of your private info secure; since all data transmissions reportedly occur on your MojoPac-equipped storage device, no traces of your work (in cache form or otherwise) are saved on the host PC. Of course, the utility of such a setup is greatly reliant on the speed of your storage device, so attempting to render a Photoshop document from a USB 1.1 thumb drive would likely create a fair amount of frustration. Nevertheless, satisfying your curiosity here won't cost a dime -- MojoPac is currently available for a free month-long trial, after which the "introductory price" is $29.99 for the initial license ($14.99 for add-ons), while the late bloomers will pay nearly double that.[Via SiliconValley]
