Thứ Hai, 18 tháng 7, 2016
Bubba Watson, the fifth-ranked golf player in the world, just can’t seem to get around a golf course like regular pros. Three years ago, he boarded a hovercraft and glided over fairways, bunkers and water hazards. Now he’s ready to fly over them in the world's first golf cart jetpack. The two-time PGA Masters champ is featured in a new stunt video from Oakley and Thinkmodo, the marketing, media and video company that memorably brought you Devil Baby (yes, that’s a thing), Tiny Cop Lifting Car and the Automated Selfie Stick, which strangely never caught on with Kim Kardashian.. The jetpack golf cart built by Martin Aircraft. Image: Thinkmodo Oakley commissioned the new video, which Mashable is debuting here, to celebrate the return of golf to the Olympics when they kick off in Brazil on Aug. 5. Watson is a member of the U.S. Olympic Golf Team. They also commissioned the video to, obviously, promote their sports apparent and their PRIZM sports sun-glasses. Watson's somewhat nontraditional style of play fit the creation of this radical golf cart design. In the video, a trained pilot boards what looks almost like a tiny rocket ship, then lifts off and flies over Methven golf course in New Zealand — where the aircraft is certified to fly — as other stunned golfers look on. It’s a feat you could accomplish easily in CGI, but this jetpack golf cart (a.k.a. BW-Air — for Bubba Watson- Air) is real. Bubba and the jetpack golf cart that he wants to fly. Image: thinkmodo Built by Martin Aircraft, BW-Air is actually an experimental aircraft capable of flying at 46 mph and at 3,000 feet of altitude. It runs on regular gasoline and makes about as much noise as a high-performance motorcycle (which means it’s pretty loud), but Thinkmodo's James Percelay insisted it's quiet — in a relative sense thanks to a piston-less rotary engine that runs at about 90 db. Its ability to take off and land vertically in relatively small spaces makes it, potentially, ideal for first responders, the actual target market. Martin Aircraft hopes to start selling to fire, police and rescue departments by then end of this year. Bubba Watson in the jetpack golf cart. Image: thinkmodo Percelay told me that Martin Aircraft is seeking FAA approval and does hope to eventually market the $200,000 aircraft to consumers. Those who do buy this extreme craft for personal transportation will need flight training. Even Watson has yet to pilot a BW-Air, but Percelay told me the golfer is currently third in the queue for training. And, yes, the Martin Aircraft is already taking pre-orders. Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Thứ Ba, 21 tháng 6, 2016
The passion and fire of Steve Jobs is the gift that keeps on giving. Unfortunately for Silicon Valley darlings the Golden State Warriors, the Apple founder's words served as fuel for LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, according to a new report. In an attempt to inspire his teammates, James played Steve Jobs' famous and often quoted 2005 Stanford University commencement address in the locker room, an ESPN report revealed on Tuesday. Since Jobs' death, the speech has been shared numerous times by business leaders, inventors and startup entrepreneurs alike. But it may come as a surprise to some that the Cavs, seen by many as using brawn versus the Warriors' cerebral style of play, leaned on the words of one of tech's most iconic visionaries. Interestingly, just weeks before James played the speech for his team, teammate Kevin Love, who suffered a great deal of criticism during the championship series, accessed Jobs' words on his own. "Love had started reading about Jobs on his own a few weeks earlier," reads the report on the developments inside the team's locker room. "One phrase stuck with him: 'Stay hungry, stay foolish.' Love started writing it on his shoes as a way to remind himself to loosen up." Those words not only helped Love, but the series MVP, James, deliver sports history. Perhaps the most ironic part of the story is the fact that much of Silicon Valley has adopted the Warriors, led by "baby-faced assassin" Steph Curry, as its unofficial tech industry sports team. But in the end, it turns out the Warriors may have been a little too clever for their own good and could have used some of the legendary passion Jobs delivered in his epic speech. Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
