Well, of course, Larry Page invested in two flying car startups

Google co-founder and Alphabet CEO Larry Page is much quieter than other leaders in the industry, rarely attending events (even Google I/O), speaking in public, or publicizing his investments.

So it comes as a surprise when earlier this week a Bloomberg report revealed one of Page’s secret interests: flying cars. The chief executive has invested heavily into two flying car startups and provided space for them near Google’s campus in Mountain View, California.

The first of these two startups is Zee.Aero, which launched in 2010. Page invested in the company and provided them with the ground floor of a 30,000 square foot building a few blocks away from Google’s HQ.

In the five years since it launched, Zee.Aero has become one of the more famous flying car startups. It went from 10 to 150 employees, moved into the second floor of its HQ (which was Page’s pad) and expanded to the Hollister airport, where it tests flying car prototypes.

Page has invested a total of $100 million into Zee.Aero, but in the past year has switched his sights to a new flying car startup, called Kitty Hawk.

The new startup is led by Google X founder and one of the lead voices for the self-driving car project, Sebastian Thrun. Page supposedly started investing to make Zee.Aero more competitive, though we don’t know that for certain since all parties declined to comment.

There are other flying cars, too

Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk are not the only flying car startups in the world. AeroMobil, a Slovenian-based startup, has shown footage of its flying car transitioning from a car to a consumer plane in under two minutes, and is pushing for legalization.

Page’s fascination with flying cars may come from the same vein that approves self-driving, smart cities, and clean energy solutions. His Google I/O speech in 2013 revealed that ad sales and search results were of negligible interest to the chief executive, who would much rather talk about publicizing medical records and fundamentally changing society.

Flying cars are still a far away fantasy. The regulation and safety hazards could take even longer to get around than self-driving cars and drones, however, for Page, the man that built the most valuable company in the world, it may just be one step away from reality.

Google car to protect pedestrians with…flypaper tech?

Google has filed a patent application for the “sticky bonnet,” which, in the event of a collision between its autonomous car and a pedestrian, would stick the pedestrian to the car.

In the patent, published by the the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Google said that if the car is able to hold the pedestrian and slow down, it will reduce the amount of damage to both parties.

Google uses an adhesive coating on the bonnet to make the human stick, which wears off once the car slows down. The company claims it has built the new adhesive with its autonomous car in mind, but car manufacturers could license the patent, if they’re interested.

Is this basically pedestrian flypaper?

“Ideally, the adhesive coating on the front portion of the vehicle may be activated on contact and will be able to adhere to the pedestrian nearly instantaneously,” said Google in the patent application. “This instantaneous or nearly-instantaneous action may help to constrain the movement of the pedestrian, who may be carried on the front end of the vehicle until the driver of the vehicle (or the vehicle itself in the case of an autonomous vehicle) reacts to the incident and applies the brakes.

“As such, both the vehicle and pedestrian may come to a more gradual stop than if the pedestrian bounces off the vehicle.”

Google wants to minimize the amount of collisions on the road, whether it’s with cars or humans. While this adhesive won’t prevent collisions, it should make the damages a lot lower, something Google will have to factor in if it provides insurance for its cars.

The autonomous car fleet, which numbers at just over 100, has been involved in a few accidents. Most have been human drivers fault, though one video shows the Google car definitely in the wrong, crashing into the side of a moving bus.

Google “Sidewalk Labs” and see Alphabet’s plans for smart cities

Alphabet subsidiary Sidewalk Labs is meeting with several top executives to discuss plans for a rejuvenation project in an existing city. The plan involves billions of dollars in investment to make the city high-tech, automated, and vibrant.

While details are scarce at the moment, The Information reports that Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff will meet with Alphabet CEO Larry Page to receive a green light on the “Sidewalk Project.”

See Also: Are smart citizens being lost in rush for smart cities?

If the project is approved, Sidewalk Labs might solicit bids from states or cities in need of rejuvenation. Similar to Google Fiber, Sidewalk wants the state to remove regulations on utilities, parking, and city design to give the company more autonomy over the re-design.

That might scare off some cities that are not willing to ceed control to a corporation, though others that require a major upheaval might accept these terms if it means billions in private investment, turning the city into a tech epicenter.

Alphabet already has a few high-tech divisions working on products that are useful in a smart city. The self-driving car, Project Wing, Makani, and Project Insight — which came from X Labs — could all be implemented in a controlled smart city environment.

Alphabet working its smart city network to rebuild American cities

Add to that Alphabet’s potential partnerships with other smart city companies and it might be the perfect opportunity for cities or states that require a major rejuvenation to bring residents and companies back.

No cities were mentioned in the report and for all we know Sidewalk Labs might have to go out and persuade downtrodden cities or neighborhoods to let them re-build, before they get any offers.

Rejuvenation of an entire city is hard and much harder when you remove its historic value in favor of high-tech and low regulations. While the city might look fancy, as the WSJ points out, it might lack the vibrancy of cities that were able to naturally grow into super-cities.