November 28, 2023 • 33 mins
In part two of our transportation-focused episodes, we are learning about the latest in racing series, Airspeeder EXA. Join us as we delve into the cutting-edge world of innovative hovercraft technology, set to revolutionize the future of transportation. Get a sneak peek into the future with a discussion about Airspeeder EXA's upcoming racing series, featuring remotely piloted drones with a vision for future human pilots. These sustainable, high-performance aircraft, often dubbed the "F1 of Flying Cars," are set to redefine the global landscape of personal mobility. Discover how technology and engineering come together to pave the way for a cleaner, more exciting, and interconnected future. Don't miss this exciting episode that explores the limitless possibilities of transportation!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the exciting world of the Airspeeder Exo Grand Prix,
where technology and racing merge to create a thrilling future.
As we venture into the high tech world of electric
flying car racing, we begin in the bustling pit area
where software engineers are hard at work. The clattering of
keys the soft hum of computers being fine tuned to
perfection create an atmosphere of intense focus. The pit crews,
(00:25):
running through lines of code work diligently to ensure that
the racing supercomputers are operating smoothly, ready to calculate every twist,
turn and speed boost. And of course, the drone racing area,
where the pilots gear up with their state of the
art controls and gamer gloves. These skilled drone pilots are
now ready to race their powerful machines through a high
(00:47):
speed course. Meanwhile, sleek futuristic racing drones a weight competition.
With their aerodynamic designs and electric power systems. These vehicles
are a glimpse of the future of transportation. As the
race countdown begins, the energy at the racetrack is palpable,
and now the race is underway, the flying cars raw
(01:07):
into action. The future of transportation is here. It's fast, furious,
and filled with endless possibilities. Hey there, I'm gram Class
and this is technically speaking an Intel podcast. The show
is dedicated to highlighting technology is revolutionizing the way we live,
(01:31):
work and move. In every episode, we'll connect with innovators
in areas like artificial intelligence to better understand the human
centered technology they've developed. Advanced technology has always been presented
to us in ideas of the future, with iconic scenes
from movies and TV like Blade Runner, The Fifth Element,
Star Trek, and The Jetsons. Flying cars have always been
(01:53):
a part of our vision of what the future could
look like. What if that future is not as far
away as we think. There have been several iterations of
flying vehicles over the years, and there is a newer
version that has been branded as the f One of
flying Cars. The airspeed XER is a remotely piloted electric
vertical takeoff and landing racing series. The EXER series was
(02:16):
announced in November twenty twenty one and the first races
were held in twenty twenty two in South Australia. The
EXA series is a development program for the air Speeder
Grand Prix races which are planned for twenty twenty four.
But my guest today are the real experts in this technology.
Joining me now is Peter Kearney, Hailing from Sydney, Australia.
(02:37):
Peter is an enterprise solutions architect for Intel, where he
works to find interesting integrations between AI and the business world,
further expanding the Internet of Things pipeline. With over twenty
years of software engineering experience, Peter joined Intel in two
thousand and one and has risen through the ranks with
his education to finding end user solutions that propel technological
advancements and making tools accessible to business owners and other
(03:01):
state owners. Welcomputer Thanks also here with US is co
founder and the chief commercial Officer of Airspeeder. Jack Withinshaw.
Airspeeder is an electric hydride powered flying car racing series
set to begin competitions in twenty twenty four. Before joining Airspeeder,
Jack was an executive in the aeronautics field, as well
as the commercial director and consultant for various tech companies.
(03:23):
As a leader in sales and business development, he has
been responsible for spearheading commercial campaigns in Australia and the UK.
In his current role with air Speeder, He cumminates his
expertise in aeronautics, sales and business development with a passion
for sports and new media.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Welcome to the show, Jack, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Peter. I want to start with a brief discussion on
the Internet of things. In fact, we have heard this
being mentioned previously in our podcast. So could you explain
your words what internet of things means? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Sure, As we're seeing lots of business use cases for
how do we make efficient infrastructure, how do we control
energy grids? We need to instrument this infrastructure. So you
put a whole bunch of things connecting and monitoring everything,
and then you get the data and the information back
(04:18):
from those things into a central platform massage analyze it,
look for trends, and then make intelligent decisions on what
could be going on in that infrastructure. And as we've seen,
there's been all sorts of different numbers, but I've seen
numbers as high as fifty billion connected devices. Yeah, you
(04:42):
just look at your own router at home. I've got
probably fifty to one hundred things connected to my router.
But I guess I'm a tech guy, so that's part
of the job.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I wonder if your tast is connected to it, NA
tasted is not. And what are some the I guess
enterprise level examples that you could give where companies are
using this information to get that competitive advantage or to
provide better products and services.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, we've certainly seen a lot of things in agriculture,
that's an obvious one, where people are trying to get
better crop yields, better quality product in order to achieve
competitive advantage. Certainly, as I mentioned the energy sector, so
looking at power plants and gas plants, a lot of
those things are based around not only production quality, but
(05:36):
also safety aspects, making sure that nothing's going to go
wrong in that gas processing plant. Pretty important thing.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
And how do you see AI and the techniques that's
now coming up fitting into the Internet of pipeline's ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
AI is really an umbrella term, so it encompasses like
traditional machine learning and traditional data analytics pipelines as well.
