[Animats]

They have a web site.[1] They claim to be hiring. They claim to have funding. The web site looks like someone loaded up the generic cool new startup template and stuck in some concept art in the indicated places. There's no useful information about the technology or the business.

The big problem with this is not the technology. It's land acquisition. As with high speed rail, you need a right of way that's straight or has very large radius turns. There are sections of I-5 that are straight enough, but high-speed travel between Bakersfield and Tracy isn't that useful. Tunnels can help, but are not cheap.

China is building high speed rail through urban areas on pylons. As with most elevated rail, the reality is much wider and more heavily built than the concept art. (China's maglev is a one-off demo; China's high speed rail system is huge.)

[1] http://hyperlooptech.com/

[Igglyboo]

Their logo looks extremely similar to the Visual Studio 2010 logo.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1LB4PjiDdgU/Ur_tPvwj5HI/AAAAAAAAAo...

[swalsh]

I think they need to change either the colors or the symbol... but having both is throwing me off :D

[sevenadrian]

Ha, I knew I recognized it. Thanks for proving I'm not crazy, at least because of this.

[melling]

China is now building a low-speed maglev that should be operational later this year.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_S1,_BCR

China opened 32 new high-speed rail routes in one day last December.

http://qz.com/308791/china-flexes-its-high-speed-rail-muscle...

By the time the hyperloop connects the 400 miles between SF and LA, China will have 30,000-40,000 miles of high-speed rail.

[the_falcon]

This is not Musks project, this is a collective of unpaid academics backed by a kickstarter knockoff and a PR firm in El Segundo

"Now, the company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. (which is not affiliated with Musk or Tesla) "

Musk is building his own "Separately, Musk has said he plans to build his own 5-mile test track, likely in Texas, for companies and students to test out potential Hyperloop designs."

They are going to do what they did to my friends project. Parade the techies around, get it funded, and then "lose" half the money "he 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, according to Navigant's blog. "

And what the heck is navigent?

[danielweber]

The Hyperloop paper (as originally proposed) was going to use pylons to ease land acquisition costs. How much this helps is unclear to me.

[genericuser]

Land while probably an inevitable hot topic, is not actually what would classify as a problem for a project that if sees full scale deployment will most surely have government backing thanks to eminent domain. Yes, the project will still be expensive, but any land owner that tries to be a hold out in selling isn't going to prevent the project.

[capkutay]

Well the team seems to be comprised of some former engineers from SpaceX and the board has some deep pockets. Its possible they have connections to Musk and some insight on how to launch grandiose projects.