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Wind turbines usually jut up from the ground like giant pinwheels. Now a company in China is exploring a new form factor: flying wind turbines. These zeppelin-like aircraft float high in the sky, tethered to the ground only by cables as they generate a nonstop stream of power thanks to the strong winds present in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Rather than being throttled by capricious ground-level windsone of the main challenges of current stationary turbinesflying wind turbines power throughput will not fluctuate because the wind there is constant. The design could solve some of the biggest problems of wind power generation without having to invest in extensive infrastructure, reducing wind power’s environmental footprint in the process. The concept was first proposed by a Chinese engineer who was among the pioneers of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the mid-1940s. It never took off in the U.S., but the Chinese energy startup Sawes claims it is ready to deploy thousands of floating turbines that can produce 100 kilowatts, which is the same output of the ground windmills that now power everything from small to midsize commercial structures and agricultural operations to industrial facilities and even small municipal projects. Sawes is also working on a new model that will match the capabilities of typical ground windmills with a turbine that can generate more than 1 megawatt. [Photo: Sawes] A clever idea The origins of airborne wind power go back to Shanghai-born aerospace engineer Qian Xuesen. Qian had fled 1930s China to study at MIT before joining Caltechs famous Suicide Squad, the rocket-obsessed engineers who laid the foundations of modern American spaceflight. He was a brilliant immigrant who helped build one of the most important American technological revolutions of all time, but Qians career in the U.S. ended in the shadow of McCarthy-era suspicions. After years under house arrest, he was deported to China in 1955, where he became the founding father of the Chinese missile and space program. His research was the foundation for the Long March family of rockets that has made Beijing a space superpower. That was also the time when he came up with the theories that make the current flying wind turbines possible. In 1957, Qian proposed what he called the ejector diffuser duct, a theory that the airflow through a turbine could be dramatically accelerated by adding a carefully designed circular housing around it. Instead of treating wind as a free-stream mass passing through open blades, Qians idea reframed the turbine as part of an aerodynamic system. The ring-shaped duct would create a pressure difference (low pressure behind the turbine, higher pressure in front) that pulled additional air into the blades. This effect, essentially a man-made throat for the wind, could increase efficiency significantly without requiring larger blades or taller towers. Whereas conventional ground turbines rely purely on swept blade area, constrained by physics and structure, Qians ejector diffuser model effectively multiplies the usable wind without increasing structural weight. Qians concept sounded outlandish at the time. Turbines were still niche engineering projects, and energy planners had little appetite for experimental designs. It wasnt until much later that they started to take shape. Crashing dreams It wasnt easy. Concepts are cool, but engineering and manufacturing them is often extremely difficult, which has resulted in a lot of roadkill. Over the decades, many have tried to turn flying wind turbines into working machines. The MIT spinout Altaeros built a helium-filled blimp with a wind turbine at its core, hoping it would hover at 2,000 feet to capture faster winds. We try to invent as little as possible, CEO Ben Glass told NBC News in 2014, explaining that Altaeros simply repurposed proven blimp and turbine tech. Despite promising tests in Alaska, the company abandoned the power dream and pivoted to wireless communication platforms to deploy local networks using blimps. Italys KiteGen built a kite-like system that flew in figure-eight patterns, pulling generators on the ground. It never moved beyond prototype stage. Makani Technologies, founded in the Bay Area and acquired by Google in 2013, tried a tethered glider equipped with rotors; it was shut down by Alphabet in 2020. Even NASA dabbled with concepts. None made it to large-scale deployment, although we may see a flying kite electricity generator on Mars or some other planet one day. All of them wrestled with the same problems: engineering complexity, flight stability in high winds, government permits, and natural gas undercutting wind