And so we do see a lot of things, Especially
at Intel, a lot of our customers in the manufacturing sector,
they're using AI techniques for analyzing vibration in machines to
(06:19):
do preactive failure analysis to understand when bearings are going
to go or using new video techniques to look for
quality assurance QA use cases to make sure components have
been mounted properly on circuit boards using vision systems. And
(06:40):
that's an AI technique video analytics.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Now, okay, And is there any initiatives going on particularly
around the transportation and air travel industry at Intel.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Well, the relationship with air Speeder is still very new
and in its infancy, so we're still working out where
the best places to engage are. But Intel is doing
a lot of engagement in the avionics space, so looking
at real time systems, safety critical systems, working with some
(07:14):
organizations around the future of avionics, which does involve a
lot of AI use cases for collision avoidance, safety systems,
traffic monitoring, and flow and control. So lots of AI
use cases coming down in the avionics sector.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Okay, And before I get Jack involved, just maybe a
bit of the background story about how you two met.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Well, I got engaged secondhand. I guess in the project
one of our account executives, mister Andrew Ridley, met Jack,
I believe, and started a conversation. And Andrews started talking
about the kinds of things Intel does and we saw
some very useful alignment with a lot of the technologies
(08:00):
and the things Intel is working on and how they
could be applicable to Airspeeder and to Alloweder Aeronautics.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
So, Jack, I'd like to get your story about what
drew you to forming this company Airspeeder.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Sure, well, we started back in twenty nineteen, but the
idea is it's been around for ages. I guess the
idea of flying car racing is something we've always had
in popular culture for decades now. We talk about Star Wars,
Chichi Bang Bang, back to the future, the stuff that
we were promised. But my co founder, Matt Pearson and
(08:35):
I he first pitched the idea at me up in
the hinterlands of Mongolia. We were actually up on the
Siberian borders and I think we're up there for ten
days on horseback riding around. And maybe it was because
we were nutritionally deprived and sleep deprived and everything, but
the idea made a lot of sense. The simple truth
was that every mobility revolution has always started with racing
(08:57):
at the forefront of it, and then with the evil
of electric batteries, electric propulsion, as well as the scale
up of hobby grade drones now to industrial size. There
was a convergence of technology and opportunity which meant that
flying cars could become a reality, But the question was how,
and that's where racing came in. As has said, it's
(09:17):
not a new idea, and maybe it's because there's students
of history that it just made a lot more sense
for us. But started there and then with that simple logic,
we've just been following our feet since then.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
And for listeners who are familiar with the hobby drones,
could you explain perhaps the major differences between those hobby
drones of what you're trying to create with these racing drones.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Absolutely so, drones are becoming increasingly a part of our
everyday lives for using them for all sifferent substituations. There's
drones being used in fertilization, in crop scanning, there's drones
used in emergency services and construction. What we're doing is
a little bit different. They're consideredly bigger. Our speeders, as
(09:58):
we call them, about four and a half meet is long.
The Mark III, the one that we've been flying at
the moment, is fully electric and they've been designed so
that we can put a pilot into these vehicles as well.
So they are a drone in the sense that they
have a multi rotor their electric propulsion. But when you
start to put somebody in them, you start thinking about racing,
the line between drones and flying cars becomes quite thin.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Drone racing is such an interesting concept to me. From
Formula One and NASCAR racing circuits have always highlighted the
hard work engineers put into giving their cars that extra
edge on the track. Now, with these large racing drones,
engineers not only have to deal with two dimensions like
on a normal racetrack, we now have to consider these
(10:44):
flying vehicles in three dimensions. This coupled with the remote
piloting aspect. I'm interested to hear more about what other
engineering hacks Airspeeder discovered on their journey and in terms
of the structure of how you you organize the racing events,
maybe you could spend a couple of minutes explaining how
(11:05):
that competition's going to work. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Sure. So there's got two sides to our entity. We've
got Airspeed of the sport, which is headquartered here in London,
and then we've got a Louder Aeronautics which is in Australia,
and that's where we manufacture all the vehicles that compete
within the Airspeeder series. So we're building, flying, testing, even
crashing these four and a half middle long speeders in
the deserts of South Australia, and they are the vehicles
(11:31):
that we are testing. But also we'll start racing this
year and then we've got our first crewed vehicles coming
through at the moment, so manned vehicles which we pilsted
and raced in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Okay, great, and I managed to see some of the
videos on YouTube that you have. I had encouraged all
of our listeners to have a look at that. Just
do a search for air Speeder, just to see some
of the trials and tribulations that go through the creation
of these machines. You know, as soon as I heard
about air speed I kind of thought of the parallels
between your F one racing with the technology going on there,
(12:03):
and then a few years later downstream it makes its
way into the consumer products. Maybe you could share your
thoughts around the technology that you're producing in particularly the
AI and the Internet of things devices, and how that
could then move into more consumer based products in the future.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, sure, so, I guess It comes back to the
idea of racing being one of the first applications for
any new mobility revolution. And that isn't just because there
is a setup, a governance and ability to be able
to do it that is I guess less rigorous than
the commercial space. It also is a great place and
space to be able to test new technologies, and most
(12:43):
sport does this famously, so seat belts, disc brakes, abs,
revision mirrors, everything that we have in our everyday car
that we drive has at some point by passed through
the white heat of competition at the motorsport levels. So
it's famous for having quite significant investment technology but also
a downstream trickle effect into the everyday market. Now, when
(13:04):
Pete just talked about how we first met Intel, Andrew
obviously was quite attracted to the speeders. They are great
looking machines. But I think where Intel and air Speeder
formed a deep understanding of where this is going, how
this is speared in the industry is around the infrastructure
that is needed to be able to keep these vehicles
in the air. So it's not just about the vehicles
(13:26):
and the speeders themselves, it's also about the network the
vehicle to vehicle communication, how these vehicles are talking to
their pit crews, their race crews, that telemetry, that volume
of data that needs to be processed at the edge
and then sent the engineers. That really is a microcosm
of the city of the future. It's not just a racetrack.
This is the future of what our seats are going
(13:46):
to look like.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Perhaps, Peter, if you want to jump in with your
thoughts around Intel's role in shaping that future of human mobility.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yeah, absolutely, And just to sort of touch on what
Jack was just talking about, Intel is very critical in
five G infrastructure. We work with all the major telcos,
all the major what are called temes telco equipment manufacturers,
and so one of the work packages we've got going
with air Speeder and Telstra is around private five G
(14:19):
networks because of the critical need to not only control
the speeders themselves, but this is a sport. It's all
about the spectacle and the video the race. So all
of that information and data has to come back from
the speeders down into production systems, and so we're definitely
(14:42):
looking at that as well. Then we're also talking to
them about leveraging some of the work that Intel's been
doing with the Olympics around broadcast systems and production systems,
some of the stuff we've got going on with F one.
So yeah, there's lots of of things we can bring
to the air Speeder sort of racing series if you
(15:04):
like excellent.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Can you give us some examples of where it's helped
with both performance and the safety of the flying car
racing events?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Jack, Yeah, So as a question of safety, the first
thing I think about is you need a rigorous network
to be able to have the pilot talking to the vehicle.
That's the first thing. The next is when you introduce
multiple vehicles into the mix and they have to have
a communication with each other as well. So it's something
we're just starting with Intels. The next phase of how
(15:35):
do these vehicles talk to each other? How can they
communicate safely? We want to create somethinglike a force field
or a digital bubble around the vehicles so they don't
physically touch, but can digitally bump. And that will take
a lot of processing power to be able to get
us to that position.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
We'll be right back after a quick break. Welcome back
to Technically Speaking an Intel podcast. Maybe you could give
(16:17):
a little bit more explanation around some of the tech
that's actually on those vehicles, in terms of is it
a vision system, what sort of sensors are on there.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, so we're working on systems for telemetry because, as
Jack said, it's really about safety and control and robust communications.
