An innovative virtual reality system, developed in the UK, for various engineering purposes, aims in helping scientists as well as medium-sized engineering firms simulate and visualize any working environment. At a very competitive price, VuePod, is expected to become extremely popular in the engineering and construction industries, revolutionizing current engineering practice.

Six years after California voters approved a $9.9 billion bond act to help finance a high-speed rail line between that eventually will carry riders from San Francisco to Los Angeles. California Governor Jerry Brown and other officials led a ceremony in downtown Fresno on Tuesday to mark the start of construction for the project. Instead of picking up shovels and scooping a pile of dirt like many groundbreaking ceremonies, the Governor instead decided to sign a ceremonial steel rail. Although the ceremonial start to construction took place on Tuesday, major construction is still likely weeks away. According to High-Speed Rail Authority board chairman Dan Richard, “We are entering a period of sustained construction on the nation’s first high-speed rail system for the next five years in the Central Valley, and in the decade beyond that, we will be building across California.”  The first segment will cost $6 billion and be completed in 2018.  It will connect Merced to Bakersfield.

Passengers flying out of Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport have been accustomed to a unique additional step to reaching their gate when trying to catch a flight. Instead of being dropped off in front of the airport and walking inside to receive one’s boarding pass and go through security, travelers flying through Billy Bishop Airport must take a 90-second ferry ride across Lake Ontario to reach their gate. Billy Bishop Airport is located on an island in Lake Ontario, located two miles from the downtown area. While many passengers enjoy the ferry ride, others have complained that the quarter-hourly crossings cause a lot of stress for passengers trying to make their flight. 

Satellite data of the last to decades, helped in mapping the land creep along the Calaveras and the Hayward faults east of the San Fransisco Bay, enabling scientists to reconstruct the underground geometry of the fault complex and estimate the magnitude of future earthquakes.

The ten-foot thick foundation mat for Comcast’s new Innovation and Technology Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was successfully poured on Saturday. Concrete contractor B. Pietrini & Sons started pouring the foundation around 1 a.m on Saturday and finished roughly twelve hours later. The contractor coordinated 50 concrete trucks making over 400 deliveries to the jobsite on Saturday morning making the building’s foundation one of the largest concrete pours in Philadelphia history.

London's Crossrail, the most significant infrastructure project currently in the U.K. aims to improve commuting services across London, alleviate congestion and completely modify traveling around the capital. 

While One World Trade Center in New York tops the list of the tallest buildings in the western hemisphere, it also holds another distinction it is probably not so proud of: the world’s most expensive skyscraper. Buildings Analyst Emporis recently released a list of the top ten costliest skyscrapers in history. The $3.9 billion One World Trade Center tops the list followed by the $1.9 billion Pallazo in Las Vegas and the $1.9 billion The Shard in London. In fifth place is the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. The $1 billion Bank of America building in New York is North America’s third representative on the list.