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Skydiver Hooks Plane in Mid-Air, Gets Towed Up For Another Skydive

3 months 1 week ago
"Can you skydive continuously without landing...?" asks Red Bull. Imagine jumping out of a helicopter, "only to latch onto a speeding plane in mid-air and soar back up into the sky." Harnessing the plane's momentum, [skydiver Max Manow] soared out of the canyon, embarking on what he calls his "endless skydive", a manoeuvre that potentially could be done continuously without him ever needing to land... After exiting a helicopter, he manoeuvred his wingsuit to close the gap with a nosediving Cessna 182, piloted by Luke Aikins. Precision was key: Manow attached himself to a hook on the aircraft as the plane descended, allowing him to ascend back to a safe altitude of 2,500 feet before releasing into another freefall... Manow spent five months training, including sessions in a Stockholm wind tunnel, to master the techniques needed for mid-air connection. Meanwhile, Aikins modified his aircraft to ensure the feat was safe and repeatable. Skydiver Max Manow's goal was to develop a manoeuvre that could potentially be repeated an infinite number of times without ever having to land. Manow's mid-air manoeuvre opens the door to a new vision of skydiving, where athletes could remain airborne without ever needing to land. Reflecting on the experience, Manow said: "Who knows where this will take the future of the sport?" "If that wasn't enough adrenaline for you," writes New Atlas, "a previous bonkers wingsuit stunt from 2017 is equally jaw dropping, in which a pair of skydivers BASE-jumped off a mountain summit, and entered a passing airplane."

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EditorDavid

Did Google Fake Gemini AI's Output For Its Super Bowl Ad?

3 months 1 week ago
Google's Super Bowl ad about a Gouda cheese seller appears to be using fake AI output, writes the Verge: The text portrayed as generated by AI has been available on the business's website since at least August 2020, as shown on this archived webpage. Google didn't launch Gemini until 2023, meaning Gemini couldn't have generated the website description as depicted in the ad. The site Futurism calls the situation "beyond bizarre," asking why Google doesn't seem to trust its own technology. Either Google faked the ad entirely, or prompted its AI to generate the web page's existing copy word-for-word, or the AI was prompted to come up with original copy and instead copied the old version. In the publishing industry, that's referred to as "plagiarism." And ironically if Gemini did plagiarize that text, the text that it plagiarized is also inaccurate.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

EditorDavid