If something's going wrong with the speeder, you need to
be able to send it a kill pill to stop
drop power off, so that sort of communication, but it
(16:48):
also has to be real time. There's a whole bunch
of standards when you start talking about putting people in aircraft.
There's standards around air worthiness and safety levels, about catastrophic
versus hazardous versus minor safety effects. So as we go
(17:10):
forward into the design of the Mark four, which is
from the ground up a crude piloted vehicle, there's a
lot of regulatory requirements have to be taken into effect,
and so we're definitely looking at leveraging.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Some of that.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
We're also working with a lot of companies in the
US around the future of avionics. What does it look
like when you start to have a lot of vehicles
in the sky, situational awareness becomes very important.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
So in terms of the use of AI techniques, what's
the potential there.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yeah, obviously we were talking about safety and collision avoidance,
and Jack was talking about the virtual bubble, the speed
these things are projected to go out. You really need
to be using AI techniques to say, what is the
likelihood that that vehicle is going to be in that
position that I'm going to be in in about a
(18:09):
quarter of a second. Because I race to aeroplanes and
at three hundred kilometers an hour, and they move very
quickly and they can cover a lot of ground in
very short periods of time. So real time systems and
real time AI and analytics is going to be extremely
important for the safety aspects of this sport.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
It only makes sense that such a technologically savvy sport
would use AI to configure some sort of safety precautions
for it. Not only do the sensors and AI number
crunching help with safely piloting the drones, but it can
also monitor the power consumption of these racing vehicles. With
racing becoming more conscious of its environmental impact, I do
(18:51):
wonder how as Bitter plans to implement AI to better
monitor its carbon emissions. What's some of the things that
Intel are doing to try and reduce the environmental impacts
for the data processing and data collecting.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
So last year Intel was voted by Barons as being
the number one sustainable company. So we take sustainability very
seriously at Intel. Our products are produced sustainably. We have
a lot of initiatives around green energy, around hazardous materials,
(19:28):
around water recycling in our manufacturing plants. So we'd say
the fourth generation Xeon is the world's most sustainable processor,
and so it's got a lot of technology built into
the processor to accelerate these next generation of workloads such
as AI. So reducing the amount of energy used for
(19:51):
AI starts at the processor.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
And how do you see SBDA reducing environmental impacts.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
So what we wanted to do is do something that
most sports hasn't done the past. So we don't need
physical timac we don't need tracks. We can race and
set up in remote locations. We want to champion electric mobility,
and we want to be able to have small amounts
of crew and guests on site, so we don't create
(20:20):
a huge footprint for these races, yet be able to
show it and globally broadcast that have people experience it
in their living room, start playing it, and esports and
start to enjoy it without having too much of an
impact on the ground. We're really encouraging kind of sustainability
throughout the whole ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
And perhaps you could just describe for the audience what
do these tracks actually look like.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
So for the pilot the moment, because they're racing in
the uncrewed vehicles the Exo series, the pilot is seeing
an augmented reality track in their remote or ground cockpit.
So the pilots are in the cockpit on the ground,
hicles are flying in the air, and through their screen,
we've implanted an augmented reality track which is mapped in
(21:06):
unreal engine real time, then put through to the pilot
control station. In the future, we are going to bring
that into the visors for the pilots themselves in the vehicle.
We've designed that track to be challenging for the Pilot's
got numerous turns, it's got skygates, it's off the ground
in varying degrees, so maybe five, ten, fifteen meters the
(21:27):
gates from different positions. And then with the vehicle out
there flying in real time out on the track, there's
a camera in the front of it, and that camera
feed is passed through to the pilot control station. It's
then washed through with an augmented reality track over the
top of it. So the pilot is now seeing the
real world, say remote does it with a track in it,
(21:47):
and is also now competing against other speeders in real time.
So we've come a long way in just a short
few years. But we're really excited to say that flying
car racing with augmented reality tracks in remotely is a
real thing.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
And in terms of the fan experience, you know, watching
this remotely, what would they actually see in their broadcast?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So the next step is to take those digital tracks
and then bring that into the broadcast world. And we've
seen that in sport already, the numerous kind of aug
mental reality elements that are integrated into sport, but we
need to bring that track to broadcast fans. So the
challenge is then taking that map and running it through
not just the pilot's control stations, but also some of
(22:30):
the broadcast feeds, flying drones feeds, and then stitching that
all together. The next challenge after that would be how
do we take this to the public that want to watch
it live? And that future isn't written yet, so things
like HoloLens devices or mental reality devices or cross reality devices,
phones being used and held up to see the tracks
(22:50):
giant screens. It's very exciting, but we've got a couple
of years before we need to allow the public to
see the track as well.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Asmuda has a unique challenge of blending the physical world
of racing with the live streaming esport market. Jack's introspection
also highlights a recurrent issue for emerging technology businesses. How
can we launch, grow, and scale to a global audience.
In Airspeeder's case, the concept of an infhone cause visualization
(23:19):
is such a unique way to engage an audience in
a familiar and comfortable way. High myself have been guilty
of being on my phone while watching a movie, so
I see how targeting phones instead of the more traditional
TV model could be critical to this success as a brand.
So Jack, what's the typical distance that these races go for?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So our vehicles have a battery life of about fifteen
to twenty minutes, so that gets us a good couple
of laps of a kilometer and a half long track
before they need to come in for a pit stop.
And just like motorsports, they will come in we'll take
the battery out, put the new one in, and we've
got that down to just under a minute, which is
where Formula one was in the eighties. So we've got
(24:05):
some work to do.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
So my son loves video games, and in terms of
actually becoming a pilot, do you think some of those
skills that the next generation are developing with using video
games would that help with becoming a drone pilot? What
training is involved.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
The problem we have is we don't know where the
next generation of pilots are going to come from, so
we've had to kind of try whole different hosts of
different talent pools for the Excess Series the Young Crewed Series.
