This will be an important year for pioneers developing electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft (垂直起降飞机), popularly known as flying taxis. Several firms are hoping their craft can obtain the necessary certification in 2023 to start commercial production, getting ready for the first passenger services.

Air taxis generally carry fewer than half a dozen passengers. They land and take off vertically using multiple small rotors (旋翼). With clever software controlling the rotors, they are easier to fly and readily capable of autonomous flight. The plentiful number of rotors also helps with safety, as the aircraft can continue to fly if one or more fail.

Some designs use an extra rotor or two at the back to push the aircraft along during flight. Others, like that produced by Joby Aviation, have rotors like a set of small wings providing lift, making more efficient use of the aircraft's battery and increasing range.

After thinking hard about how to certify(授予专业合格证) these flying machines, regulators(监管者) have been working with developers on safety standards. This is a multi-stage process. Besides obtaining “type” approval, which shows the airworthiness of a new type of aircraft, factories must be certified before production can begin in volume. And an airline-style licence is required if paying passengers are to be carried. Companies are working hard to get these approvals. Piloted operations are expected to be approved before autonomous flights.

In Germany, Volocopter will be flight-testing a family of eVTOLs. The firm is hoping its smallest, the two-seater VoloCity, can be certified in time for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, where the plan is to operate trips between airports and the athletes' village. Other air-taxi firms also hope to provide services in Paris, or at the World Expo, which takes place in Japan in 2025.

Swiss designer Didier Rudolf Quarroz’s love of Chinese tea culture has inspired him to design innovative new items to brew the tea. Ouarroz developed an interest in Chinese tea after working at a Shanghai-based design company, where he was by chance engaged in a tea project.

His research helped him develop a deep understanding of the differences between Chinese and Western tea products. And this made him think about designing items for foreigners to brew Chinese tea. “I hope to design easy-to-use and modern tea-making tools to help foreigners try Chinese traditional tea and give them an interesting experience in brewing tea,” Quarroz says.

In 2017,he moved to Hangzhou, capital of East China’s Zhejiang province and a major tea-production base, to explore the possibilities of applying Western concepts in designing objects for Chinese tea. “I want to focus on the tea industry, and Hangzhou is a great fit because of the long history and profound culture of tea here,” Quarroz says.

Quarroz began to concentrate on the design of a tea infuser (注射器) to make brewing easier for foreigners. It’s a glass container with a silicone (硅胶) lid. All users need to do is to put the leaves inside, place it in a cup and add hot water.” The infuser can be taken out from the cup easily without users’ fingers being hurt by the hot water,” Quarroz says.

Hangzhou has a booming tea industry, which has offered the Swiss designer many opportunities to cooperate with local plantations and companies. “Driven by the love of Chinese tea, I cooperate with local companies and help them to develop new kinds of tea products. Also, we sometimes organize workshops to introduce different teas to the public,” Quarroz says.

Hangzhou also enables smooth business operations, he adds. “In general, it is easy to start a business in Hangzhou. And the government and agencies are increasing efforts to help and support young entrepreneurs, including us from foreign countries,” he adds. Quarroz says he plans to design 10 innovative tea-related products by combining Chinese tea culture with international elements.

From its origins in the California hills in the US to its acceptance on urban streets worldwide, the history of skateboarding spans (跨越) seven decades over which it has developed from an unwelcome sport to an Olympic event in 2020. Now, a London exhibition is to show the path from those humble homemade boards of the 1950s to today’s hi-tech professional models.

The exhibition will feature about 90 rare and unique boards along with more than 100 other related objects, including safety equipment and magazines. Half of the skateboards will be on loan from the Skateboarding Hall of Fame Museum in California. A highlight will be a 1967 Bilbo board produced by European Surfing Company, which was set up at Newquay in Cornwall in southwestern England in 1965 and marketed the first skateboards in the UK.

Also on display will be the famous skateboarder Tony Hawk’s first professional model, from 1982, with its adaptations for the vert style of skateboarding which uses vertical ramps (垂直坡面) rather than level ground; early homemade boards from 1950s California modeled on the design of roller-skates and surfboards; and the first two models to feature a kicktail — the raised tail enabling skaters to turn or balance the board on the back wheels.

It will also feature Laura Thornhill’s Logan Earth Ski from the 1970s, the first women’s professional model. Sky Brown, who at 13 won bronze for Team Great Britain at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, is represented through her first professional model, the Sky Brown&. Skateistan Almost model.

“Skateboards, often misunderstood as being just toys, are now hi-tech products responding to constantly changing urban environments,” said Jonathan Olivares, the show’s director. “This exhibition is centred around a single question: how did the skateboard get to positioning the skateboard as a truly unique object.”