Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
Human Operator Taxies X-47B on Flight Deck of Aircraft Carrier USS Harry S. Truman
December 12th, 2012Via: U.S. Navy: The X-47B Unmanned Combat Air Systems (UCAS) demonstrator taxies on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). Harry S. Truman is the first aircraft carrier to host test operations for an unmanned aircraft.
U.S. Air Force X-37B Returns to Orbit
December 12th, 2012Via: NBC: An Atlas 5 rocket sent the Air Force’s X-37B mini-shuttle on its first repeat flight on Tuesday, kicking off a months-long classified mission reportedly aimed at testing advanced spy satellite sensors.
A U.S. Apple Factory May be Robot City
December 9th, 2012Probably the biggest caveat that’s not mentioned about this alleged insourcing boom is that some companies will be looking to gain the benefits of manufacturing in the U.S. but using robotic labor to do it. —The Insourcing Boom Via: Computer World: Apple’s planned investment of $100 million next year in a U.S. manufacturing facility is […]
Newly Released Drone Records Reveal Extensive Military Flights in U.S.
December 8th, 2012Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation: Today EFF posted several thousand pages of new drone license records and a new map that tracks the location of drone flights across the United States. These records, received as a result of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), come from state and local […]
And Now… ‘Conservation Drones’
December 8th, 2012Via: Mother Jones: First things first: No, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is not using drones to vaporize poachers. But thanks to a five million dollar grant awarded by Google on Tuesday, the organization is expanding its use of unmanned aerial vehicles to track and deter criminals who illegally hunt endangered animal species around the […]
Robot Completes World Record Pacific Crossing
December 6th, 2012Curious about the propulsion system? It harvests energy from the passing waves. Check this out: Via: Scientific American: Surviving stormy weather and a shark attack, the Wave Glider just entered the record books for the longest autonomous trip ever taken. On his first journey across the Pacific Ocean, Papa Mau was bitten by a shark, […]
U.S. Army Demonstrates Black Hawk with Autonomous Flight and Landing Capabilities
December 6th, 2012Via: al.com: A specially equipped Black Hawk was recently used to demonstrate the helicopter’s ability to operate on its own. In the first such test of its type, the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research’s Development and Engineering Center, based at Redstone Arsenal, flew the Black Hawk over Diablo Mountain Range in San Jose, Calif. […]
CyPhy Works Reveals Tethered UAV
December 5th, 2012It’s, “Impervious to weather, tracking and interception.” Hmm. How about scissors or 00-Buckshot? Via: Engadget: A new venture from an iRobot co-founder called CyPhy Works has borne fruit in the form of two flying drones dedicated to surveillance duty. The first, called Ease, is a mere foot in diameter by 16-inches tall and can fly […]
Attack of the Drones
December 4th, 2012Via: Journeyman Pictures: More: Robot Wars ‘Do we really want robots that can lie to us?’
The Secret to Iranian Drone Technology? Just Add Photoshop
November 30th, 2012Via: The Atlantic Wire: Earlier this month, Iran’s news agency provided visual evidence that its government had figured out to make a fancy new drone that could take off and land vertically. What they didn’t tell us is that they used Photoshop to make it stop taking off from the roof of Japan’s Chiba University, […]