So we've got pilots that drone racing champions, we've got
aerial cinematographers, we've got people in the motorsport space like
Bruno Cenna of Motorsport Royalty, all entering in the Excess
(24:50):
Series to try out their talents. Then we've also got
our crude craft, the pilot craft that's actually in its
developmental phase at the moment, and we race in twenty
twenty four. So like the Mark three, our uncrewed vehicle
has to go through its test card phases, which is
a whole series of incremental technological developments. You may have
seen at the beginning of Top Gun when Maverick pushes
(25:13):
it to Mark ten. We take a little bit slower,
but just like the Mark three did where it went
through test cards, went into drag racing, went into pursuit racing,
and they went to circuit racing, our mark for the
crude vehicle, we're doing the exact same test card path
as well, so we're testing that at the moment, we're
genuinely just waiting on Cassier to give us approval. It's
(25:36):
the vehicle's sitting in the shed, as they say. But
our first races, our first crude races, won't be until
till next year, probably in a simple format to start with,
but we'll grow into a full blown circuit race format.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I'm interested to know the evolution of the design and
how you're going to go from an uncrewed machine into
something with a pilot.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So we started crude first and then said the riskiest element,
the human, is what we'll bring in later. The Mark
three probably was a little bit more design lead. I'm
going to say, more form over function. It was beautiful,
It showed the world what we think a beautiful flying
car could and should look like. Did it fly as
(26:19):
well as it should? Maybe not. There's a lot of
learnings and modifications that you can quite clearly see between
the Mark three and the Mark four, especially around the
aerodynamic packages, and so we've got a lot more lift
surfaces and winglets that are attached to the vehicle. But yeah,
it's design has changed. Whereas it started with form over function,
we're now going the other way where it's a little
(26:41):
bit more functionally lead. But it is important and we
value design really so that when people look at this,
they a know what it is, and they be they
want to get more involved and they want to understand
a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
About it, so and get in one and fly it.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, and hopefully fly it.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Intel's very big in the high performance computing sector, so
all the engineering, the fluid dynamics, the airflow modeling, the manufacturing,
and the understanding the stress points on the vehicle as
it's flying to help optimize those designs. Because everyone knows
(27:19):
with electric aircraft, weight is a critical factor in how
long these things can fly and how fast they can go.
So using high performance computing techniques to optimize these designs
is very important.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
So maybe just explain a little bit about the gaming
side of things.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Sure, so we've started an esports side to Airspeeder as well.
We found it was important to start with a physical
race series first show people that this is real, but
then also present a bit of a pathway to have
a bit of fun, but also learn a little bit
more about flying cars. Our partnership with sort Of Games
has allowed that to come to life. Watch the demo
(28:01):
earlier this year. So pilots have done their first tournament.
But this is exciting for us because we get to
see and play with a lot of that data and
have a look at that talent that come through and
hopefully become air spit of pilots like your son one day.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
One of the final questions is moving from the racing
side of things again back to the consumer side of
the industry. Do you think these sorts of technology and
these flying cards would actually help with traffic jams and
be able to get around as we see in Star
Wars and all these sci fi movies. Peter, I'd like
(28:36):
to get your thoughts about, you know, what's it going
to be for our grand kids.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
I'm pretty bad at predicting the future. I'm still working,
so obviously my investments skills are not as they should be.
So clearly, aerial vehicles is, for one of a better phrase,
taking off. You can see the investments that are going
on in electric cars and flying vehicles. Aerial taxis aerial
(29:05):
delivery just because of the economics and just how many
people and the congestion issues that we're facing at the moment.
So certainly any investment and any progress in the future
of avionics and the future of aerial vehicles is definitely
(29:26):
important to get us to that future.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yeah, Jack, what are your thoughts around sort of consumer commute.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
We're obviously quite a big fan of the idea of
everyone owning a flying car at some stage. We're going
to remember that mobility revolutions, when they do happen, they
happen very quickly. The horse went out of fashion within
twenty years, and the model T came in the price
of an average salaries that everybody could afford. It fundamentally
(29:56):
changed the way that cities were planned and the way
we moved around. Now, our flying cars the next version
of that, quite possibly, I think that the sequence has
to be right in that we have the playground like
racing to drive tech but also to drive public awareness
and acceptance and eventually into adoption for these types of vehicles.
So the conditions are there. It's been proven history that
(30:19):
it can happen and will happen quite quickly. Will it
happen to fly in cars. Who knows, but we predict
that it's highly likely. But at the moment, we know
that we can go racing and it's a lot of fun.
So we'll start with racing. We'll see where we end up.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Hopefully we don't end up in the fifth element.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Not too dystopian.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
I'll leave it then. Thanks very much to both of you.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Not problem. Thank you Graham.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yep, thanks Graham.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I would like to thank my guests Peter Kearney and
Jack Withinshaw for joining me on this episode of Technically
Speaking and Intel podcast. I'm always in awe of entrepreneurs
and innovators who dive into the realm of the unknown
to carve out newspaces and industries. This conversation was truly enlightening,
especially hearing Jack's journey in launching Airspeeder and his ambitious
(31:12):
visions for flying cars. Jack has a unique way of
drawing wisdom from history, tracing from the era of the
model T forward to the advent of airliner jets, and
gleaning insights on making personal flying vehicles a reality. Often
there's a perception that global organizations like Intel are solely
focused on partnering with other large scale enterprises. So it's
(31:34):
refreshing to learn that Intel is extending a supportive hand
to startups, offering genuine engineering support and guidance. Peter's thoughts
on Intel's partnership with Airspeeder was reassuring. It sends a
positive signal to other enterprises, regardless of their size, that
the team at Intel is approachable and ready to assist
in developing their technological roadmap. At our core, we humors
(31:56):
are social beings, a trait ingrained in us for millennia.
We're innately driven to connect with one another, nurturing relationships
with family, friends, and peers, as we saw with the
advent of planes, trains, and automobiles. All of these advancements
allowed us to live apart, but also remained close to
those we love. The thought of the future where my
(32:17):
grandkids or perhaps great grandkids could be maneuvering flying cars
is scary. But also exciting. They could be living anywhere
in the world, but never truly far from home. The
innovative strides by Jack and Peter are not just about
ushering in a futuristic mode of transport, but also about
fostering a sense of closeness and enhance connectivity in the
(32:39):
society of tomorrow. I'm eager to see how the dream
of flying cars turn into a tangible reality, bridging distances
and knitting us closer. Please join us on Tuesday, December
twelfth for the next episode of Technically Speaking, an Intel podcast.
