Germany: DHL Begins Drone Deliveries to Island
September 24th, 2014Via: Reuters:
Logistics firm DHL is using a drone to fly parcels to the German island of Juist, in what it says is the first time an unmanned aircraft has been authorized to deliver goods in Europe.
The company, owned by Germany’s Deutsche Post, joins the likes of Amazon.com and Google in testing the potential for drones to deliver parcels and packages.
Its drone – the “parcelcopter” – can fly at up to 65 km (40 miles) an hour. It will deliver medication and other urgently needed goods to the car-free island of Juist, off Germany’s northern coast, at times when other modes of transport such as flights or ferries are not operating.
If the trial is successful, the craft could be used to deliver such packages to other remote areas or in emergencies.
The Robots that Feed Humanity
September 24th, 2014Via: Engadget:
The Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, divides agricultural robots into three generations. The first gen is comprised of basic ones that can collect data, while the second-gen bots are capable of harvesting, seeding, spraying and cultivating. Finally, the third and most advanced generation is comprised of autonomous robots capable of caring for plants without (or with minimal) human intervention.
ISIS: Israeli Secret Intelligence Service
September 24th, 2014Via: Memory Hole:
In an excerpt from a 1990 C-SPAN interview with Brian Lamb, Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, authors of the book Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel’s Intelligence Community (Houghton Mifflin 1990), describe (passage at about 2:40) how the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office officially refers to its subordinate organization “the Mossad”–Hebrew for “the institute” and denoting Israel’s most well-known intelligence agency–as the “Israeli Secret Intelligence Service,” or ISIS, “interestingly enough [drawing on] kind of the British model” for referencing such government entities, Raviv remarks.
Research Credit: almaverdad2
Hundreds of Floating Robots Could Soon Surveil the Oceans
September 24th, 2014Via: cNet:
Boeing and Liquid Robotics today announced a partnership to make water-borne robots that can handle a variety of surveillance jobs, ranging from hunts for submarines to the detection of drug traffickers.
Silicon Valley’s Liquid Robotics is the manufacturer of the Wave Glider SV3, a $300,000 self-powered, seafaring data center that offers customers — until now, mostly researchers and marine industry companies — tools for investigating the open seas for months at a time. SV3s have a hybrid propulsion system that can drive the robot with either solar or wave power. Boeing is the world’s second-largest defense contractor.
The new deal is aimed at augmenting Boeing’s existing maritime surveillance systems — airplanes like the P-8 submarine hunter and the Maritime Surveillance Aircraft — with autonomous devices that can monitor the seas around the clock.
The goal of the partnership is to provide Boeing’s customers with “the missing link” in a collection of tools that can now span from undersea depths into space, according to Gary Gysin, CEO of Liquid Robotics. The deal, likely to be worth many hundreds of millions of dollars, “makes the company,” Gysin said. Among the many options the substantial new revenue gives Liquid Robotics is a possible future IPO, Gysin added.
Liquid Robotics first introduced the Wave Glider in 2011. Depending on the sensors deployed on the maritime robots, they can monitor large areas of the sea at the surface and can detect acoustically down to depths of 8,000 meters.
Robots That Learn Through Repetition, Not Programming
September 23rd, 2014Via: MIT Technology Review:
Eugene Izhikevich thinks you shouldn’t have to write code in order to teach robots new tricks. “It should be more like training a dog,” he says. “Instead of programming, you show it consistent examples of desired behavior.”
Izhikevich’s startup, Brain Corporation, based in San Diego, has developed an operating system for robots called BrainOS to make that possible. To teach a robot running the software to pick up trash, for example, you would use a remote control to repeatedly guide its gripper to perform that task. After just minutes of repetition, the robot would take the initiative and start doing the task for itself. “Once you train it, it’s fully autonomous,” says Izhikevich, who is cofounder and CEO of the company.
Izhikevich says the approach will make it easier to produce low-cost service robots capable of simple tasks.
U.S. Now Bombing Syria
September 23rd, 2014Via: Vox:
Shortly before dawn local time on Tuesday, the US began launching air strikes in Syria against the jihadist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as part of President Obama’s effort to “degrade and defeat” the group that has seized vast parts of both countries and beheaded two American journalists.
Luxury Sports Car Powered by Flow Battery, Goes 373 Miles on a Tank of… Saltwater?
September 21st, 2014Via: Inhabitat:
The Quant e-Sportlimousine was originally unveiled earlier this year at the Geneva Motor Show, where it met criticism from skeptics – but now that it’s been approved to drive on public roads, there’s renewed interest in the saltwater-powered vehicle. How does it work? An electrochemical reaction is created by combining two liquids with metallic salts that act as an electrolyte. These solutions are then sent to a fuel cell, creating electricity that is stored in super capacitors and sent to the the Quant e-Sportlimousine’s four electric motors.
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Nanoflowcell has partnered with Bosch Engineering to further develop the technology, and the company hopes to release at least four more prototypes in the near future.
German Village Produces 500% of Its Energy from Renewable Sources
September 21st, 2014Via: Inhabitat:
Wildpoldsried, a Bavarian village of about 2,600 residents, is leading the way in Germany’s extraordinary renewable energy transformation. Over the past 17 years, the village has invested in a holistic range of renewable energy projects that include 4,983 kWp of photovoltaics, five biogas facilities, 11 wind turbines and a hydropower system. As a result, the village has gone beyond energy independence – and it now produces 500% more energy than it needs and profits from sales of the surplus power back to the grid.
Pennsylvania: Large Manhunt Underway for Suspect Who Ambushed Police
September 21st, 2014Via: AP:
Nine days after a gunman went on a deadly ambush at a state police barracks, authorities said Sunday they have recovered one of the weapons he was carrying and believe they are hot on his trail as he travels on foot through rugged forests in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Investigators said they believe the suspect they describe as a self-taught survivalist had been planning a confrontation with law enforcement for months, if not years.
State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens revealed a few more details about the manhunt for Eric Frein, saying trackers have discovered items he hid or abandoned in the woods — including an AK-47 assault rifle and ammunition they believe he had been carrying while on the run.
“We are pushing him hard, he is no longer safe and I am confident that he will be apprehended,” Bivens said.
Authorities did not yet know if the weapon had been used in the ambush, he said. Still, police believe Frein remains dangerous and possibly armed with a .308 rifle with a scope that police say was missing from the family home along with the AK-47.
Since the Sept. 12 shooting, there have been no confirmed sightings of or contact with Frein, who was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list after the ambush at the Blooming Grove police barracks that killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson, 38, and critically wounded Trooper Alex Douglass.
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