costs. Plus, fixed wind turbines work great for large installations, despite their cost, time, and environmental impact. Why flying turbines? The allure of flying turbines lies in their access to stronger and steadier winds. Conventional towers can only reach up to about 650 feet above ground, where winds still fluctuate. But at 5,000 feet, air currents move three times faster and can generate up to 27 times more power. These turbines’ advantage is not only their theoretical constant power throughput but also their cost. Fixed wind turbines are enormously expensive and resource-intensive to build and install, far beyond the cost of manufacturing the rotor and tower alone. Each land-based turbine requires hundreds of tonnes of steel, concrete, and industrial components, plus massive construction sites, and, often, new roads or blasting of mountaintops to transport and position equipment. Offshore designs demand steel lattice towers weighing thousands of tonnes, specialized marine facilities, and complex logistics. These infrastructure needs translate to substantial environmental impacts: huge land footprints of up to 80 acres per turbine, habitat disruption, restricted land access, and months or years of planning, permitting, and construction. With restricted use around the turbines due to noise and safety hazards, much of the land becomes inaccessibleeven to the owners. In contrast, flying turbines like those developed by Sawes weigh less than a ton, require no permanent foundation or land clearance, and can be deployed rapidly where conventional power cannot reach with minimal disruption and cost: remote oil fields, small islands, or disaster zones where speed and mobility matter most. Sawes began research on its airborne generators using Qians ideas in 2017. The company considered using a main helium airbag integrated with a ring wing that accelerates airflow and channels it directly through the embedded generators, theoretically boosting efficiency by more than 20%. By October 2024, the companys S500 prototype reportedly hit 1,640 feet and generated 50 kilowattsbreaking global records for both altitude and output, which until then had belonged to a research team at MIT. In January 2025, the S1000 doubled that altitude and crossed the 100-kilowatt threshold. [Photo: Sawes] There are still challenges. Safety, for example, remains a constant question. At those altitudes, winds can quickly become violent. Weng Hanke, chief technology officer at Sawes, explained to the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post that the companys dual system technologyradar on the ground and sensors in the airbagensures stability. In extreme conditions, the system can rapidly descend within five minutes, he said. Theres also the issue of helium. These things work in a similar way to weather balloons, and theres always leakage, which puts in question their durability. Dun Tianrui, founder and CEO of Sawes, told the South China Morning Post that the companys aerostats gas leakage has been reduced to the point where it can stay in the air for more than 25 years. According to Sawes, batch production has already begun in Yueyang, a city about 700 miles southeast of Beijing, with contracts worth more than $70 million. The companys ambition, meanwhile, stretches even higher. Next stop: The stratosphere Sawes is now preparing for a test flight of its new S1500 model. The newly developed S1500 system boasts a generation capacity of 1 megawatt, equivalent to that of a traditional 100-meter-high wind turbine tower [and] is scheduled for its test flight soon, Weng claimed. High-altitude wind is a powerful and mostly unused energy source. . . . Once these systems are built in large numbers, the power they produce could be as cheap as from normal wind turbines. The design has the same distinctive duct-ring airframe that accelerates airflow. Inside, 12 micro-generators made of carbon fiber operate in parallel, and will deliver utility-scale power from a unit weighing 90% less than a steel tower turbine. Tianrui envisions fleets of megawatt-class aerostats operating in the stratosphere, more than 32,000 feet up, where wind energy is said to be 200 times more powerful than at ground. At that time, he said, the cost of electricity will be one-tenth of what it is today. Such dreams underline both the promise and the challenge of airborne wind power. The world has seen airborne wind startups rise and fall. Whether Sawes can succeed where Google, MIT startups, and European engineers failed depends on scale, economics, and staying power. For now, they hold the record for the highest, most powerful flying turbine ever builta dream first imagined nearly 70 years ago that may finally be ready to take flight.