(33:01):
Technically Speaking was produced by Ruby Studios from iHeartRadio in
partnership with Intel, and hosted by me Graham Class. Our
executive producer is Molly Sosher, our EP of Post Production
is James Foster, and our supervising producer is nikiir Swinton.
This episode was edited by Sierra Spreen and written and
produced by Tyree Rush.
Welcome to the exciting world of the Airspeeder Exo Grand Prix,
where technology and racing merge to create a thrilling future.
As we venture into the high tech world of electric
flying car racing, we begin in the bustling pit area
where software engineers are hard at work. The clattering of
keys the soft hum of computers being fine tuned to
perfection create an atmosphere of intense focus. The pit crews,
(00:25):
running through lines of code work diligently to ensure that
the racing supercomputers are operating smoothly, ready to calculate every twist,
turn and speed boost. And of course, the drone racing area,
where the pilots gear up with their state of the
art controls and gamer gloves. These skilled drone pilots are
now ready to race their powerful machines through a high
(00:47):
speed course. Meanwhile, sleek futuristic racing drones a weight competition.
With their aerodynamic designs and electric power systems. These vehicles
are a glimpse of the future of transportation. As the
race countdown begins, the energy at the racetrack is palpable,
and now the race is underway, the flying cars raw
(01:07):
into action. The future of transportation is here. It's fast, furious,
and filled with endless possibilities. Hey there, I'm gram Class
and this is technically speaking an Intel podcast. The show
is dedicated to highlighting technology is revolutionizing the way we live,
(01:31):
work and move. In every episode, we'll connect with innovators
in areas like artificial intelligence to better understand the human
centered technology they've developed. Advanced technology has always been presented
to us in ideas of the future, with iconic scenes
from movies and TV like Blade Runner, The Fifth Element,
Star Trek, and The Jetsons. Flying cars have always been
(01:53):
a part of our vision of what the future could
look like. What if that future is not as far
away as we think. There have been several iterations of
flying vehicles over the years, and there is a newer
version that has been branded as the f One of
flying Cars. The airspeed XER is a remotely piloted electric
vertical takeoff and landing racing series. The EXER series was
(02:16):
announced in November twenty twenty one and the first races
were held in twenty twenty two in South Australia. The
EXA series is a development program for the air Speeder
Grand Prix races which are planned for twenty twenty four.
But my guest today are the real experts in this technology.
Joining me now is Peter Kearney, Hailing from Sydney, Australia.
(02:37):
Peter is an enterprise solutions architect for Intel, where he
works to find interesting integrations between AI and the business world,
further expanding the Internet of Things pipeline. With over twenty
years of software engineering experience, Peter joined Intel in two
thousand and one and has risen through the ranks with
his education to finding end user solutions that propel technological
advancements and making tools accessible to business owners and other
(03:01):
state owners. Welcomputer Thanks also here with US is co
founder and the chief commercial Officer of Airspeeder. Jack Withinshaw.
Airspeeder is an electric hydride powered flying car racing series
set to begin competitions in twenty twenty four. Before joining Airspeeder,
Jack was an executive in the aeronautics field, as well
as the commercial director and consultant for various tech companies.
(03:23):
As a leader in sales and business development, he has
been responsible for spearheading commercial campaigns in Australia and the UK.
In his current role with air Speeder, He cumminates his
expertise in aeronautics, sales and business development with a passion
for sports and new media.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Welcome to the show, Jack, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Peter. I want to start with a brief discussion on
the Internet of things. In fact, we have heard this
being mentioned previously in our podcast. So could you explain
your words what internet of things means? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Sure, As we're seeing lots of business use cases for
how do we make efficient infrastructure, how do we control
energy grids? We need to instrument this infrastructure. So you
put a whole bunch of things connecting and monitoring everything,
and then you get the data and the information back
(04:18):
from those things into a central platform massage analyze it,
look for trends, and then make intelligent decisions on what
could be going on in that infrastructure. And as we've seen,
there's been all sorts of different numbers, but I've seen
numbers as high as fifty billion connected devices. Yeah, you
(04:42):
just look at your own router at home. I've got
probably fifty to one hundred things connected to my router.
But I guess I'm a tech guy, so that's part
of the job.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I wonder if your tast is connected to it, NA
tasted is not. And what are some the I guess
enterprise level examples that you could give where companies are
using this information to get that competitive advantage or to
provide better products and services.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, we've certainly seen a lot of things in agriculture,
that's an obvious one, where people are trying to get
better crop yields, better quality product in order to achieve
competitive advantage. Certainly, as I mentioned the energy sector, so
looking at power plants and gas plants, a lot of
those things are based around not only production quality, but
(05:36):
also safety aspects, making sure that nothing's going to go
wrong in that gas processing plant. Pretty important thing.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
And how do you see AI and the techniques that's
now coming up fitting into the Internet of pipeline's ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
AI is really an umbrella term, so it encompasses like
traditional machine learning and traditional data analytics pipelines as well.
And so we do see a lot of things, Especially
at Intel, a lot of our customers in the manufacturing sector,
they're using AI techniques for analyzing vibration in machines to
(06:19):
do preactive failure analysis to understand when bearings are going
to go or using new video techniques to look for
quality assurance QA use cases to make sure components have
been mounted properly on circuit boards using vision systems. And
(06:40):
that's an AI technique video analytics.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Now, okay, And is there any initiatives going on particularly
around the transportation and air travel industry at Intel.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Well, the relationship with air Speeder is still very new
and in its infancy, so we're still working out where
the best places to engage are. But Intel is doing
a lot of engagement in the avionics space, so looking
at real time systems, safety critical systems, working with some
(07:14):
organizations around the future of avionics, which does involve a
lot of AI use cases for collision avoidance, safety systems,
traffic monitoring, and flow and control. So lots of AI
use cases coming down in the avionics sector.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Okay, And before I get Jack involved, just maybe a
bit of the background story about how you two met.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Well, I got engaged secondhand. I guess in the project
one of our account executives, mister Andrew Ridley, met Jack,
I believe, and started a conversation. And Andrews started talking
about the kinds of things Intel does and we saw
some very useful alignment with a lot of the technologies
(08:00):
and the things Intel is working on and how they
could be applicable to Airspeeder and to Alloweder Aeronautics.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
So, Jack, I'd like to get your story about what
drew you to forming this company Airspeeder.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Sure, well, we started back in twenty nineteen, but the
idea is it's been around for ages. I guess the
idea of flying car racing is something we've always had
in popular culture for decades now. We talk about Star Wars,
Chichi Bang Bang, back to the future, the stuff that
we were promised. But my co founder, Matt Pearson and
(08:35):
I he first pitched the idea at me up in
the hinterlands of Mongolia. We were actually up on the
Siberian borders and I think we're up there for ten
days on horseback riding around. And maybe it was because
we were nutritionally deprived and sleep deprived and everything, but
the idea made a lot of sense. The simple truth
was that every mobility revolution has always started with racing
(08:57):
at the forefront of it, and then with the evil
of electric batteries, electric propulsion, as well as the scale
up of hobby grade drones now to industrial size. There
was a convergence of technology and opportunity which meant that
flying cars could become a reality, But the question was how,
and that's where racing came in. As has said, it's
(09:17):
not a new idea, and maybe it's because there's students
of history that it just made a lot more sense
for us. But started there and then with that simple logic,
we've just been following our feet since then.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
And for listeners who are familiar with the hobby drones,
could you explain perhaps the major differences between those hobby
drones of what you're trying to create with these racing drones.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Absolutely so, drones are becoming increasingly a part of our
everyday lives for using them for all sifferent substituations. There's
drones being used in fertilization, in crop scanning, there's drones
used in emergency services and construction. What we're doing is
a little bit different. They're consideredly bigger. Our speeders, as
(09:58):
we call them, about four and a half meet is long.
