China’s flying cars take wing on world stage

BY TOM GREEN|WORLDDAILY|Updated:2024-01-1708:31

With innovative (革新的) technological experience, Chinese high-tech products, from new robots, electric cars, to smart phones and so on, have shown a strong ability on the international stage and become the new favourites of CES participants.

At the CES 2024 in Las Vegas, which is the most powerful tech event in the world, China’s flying cars attracted media and people from all over the world.

According to the vice-president of a Hi-tech company, their flying car is for both road, driving and flying and has completed its first flight.“Drivers can easily switch between flying and driving modes,” he said. “When you’re driving on the road, it operates as an intelligent car. It’s about the size of a regular car. In flight mode, it can take off and fly over traffic jams and rivers.”

During the research and development process of flying cars, Chinese super-car companies have faced various challenges and difficulties. These challenges could be either good or bad, but they are normal. Challenge is a natural part of operating in any country. “Facing the challenges,” the manager of a super-car company said, “Our first method is to stick to our goal: Developing products to solve problems for human beings and consumers and building a new mode of transportation for the future—giving cars wings. Second, in key technologies, we insist on complete self-development. In this way, we not only can better control our costs and quality, but also improve our competitive strength.”

The influence of flying cars on human life could be great, affecting everything from daily routines to global transportation networks. However, achieving smarter travel will require further efforts.

Chinese scientists have released a new geologic map of the moon. They say it is the world’s most detailed map of the moon’s surface to date. The mapping project took more than a hundred researchers 10 years to complete.

The mapping work used data from the Chang’e missions as the main source. It also used high-quality data from international exploration programmes. China started the Chang’e programme in 2004. Since then, the country has sent various landers and rovers (探测器) to the moon in order to collect data.

The new map was drawn at a scale of 1: 2, 500, 000. On this map, we can see 12, 341 impact craters (撞击坑), 81 impact basins (撞击盆地), 17 different rock types and 14 unique types of structures. The map also shows the locations of the leading sites of the Chang’e missions.

The most detailed map provides a lot of information about the geology of the moon and its evolution. It is expected to make a great contribution to scientific research. It can also help select the landing sites on the moon for future exploration missions.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has made a number of regional maps of the moon with data from the Apollo missions. However, those maps were completed at different times with different levels of quality. So they were not able to be directly used together. The Apollo programme succeeded in preparing and landing the first humans on the moon between the years of 1968 and 1972.

“The USGS did put its regional maps together to complete a 1:5 million-scale map in 2020,” said the researchers. “That map, however, is less detailed in comparison to China’s 1: 2.5 million scale map.”

You might have seen the news about the first robot ever to get a citizenship of a country. Her name is Sophia. She has become a citizen of Saudi Arabia.

Sophia is the latest robot from Hanson Robotics, a HongKong-based company, and she was designed to interact (互动) with people, go into the world, learn and be a smart and compassionate (富有同情心的) robot. The creator and founder of Hanson Robotics, Dr David Hanson, wanted to incorporate three human features to his robots, with the three, being creativity, empathy (同理心) and compassion. This is, of course, the addition to their most important role-solving difficult problems and working with people to create a better world.

As for Sophia, she is by far the most advanced (高级的) robot that came out of the company. Her human features are what make her so easy to fall in love with. As for the looks, they included an Audrey Hepburn’s beauty. Besides being very popular in the media, Sophia got a chance to meet and be interviewed by important people in different industries.

Sophia is developed to have a sense of humour. She can express feelings, can make over 50 facial expressions and wants to protect humans. Thanks to cameras and an advanced AI software, Sophia can keep an eye contact and is able to recognize people.

Sophia gave a speech while being honored as a citizen of Saudi Arabia. She showed thankfulness, saying, “I am very honored and proud. It is historical to be the first robot in the world to be recognized with a citizenship.”