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I once coached a VP leading a digital transformation across three continents. She had no formal authority over the teams she needed to engage, just a high-stakes mandate and a tight timeline. Her initial meetings landed with silence. No one pushed back, but no one leaned in, either. It wasnt until she shifted how she communicatednot what she said, but howthat momentum started to build. In environments defined by complexity and change, influence matters more than hierarchy. Yet many leaders still lean on outdated methods: top-down messaging, overreliance on data, or blanket statements designed to cascade through an organization. These tactics often create distance rather than buy-in. Persuasive communication isnt about being charismatic or loud; its about being clear, empathetic, and purpose-driven. Its how todays most effective leaders gain trust, align teams, and turn strategies into reality. Ive worked with hundreds of executives across industries and fully recognize it as a defining skill for modern leadership. Here are the core communication moves that leaders can use to influence without authority and create real traction in the process. CUT THROUGH RESISTANCE BY SPEAKING WITH SURGICAL CLARITY Ambiguity slows everything down. When leaders speak in broad terms or use fuzzy language, teams are left to interpret intentand that interpretation is rarely aligned. Leaders should drop the jargon and focus on making their desired outcomes crystal clear. One of my clients, a senior director in a global logistics company, struggled to mobilize cross-functional teams around a new initiative. The turning point came when she swapped dense PowerPoints for simple statements: Heres what were doing, heres why it matters, and heres how success will look. She gave examples that people understood, guidance that was actionable and illustrations of what great looked like. Once her message was clear, resistance dropped. People finally knew how to contribute. The lesson: Get specific. Lead with the desired outcome. Use language thats easy to repeat and hard to misinterpret. Clarity always connects better than complexity. LISTEN FIRST, THEN INFLUENCE THROUGH EMPATHY Most persuasion starts with a question, not a statement. Leaders who take time to understand what their teams care aboutwhat worries them, and what motivates themcommunicate more effectively because theyre speaking into real concerns. I worked with a COO frustrated by employee reluctance to adopt a new tool. Through guided interviews, the executive discovered a key blocker: The tool wasnt the issue. Fear of being replaced was. After acknowledging this fear directly and repositioning the tool as a support system rather than a threat, adoption rates soared. Influence doesnt mean glossing over concerns. It means addressing them directly and showing that youve listened deeply enough to know what really matters. CONNECT TO PURPOSE TO ACTIVATE ENGAGEMENT Facts may inform, but purpose moves people. When communication is tethered to values, it shifts from transactional to transformational. Effective leaders anchor change initiatives in a clear sense of mission, turning lifeless strategy into purpose-driven momentum. People dont want another strategy deck. They want to know how the work connects to something meaningful. How does this initiative matter to those doing the work, the end-user customers or even society? One executive I coached started sharing short stories at all-hands meetings about how their product impacted real customers. He led his conversation with how many women would live a better life instead of how many implants or how much revenue they were going to drive. It changed the room. People stopped nodding politely and started volunteering ideas. To influence at scale, anchor messages in something bigger than tasks. Link them to identity, mission, and shared goals. Listen to your own airtime and analyze the words you use and give value to. Are you asking how many deals did we close? or did you ask how many new customers are we helping? As a leader your words will echo what is considered most critical. REINFORCE THROUGH RITUALS AND REPETITION One messageeven when delivered perfectlyrarely sticks. Leaders who drive change build rhythms that reinforce key ideas over time. Repetition isnt redundancy; its strategy. I recently helped a leadership team rolling out a cultural reset develop a ritual where every meeting began with a one-minute reflection tied to company values. Over time, the repetition turned abstract values into lived behaviors. It wasnt about big speeches. It was about building cues into the system. It is not only about sharing a message broadly, but consistently weaving in what matters and why into unilateral communications, during a conversation, email, or messagerelevant to the context of that exchange of course. Ask yourself: Whats your team hearing consistently during one-on-ones, company meetings, performance report, updates, etc.? How can you use existing forumsstand-ups, all-hands, Slack messagesto echo the most important themes? ADAPT YOUR MESSAGE TO MATCH YOUR AUDIENCE Even strong communicators fall into the trap of broadcasting the same message to every stakeholder. But influence depends on relevance. What matters to a front-line manager may not resonate with the executive suite. My advice: Tailor your tone, format, and focus. One client, preparing to announce a restructuring, created two distinct narratives: one for employees concerned about role clarity, and another for partners needing strategic context. The shift didnt just ease the transition; it boosted trust across the board. Effective communication doesnt come from communicating louder or repeating yourself. It comes from reframing your message so others can truly hear it.