The Mark III, the one that we've been flying at
the moment, is fully electric and they've been designed so
that we can put a pilot into these vehicles as well.
So they are a drone in the sense that they
have a multi rotor their electric propulsion. But when you
start to put somebody in them, you start thinking about racing,
the line between drones and flying cars becomes quite thin.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Drone racing is such an interesting concept to me. From
Formula One and NASCAR racing circuits have always highlighted the
hard work engineers put into giving their cars that extra
edge on the track. Now, with these large racing drones,
engineers not only have to deal with two dimensions like
on a normal racetrack, we now have to consider these
(10:44):
flying vehicles in three dimensions. This coupled with the remote
piloting aspect. I'm interested to hear more about what other
engineering hacks Airspeeder discovered on their journey and in terms
of the structure of how you you organize the racing events,
maybe you could spend a couple of minutes explaining how
(11:05):
that competition's going to work. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Sure. So there's got two sides to our entity. We've
got Airspeed of the sport, which is headquartered here in London,
and then we've got a Louder Aeronautics which is in Australia,
and that's where we manufacture all the vehicles that compete
within the Airspeeder series. So we're building, flying, testing, even
crashing these four and a half middle long speeders in
the deserts of South Australia, and they are the vehicles
(11:31):
that we are testing. But also we'll start racing this
year and then we've got our first crewed vehicles coming
through at the moment, so manned vehicles which we pilsted
and raced in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Okay, great, and I managed to see some of the
videos on YouTube that you have. I had encouraged all
of our listeners to have a look at that. Just
do a search for air Speeder, just to see some
of the trials and tribulations that go through the creation
of these machines. You know, as soon as I heard
about air speed I kind of thought of the parallels
between your F one racing with the technology going on there,
(12:03):
and then a few years later downstream it makes its
way into the consumer products. Maybe you could share your
thoughts around the technology that you're producing in particularly the
AI and the Internet of things devices, and how that
could then move into more consumer based products in the future.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, sure, so, I guess It comes back to the
idea of racing being one of the first applications for
any new mobility revolution. And that isn't just because there
is a setup, a governance and ability to be able
to do it that is I guess less rigorous than
the commercial space. It also is a great place and
space to be able to test new technologies, and most
(12:43):
sport does this famously, so seat belts, disc brakes, abs,
revision mirrors, everything that we have in our everyday car
that we drive has at some point by passed through
the white heat of competition at the motorsport levels. So
it's famous for having quite significant investment technology but also
a downstream trickle effect into the everyday market. Now, when
(13:04):
Pete just talked about how we first met Intel, Andrew
obviously was quite attracted to the speeders. They are great
looking machines. But I think where Intel and air Speeder
formed a deep understanding of where this is going, how
this is speared in the industry is around the infrastructure
that is needed to be able to keep these vehicles
in the air. So it's not just about the vehicles
(13:26):
and the speeders themselves, it's also about the network the
vehicle to vehicle communication, how these vehicles are talking to
their pit crews, their race crews, that telemetry, that volume
of data that needs to be processed at the edge
and then sent the engineers. That really is a microcosm
of the city of the future. It's not just a racetrack.
This is the future of what our seats are going
(13:46):
to look like.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Perhaps, Peter, if you want to jump in with your
thoughts around Intel's role in shaping that future of human mobility.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yeah, absolutely, And just to sort of touch on what
Jack was just talking about, Intel is very critical in
five G infrastructure. We work with all the major telcos,
all the major what are called temes telco equipment manufacturers,
and so one of the work packages we've got going
with air Speeder and Telstra is around private five G
(14:19):
networks because of the critical need to not only control
the speeders themselves, but this is a sport. It's all
about the spectacle and the video the race. So all
of that information and data has to come back from
the speeders down into production systems, and so we're definitely
(14:42):
looking at that as well. Then we're also talking to
them about leveraging some of the work that Intel's been
doing with the Olympics around broadcast systems and production systems,
some of the stuff we've got going on with F one.
So yeah, there's lots of of things we can bring
to the air Speeder sort of racing series if you
(15:04):
like excellent.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Can you give us some examples of where it's helped
with both performance and the safety of the flying car
racing events?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Jack, Yeah, So as a question of safety, the first
thing I think about is you need a rigorous network
to be able to have the pilot talking to the vehicle.
That's the first thing. The next is when you introduce
multiple vehicles into the mix and they have to have
a communication with each other as well. So it's something
we're just starting with Intels. The next phase of how
(15:35):
do these vehicles talk to each other? How can they
communicate safely? We want to create somethinglike a force field
or a digital bubble around the vehicles so they don't
physically touch, but can digitally bump. And that will take
a lot of processing power to be able to get
us to that position.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
We'll be right back after a quick break. Welcome back
to Technically Speaking an Intel podcast. Maybe you could give
(16:17):
a little bit more explanation around some of the tech
that's actually on those vehicles, in terms of is it
a vision system, what sort of sensors are on there.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, so we're working on systems for telemetry because, as
Jack said, it's really about safety and control and robust communications.
