Step aside Uber. In many countries, we are now seeing the rise of electric flights that are offering taxi services between cities. For example, Japan now has an electric air taxi. AutoFlight delivered the five-seater Prosperity aircraft to the operator, which will be named in the future. This comes on the heels of AutoFlight’s February announcement where it demonstrated inter-city electric air taxi demonstration flight between the southern Chinese cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai. AutoFlight’s Prosperity aircraft completed the trip by autonomously flying the 50km (31 miles) route. The flight across the Pearl River Delta took just 20 minutes, a journey that would require three hours by car. Here is how this can help: Push the boundaries of urban air mobility in a safe and environmentally friendly way. Enable people to travel to their destination faster than before. Offer multiple options for travel in the years ahead. Looking to the future, the route between Shenzhen and Zhuhai is part of the future air traffic scenario planned by the regional government as it develops its ‘low-altitude economy’ strategy. The future of travel is changing—certainly we will need to keep an eye on electric and autonomous trends in the years…

The labor shortage is causing challenges across many industries including among engineers. Can AI (artificial intelligence) help recruit the right workers for the job, all while improving the effectiveness of recruiting? All signs point to yes. TalentRecipe uses psychological approaches and AI technology including GPT to address the global shortage of engineering and project managers. In Japan, the company demonstrated how generative AI can be used by a major tech firm that is piloting a project aimed at global engineering recruitment specifically. TalentRecipe says this experiment will verify the economics of using generative AI to improve the efficiency and quality of talent evaluations. Here is how this can help in recruiting: Enhance the quality of evaluations in different languages. Link recruitment to business strategy. Solve problems that may arise in the hiring and evaluation process. As we all know, recruiting is not just about hiring—but rather it is about finding the right person for the right job at the right time. It is about paving a career path that works for both the worker and the company. It is about ensuring there is not a large turnover in the company. It is about matching the right position to the right candidate. There is an opportunity for AI to help here—and it will certainly be a trend to keep an eye on for the…

An urban regeneration project will connect Rome and the Vatican City for the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee, which will welcome 35 million visitors. Let’s spend some time taking a looking inside this historic project—and how technology will help keep water flowing. First, a little bit of background: The project will extend the Lungotevere in Sassia underpass to enable the creation of a new pedestrianized zone that connects Castel Sant’Angelo with St. Peter’s Square. To support the project, Xylem provided advanced technology that diverted two major sewer collectors using a custom hydraulic bypass, a solution that redirects wastewater. Here is how this can help: Quickly moves large quantities of water—10 cubic meters of water per second, which is the equivalent of filling an Olympic-sized swimming pool in four minutes. Continued collection of sewage and stormwater as the road system was relocated underground. Facilitate the enlargement of the system to serve the new urban layout. Work on the underpass project began in September 2023 and is expected to be completed in March 2024. This isn’t the first time we have seen technology used to do work in this area. Peggy Smedley had an opportunity to interview a building engineer working on a project using a digital twin for structural monitoring of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. We can expect to see the rise of tech, as projects move…