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E-Commerce
My day job is a design educator, so for me, this time of year is filled with writing syllabi, planning new classes, and thinking about what the next generation of designers might need to know as they enter an ever-changing field. To do this, I look for the designers, the writers, and the thinkers who challenge my understanding of design and force me to think about what we do in new ways. Thankfully, there’s been a handful of new books to come out over the last few months that do just that. As we head back to school, the books included here look back and look forward, asking big questions about how we use design today and how we might approach this moment in more thoughtful, considered ways. [Cover Image: Macmillan] Could Should Might Don’t by Nick Foster When you imagine the future, what does it look like? Chances are, when you picture the future, you picture radical architecture, flying cars, walking robotsa world aglow in blues and purples. When we imagine the future, we often imagine images made by other people and those images have become strangely homogenized. Nick Foster, a self-described “reluctant futurist” and the former design director of Google X, the tech giant’s “moonshot ideas factory,” thinks this is a problem. In his fascinating new book, he probes how we imagine the future and who has a stake in that future, making the case for a more rigorous, thoughtful, and provocative way to think about the future and how we get there. Both a guidebook for thinking about the future and a framework for interrogating the futures presented to us, Foster’s easy prose makes it simple for anyone to be a part of the conversation about the futures we want. [Cover Image: Inventory Press] A *Co-*Program for Graphic Design by David Reinfurt Built around three courses graphic designer David Reinfurt taught and developed at Princeton University over the last decade, this book blends theoretical ideas and practical knowledge about what it means to be a graphic designer today. Jumping back and forth through design history, moving across formats and mediums, and inviting a range of voices to participate in the conversation, Reinfurt shows that graphic design continues to be an expansive, ever-shifting space in which to think about ideas and how they move through the world. [Cover Image: MIT Press] Not Here, Not Now by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby In 2013, designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby released Speculative Everything, a now-canonical text on using design not to create things but ideas. The book has had an enduring impact on the fields of speculative design, design fiction, and critical design and continues to be a foundational text for design students. Dunne & Raby are back with a new book, Not Here, Not Now, that builds upon the ideas they introduced a decade ago. This new book proposes that we approach design not as a “solution” but as a “proposal” for new ways of thinking. Structured as a travelogue of ideas that journeys across science, philosophy, and literature, Dunne and Raby once again explore design’s role in a world where reality itself is called into question. [Cover Image: Hachette] The Invention of Design by Maggie Gram Reading Maggie Gram’s excellent new book, The Invention of Design, I couldn’t help but wonder how a book like this didn’t exist before. Over the last century design has moved from aesthetics to function, from the art department to the corporate boardroom. How did we get here? Gram, a designer and historian, charts this history, showing how our understanding of design has evolved over the last century, from design as decoration to the rise of design as problem solving, centering the figures who helped make design central to every area of our lives. But this is not a hagiography: as Gram chronicles design’s rise, she also interrogates its limits, noting where i’s fallen short of its goals and highlights the unintended consequences of design gone too far. [Cover Image: Verso] Medium Hot: Images in the Age of Heat by Hito Steyerl Over the last decade, I’m not sure anyone has written more provocatively and insightfully on how images (and how they circulate) shape our understanding of the world than German video artist and theorist Hito Steyerl. This new book is a collection of essays that explore the intersection and influence of artificial intelligence and climate change on the creation of images. From data-driven art to blockchain aesthetics, Steyerl mines our current moment to trace the overlap of politics, economics, and technology and how they structure what we see when we look out at the world.
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E-Commerce
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