First Alabama-made Airbus A321 makes initial test flight
Made In Alabama News Center
March 21, 2016
MOBILE, Alabama – Airbus test pilots this morning began the maiden flight of the company’s first Alabama-made A321 passenger jet, embarking on a three-hour mission designed to evaluate the plane’s performance and systems.
The flight began shortly after 9:30 this morning from the airstrip at the Mobile Aeroplex, the site of Airbus’ new $600 million U.S. manufacturing facility. The A321, sporting the logo and colors of its eventual owner, JetBlue Airways, was scheduled to return to the Aeroplex around 12:30 p.m.
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AUSTAL RECEIVES $14 MILLION LITTORAL COMBAT SHIP SPECIAL STUDIES AND ANALYSES MODIFICATION
Austal Press Release
March 19, 2016
Mobile, Ala. – Austal USA was awarded a $14 million Littoral Combat Ship contract modification by the U.S. Navy to conduct special studies and analyses, the Navy announced this week. This is the second $14 million LCS modification contract for Austal USA this month.
This award is an option exercised by the Navy to modify the original LCS 10-ship blocky contract to allow for continued review of the program.
For more information visit the Austal Website.
Automakers Go Back to School to Learn to Build Self-Driving Cars
By Jack Clark
March 16, 2016 – 11:29 AM CDT
Automakers didn’t build the self-driving car: Google did. That’s a big problem for them. Hoping to catch up, Ford, Toyota, and Volkswagen are betting on academics. Along with Nvidia, Samsung, Qualcomm and Panasonic, they’re each giving $300,000 to the University of California at Berkeley to fund artificial intelligence research.
The alliance, called DeepDrive, is a rare moment of AI cooperation among car companies, which are racing one another to create the kind of brains that propel Google’s prototype gumdrop-shaped vehicles around Mountain View.
For the rest of the story visit BloombergBusiness.