If something's going wrong with the speeder, you need to
be able to send it a kill pill to stop
drop power off, so that sort of communication, but it
(16:48):
also has to be real time. There's a whole bunch
of standards when you start talking about putting people in aircraft.
There's standards around air worthiness and safety levels, about catastrophic
versus hazardous versus minor safety effects. So as we go
(17:10):
forward into the design of the Mark four, which is
from the ground up a crude piloted vehicle, there's a
lot of regulatory requirements have to be taken into effect,
and so we're definitely looking at leveraging.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Some of that.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
We're also working with a lot of companies in the
US around the future of avionics. What does it look
like when you start to have a lot of vehicles
in the sky, situational awareness becomes very important.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
So in terms of the use of AI techniques, what's
the potential there.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yeah, obviously we were talking about safety and collision avoidance,
and Jack was talking about the virtual bubble, the speed
these things are projected to go out. You really need
to be using AI techniques to say, what is the
likelihood that that vehicle is going to be in that
position that I'm going to be in in about a
(18:09):
quarter of a second. Because I race to aeroplanes and
at three hundred kilometers an hour, and they move very
quickly and they can cover a lot of ground in
very short periods of time. So real time systems and
real time AI and analytics is going to be extremely
important for the safety aspects of this sport.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
It only makes sense that such a technologically savvy sport
would use AI to configure some sort of safety precautions
for it. Not only do the sensors and AI number
crunching help with safely piloting the drones, but it can
also monitor the power consumption of these racing vehicles. With
racing becoming more conscious of its environmental impact, I do
(18:51):
wonder how as Bitter plans to implement AI to better
monitor its carbon emissions. What's some of the things that
Intel are doing to try and reduce the environmental impacts
for the data processing and data collecting.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
So last year Intel was voted by Barons as being
the number one sustainable company. So we take sustainability very
seriously at Intel. Our products are produced sustainably. We have
a lot of initiatives around green energy, around hazardous materials,
(19:28):
around water recycling in our manufacturing plants. So we'd say
the fourth generation Xeon is the world's most sustainable processor,
and so it's got a lot of technology built into
the processor to accelerate these next generation of workloads such
as AI. So reducing the amount of energy used for
(19:51):
AI starts at the processor.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
And how do you see SBDA reducing environmental impacts.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
So what we wanted to do is do something that
most sports hasn't done the past. So we don't need
physical timac we don't need tracks. We can race and
set up in remote locations. We want to champion electric mobility,
and we want to be able to have small amounts
of crew and guests on site, so we don't create
(20:20):
a huge footprint for these races, yet be able to
show it and globally broadcast that have people experience it
in their living room, start playing it, and esports and
start to enjoy it without having too much of an
impact on the ground. We're really encouraging kind of sustainability
throughout the whole ecosystem.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
And perhaps you could just describe for the audience what
do these tracks actually look like.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
So for the pilot the moment, because they're racing in
the uncrewed vehicles the Exo series, the pilot is seeing
an augmented reality track in their remote or ground cockpit.
So the pilots are in the cockpit on the ground,
hicles are flying in the air, and through their screen,
we've implanted an augmented reality track which is mapped in
(21:06):
unreal engine real time, then put through to the pilot
control station. In the future, we are going to bring
that into the visors for the pilots themselves in the vehicle.
We've designed that track to be challenging for the Pilot's
got numerous turns, it's got skygates, it's off the ground
in varying degrees, so maybe five, ten, fifteen meters the
(21:27):
gates from different positions. And then with the vehicle out
there flying in real time out on the track, there's
a camera in the front of it, and that camera
feed is passed through to the pilot control station. It's
then washed through with an augmented reality track over the
top of it. So the pilot is now seeing the
real world, say remote does it with a track in it,
(21:47):
and is also now competing against other speeders in real time.
So we've come a long way in just a short
few years. But we're really excited to say that flying
car racing with augmented reality tracks in remotely is a
real thing.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
And in terms of the fan experience, you know, watching
this remotely, what would they actually see in their broadcast?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So the next step is to take those digital tracks
and then bring that into the broadcast world. And we've
seen that in sport already, the numerous kind of aug
mental reality elements that are integrated into sport, but we
need to bring that track to broadcast fans. So the
challenge is then taking that map and running it through
not just the pilot's control stations, but also some of
(22:30):
the broadcast feeds, flying drones feeds, and then stitching that
all together. The next challenge after that would be how
do we take this to the public that want to watch
it live? And that future isn't written yet, so things
like HoloLens devices or mental reality devices or cross reality devices,
phones being used and held up to see the tracks
(22:50):
giant screens. It's very exciting, but we've got a couple
of years before we need to allow the public to
see the track as well.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Asmuda has a unique challenge of blending the physical world
of racing with the live streaming esport market. Jack's introspection
also highlights a recurrent issue for emerging technology businesses. How
can we launch, grow, and scale to a global audience.
In Airspeeder's case, the concept of an infhone cause visualization
(23:19):
is such a unique way to engage an audience in
a familiar and comfortable way. High myself have been guilty
of being on my phone while watching a movie, so
I see how targeting phones instead of the more traditional
TV model could be critical to this success as a brand.
So Jack, what's the typical distance that these races go for?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
So our vehicles have a battery life of about fifteen
to twenty minutes, so that gets us a good couple
of laps of a kilometer and a half long track
before they need to come in for a pit stop.
And just like motorsports, they will come in we'll take
the battery out, put the new one in, and we've
got that down to just under a minute, which is
where Formula one was in the eighties. So we've got
(24:05):
some work to do.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
So my son loves video games, and in terms of
actually becoming a pilot, do you think some of those
skills that the next generation are developing with using video
games would that help with becoming a drone pilot? What
training is involved.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
The problem we have is we don't know where the
next generation of pilots are going to come from, so
we've had to kind of try whole different hosts of
different talent pools for the Excess Series the Young Crewed Series.
