A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website. Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...
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The device had attracted more than $4m (£2.6m) in funding - but reportedly did not have a working model. Backers received an email from Kickstarter saying the Laser Razor was "in violation of our rule requiring working prototypes of physical products that are offered as rewards". It has now been relisted on Indiegogo. The gadget, by a firm called Skarp Technologies, based in California, raised nearly $40,000 in pledges in its first four hours on the rival crowdfunding platform. On its Facebook page Skarp told its supporters "not to worry" and promised that the Laser Razor would be available in the spring.
"They have been incredibly helpful and they believe in the Skarp Razor as much as we do," the firm said of Indiegogo. Last week, Skarp released a nine-minute video on Kickstarter, addressing backers' concerns about the product, which included safety and battery life. Some people who commented on the original fundraising page had expressed worries about the firm itself, and a thread on community website Reddit questioned the technology, describing it as "far-fetched". case in point is the Zano drone, Europe's most successful Kickstarter project. When I visited the west Wales company behind it in August, it was evident that problems were mounting up. And now on various forums, backers are getting angry and impatient.
One says the promotional video was what sold him on the drone but "the final product can't even get off the ground, literally. If I knew then what I know now I would have saved that money." This is not just a problem for crowdfunded companies - platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo may have to be more diligent in checking that amazing new products do actually have some real technology to go with the marketing buzzwords.
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