Vision Systems just upped the 4k speed barrier by a near order of magnitude with the launch of its Phantom Flex4K cinema camera at NAB.

ENGADGET

It was only a short burn lasting about 16 seconds, but it propelled SS2 beyond the sound barrier to a speed of Mach 1.2.

BBC: Science correspondent, BBC News

His altitude was 31, 300m (102, 800ft), but his top speed was just short of the sound barrier.

BBC: Skydiver Felix Baumgartner fell faster than first thought

But in the 1990s Gilder became convinced that the speed of light would be the final unpassable barrier governing the pace of all digital technology.

FORBES: Digital Rules

Distance is no longer a barrier, he says, and high-speed internet has allowed local businesses in St Agnes to think about location in entirely new ways.

BBC: Business

In 1997 at Black Rock Desert, Nevada, he drove Thrust SSC to become the first person to break the sound barrier in a car and set the existing land-speed record of 763mph.

ECONOMIST: The land-speed record

It's also the place where Andy Green, a British fighter pilot, broke the land speed record in 1997 by driving a jet-powered car through the sound barrier to 763 mph.

FORBES: "Let's Punch A Hole In the Sky"

These will be the first U.S. highways to break the 80 mph barrier (Texas and Utah have each tried 80 mph limits) since President Richard Nixon enacted a national speed limit of 55 mph in response to the 1973 oil crisis.

FORBES: Why Speed Limits Are Rising