So we've got pilots that drone racing champions, we've got
aerial cinematographers, we've got people in the motorsport space like
Bruno Cenna of Motorsport Royalty, all entering in the Excess
(24:50):
Series to try out their talents. Then we've also got
our crude craft, the pilot craft that's actually in its
developmental phase at the moment, and we race in twenty
twenty four. So like the Mark three, our uncrewed vehicle
has to go through its test card phases, which is
a whole series of incremental technological developments. You may have
seen at the beginning of Top Gun when Maverick pushes
(25:13):
it to Mark ten. We take a little bit slower,
but just like the Mark three did where it went
through test cards, went into drag racing, went into pursuit racing,
and they went to circuit racing, our mark for the
crude vehicle, we're doing the exact same test card path
as well, so we're testing that at the moment, we're
genuinely just waiting on Cassier to give us approval. It's
(25:36):
the vehicle's sitting in the shed, as they say. But
our first races, our first crude races, won't be until
till next year, probably in a simple format to start with,
but we'll grow into a full blown circuit race format.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I'm interested to know the evolution of the design and
how you're going to go from an uncrewed machine into
something with a pilot.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So we started crude first and then said the riskiest element,
the human, is what we'll bring in later. The Mark
three probably was a little bit more design lead. I'm
going to say, more form over function. It was beautiful,
It showed the world what we think a beautiful flying
car could and should look like. Did it fly as
(26:19):
well as it should? Maybe not. There's a lot of
learnings and modifications that you can quite clearly see between
the Mark three and the Mark four, especially around the
aerodynamic packages, and so we've got a lot more lift
surfaces and winglets that are attached to the vehicle. But yeah,
it's design has changed. Whereas it started with form over function,
we're now going the other way where it's a little
(26:41):
bit more functionally lead. But it is important and we
value design really so that when people look at this,
they a know what it is, and they be they
want to get more involved and they want to understand
a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
About it, so and get in one and fly it.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, and hopefully fly it.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Intel's very big in the high performance computing sector, so
all the engineering, the fluid dynamics, the airflow modeling, the manufacturing,
and the understanding the stress points on the vehicle as
it's flying to help optimize those designs. Because everyone knows
(27:19):
with electric aircraft, weight is a critical factor in how
long these things can fly and how fast they can go.
So using high performance computing techniques to optimize these designs
is very important.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
So maybe just explain a little bit about the gaming
side of things.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Sure, so we've started an esports side to Airspeeder as well.
We found it was important to start with a physical
race series first show people that this is real, but
then also present a bit of a pathway to have
a bit of fun, but also learn a little bit
more about flying cars. Our partnership with sort Of Games
has allowed that to come to life. Watch the demo
(28:01):
earlier this year. So pilots have done their first tournament.
But this is exciting for us because we get to
see and play with a lot of that data and
have a look at that talent that come through and
hopefully become air spit of pilots like your son one day.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
One of the final questions is moving from the racing
side of things again back to the consumer side of
the industry. Do you think these sorts of technology and
these flying cards would actually help with traffic jams and
be able to get around as we see in Star
Wars and all these sci fi movies. Peter, I'd like
(28:36):
to get your thoughts about, you know, what's it going
to be for our grand kids.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
I'm pretty bad at predicting the future. I'm still working,
so obviously my investments skills are not as they should be.
So clearly, aerial vehicles is, for one of a better phrase,
taking off. You can see the investments that are going
on in electric cars and flying vehicles. Aerial taxis aerial
(29:05):
delivery just because of the economics and just how many
people and the congestion issues that we're facing at the moment.
So certainly any investment and any progress in the future
of avionics and the future of aerial vehicles is definitely
(29:26):
important to get us to that future.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Yeah, Jack, what are your thoughts around sort of consumer commute.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
We're obviously quite a big fan of the idea of
everyone owning a flying car at some stage. We're going
to remember that mobility revolutions, when they do happen, they
happen very quickly. The horse went out of fashion within
twenty years, and the model T came in the price
of an average salaries that everybody could afford. It fundamentally
(29:56):
changed the way that cities were planned and the way
we moved around. Now, our flying cars the next version
of that, quite possibly, I think that the sequence has
to be right in that we have the playground like
racing to drive tech but also to drive public awareness
and acceptance and eventually into adoption for these types of vehicles.
So the conditions are there. It's been proven history that
(30:19):
it can happen and will happen quite quickly. Will it
happen to fly in cars. Who knows, but we predict
that it's highly likely. But at the moment, we know
that we can go racing and it's a lot of fun.
So we'll start with racing. We'll see where we end up.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Hopefully we don't end up in the fifth element.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Not too dystopian.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
I'll leave it then. Thanks very much to both of you.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Not problem. Thank you Graham.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yep, thanks Graham.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I would like to thank my guests Peter Kearney and
Jack Withinshaw for joining me on this episode of Technically
Speaking and Intel podcast. I'm always in awe of entrepreneurs
and innovators who dive into the realm of the unknown
to carve out newspaces and industries. This conversation was truly enlightening,
especially hearing Jack's journey in launching Airspeeder and his ambitious
(31:12):
visions for flying cars. Jack has a unique way of
drawing wisdom from history, tracing from the era of the
model T forward to the advent of airliner jets, and
gleaning insights on making personal flying vehicles a reality. Often
there's a perception that global organizations like Intel are solely
focused on partnering with other large scale enterprises. So it's
(31:34):
refreshing to learn that Intel is extending a supportive hand
to startups, offering genuine engineering support and guidance. Peter's thoughts
on Intel's partnership with Airspeeder was reassuring. It sends a
positive signal to other enterprises, regardless of their size, that
the team at Intel is approachable and ready to assist
in developing their technological roadmap. At our core, we humors
(31:56):
are social beings, a trait ingrained in us for millennia.
We're innately driven to connect with one another, nurturing relationships
with family, friends, and peers, as we saw with the
advent of planes, trains, and automobiles. All of these advancements
allowed us to live apart, but also remained close to
those we love. The thought of the future where my
(32:17):
grandkids or perhaps great grandkids could be maneuvering flying cars
is scary. But also exciting. They could be living anywhere
in the world, but never truly far from home. The
innovative strides by Jack and Peter are not just about
ushering in a futuristic mode of transport, but also about
fostering a sense of closeness and enhance connectivity in the
(32:39):
society of tomorrow. I'm eager to see how the dream
of flying cars turn into a tangible reality, bridging distances
and knitting us closer. Please join us on Tuesday, December
twelfth for the next episode of Technically Speaking, an Intel podcast.
(33:01):
Technically Speaking was produced by Ruby Studios from iHeartRadio in
partnership with Intel, and hosted by me Graham Class. Our
executive producer is Molly Sosher, our EP of Post Production
is James Foster, and our supervising producer is nikiir Swinton.
This episode was edited by Sierra Spreen and written and
produced by Tyree Rush.
Host
Graeme Klass
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