Nerd News: Flying Cars, New Consumer Tech, and…Crocodiles?!

Each Friday, we take a look at everything we learned during the week in tech, health, science, space…and beyond!

Let’s start with the flying cars…

Alef, the flying car company, has banked $750 million in pre-orders for their flying cars. Which, if you’re interested, a $150 deposit will get you in line for one of their cars…for $1,500 you can get a better spot in line.

Here’s what you need to know: The car can fly 110 miles on one charge, and then operate on most roads though its limited to 25 mph. Also, the company just got approval for the FAA to run test flights in limited locations, but believes they’ll have public demonstrations by the end of the year.

In tech news…

• Apple will reportedly reveal its new iPhone 15 on Sept. 12 or 13, with sales beginning Sept. 22. Features include a faster processor, better camera, and a USB-C charging port.
• Netflix launched a new app that will allow subscribers to play its games by pairing their phones with their TVs. Though the game has appeared in the App Store, there’s no news yet on which of Netflix’s games will be making their way to the big screen or when. Instead, the app’s description simply teases: “Coming soon to Netflix.”
• A team of British university researchers has trained a deep learning model to steal data by listening to the sounds of typing with a microphone, and they say it has an accuracy of 95%. If you’re worried about someone stealing your password by hearing you type it, the researchers suggest trying altered typing styles.

In science news…

In what could be a chilling spin-off to the “Monsters Inc.” movie, new research finds that crocodiles are “attracted” to the terrified cries of babies – both human and chimpanzee. In a study that claims these scaly guys can sense fear better than humans can, the data also notes, “The intensity of crocodile response depends critically on a set of specific acoustic features (mainly deterministic chaos, harmonicity and spectral prominences”.

This isn’t some newfangled whim either. The latest data from Royal Society Publishing piggybacks on 2008 research which found that crocs are extraordinarily prone to “sensing distress in their prey”.