Robotic Guards to Patrol South Korean Prison

Korean Robot Guard Prototypes of a prison guard robot are set to begin a test run in March, according to the South Korean news agency. Yonhap News Agency
The possibility of robot workers raises a certain type of futurey allure combined with a sense of danger — in a variety of settings, they could help humans work better and faster, but they could also replace us, or worse, maim us.

Robot guards are coming to a South Korean jail next spring, according to the Yonhap news agency. The guards are 5 feet tall and equipped with four wheels, a friendly face and who knows what sorts of pain rays and other implements. They are designed to look friendly to inmates, according to the designers.

The machines will monitor inmates for abnormal behavior. They'll be able to detect prisoner violence and even notice attempts at suicide, which researchers say will help reduce human guards’ workload. The robots will mostly work at night, patrolling correctional facilities and helping prisoners connect with officers, according to Yonhap. They come equipped with a “remote conversation function,” via the cameras mounted on their torsos.
Three prototype guard ‘bots will spend a month in a jail in the city of Pohang. The Asian Forum for Corrections, a South Korean research group, developed the robots in concert with Kyonggi University. The project will cost about $864,000.

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New Hydrogen Storage Material Based on Liquid Nitrogen developed

Hydrogen releases in the presence of iron chloride

In a research funded by the US Department of Energy, four scientists from the University of Oregon have developed a material to store hydrogen, using boron-nitrogen-based liquid-phase.This new material has displayed stability in both air and moisture. To be more specific, the research team developed a platform based on cyclic amine borane, which is also called BN-methylcyclopentane. Apart from being stable, the platform displayed the ability to retain hydrogen without changing phase. For the purpose of hydrogen desorption, the platform used iron chloride which enabled the conversion of the used fuel into the charged state.

This is a welcome change from the current storage materials which are solid, as liquid materials allow for a smooth transition from gasoline phase to hydrogen phase. During the course of the study, the researchers initially discovered six cyclic amine borane materials that were membered. On the release of hydrogen, these materials produced a large molecule. Although these materials were in their solid state, scientists altered the structure of the materials to convert them into liquid forms. The materials that were changed into liquid form in such a manner had low vapour pressure and retained their liquid form even upon the release of hydrogen.

Scientists believe that the new platform could be applicable in devices that use fuel cells. However, they also believe that the greatest hurdle in the commercial usage of such a platform would be the increase of hydrogen yield and the development of an effective mechanism to regenerate. The US Department of Energy is encouraging research to develop a solid or liquid hydrogen fuel carrier by 2017.

Source: http://www.uoregon.edu

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Pursuit motorcycle to debut at Sydney Motorcycle & Scooter Show

Pursuit motorcycle

Industrial Design student Dean Benstead thinks that compressed air does have a role to play in the future transport mix, and he's designed a working air-powered motorcycle prototype with a view to exploring the viability of the platform.
Benstead's "02 Pursuit" motorcycle is based on the geometry of a current-spec 250 cc motocross bike and uses running gear from a WR250F and Engineair's DiPietro air engine as its power plant. In its current form it can hit speeds in excess of 62 mph (100 km/h) and, given that the first prototype was developed with a focus on design rather than engineering, Benstead believes that performance can be improved with further development.
"The concept evolved from research to sketches to computer modeling before the chassis and bodywork was built and fabrication at local manufacturer, Rinlatech Engineering, began," says Benstead.
"I wanted to explore the viability of compressed air as an alternative fuel, and my childhood experiences riding dirt bikes led me to design the motocross bike based around the Engineair engine."
Benstead also sees the possibility of a marketable model based on the prototype emerging down the track.
"The next prototype would involve a total re-style, different material choices over the current steel tube chassis, such as aluminum or even a futuristic printed titanium, reducing the weight comparable to a heavy-duty mountain bike."
The 02 Pursuit will be revealed in a working demo at the Sydney Motorcycle & Scooter Show in Australia on Friday November 25.

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Miniature robot, pro rider?

Masahiko Yamaguchi's remote-controlled miniature robot

Riding a bike can be challenging enough for humans, so seeing inventor Masahiko Yamaguchi's remote-controlled miniature robot tooling along on an equally miniature bicycle is quite a thrill.

"I'm interested in artificial intelligence, and in that context, I think intelligence and skills have equal value," said Yamaguchi. "So my purpose in creating this robot was to pursue intelligence from the skills side. While I was thinking of suitable topics, my local science museum demonstrated a cycling robot. So I decided to consider cycling as the skill, and build a bicycle robot."

The pint-sized rider pedals with its own feet and maintains its balance by adjusting the handlebars as needed. To keep track of tilt and make corrections to prevent falling over, Yamaguchi made his own control board with a SH7125 CPU core and incorporated a Tamagawa Seiki TAG201 gyro into the design. A proportional-integral-derivative controller (PID) governs the robot's balancing action.
"PID control is a classical control method. It's used to calculate how far to turn the handlebars when the frame tilts. By calculating proportional, integral, and differential components for the tilt, and adding them, the system calculates how far to turn the handlebars when the frame tilts. Also, the robot needs to decide which direction to go in, so we use a remote control to instruct it," Yamaguchi explained.

Miniature robot waves onlookers

Because its mini-ride has no brakes (the little bicycle is fixed-gear), the operator can stop it simply by having the robot remove its feet from the pedals and put them on the ground.
"From now on, I'd like to link this robot's skill to its intelligence. I personally don't like using a remote control for the robot. I'd like to make the robot intelligent enough to ride by itself. This system is the first step toward doing that."
Source: Diginfo.tv

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Robot Suit for Nuclear Workers Unveiled

    The exoskeleton helps lighten the load of a 132-pound anti-radiation vest.

THE GIST

    * Workers are still dealing with the atomic emergency at Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.
    * A Japanese maker of exoskeleton robot suits has developed one that could assist nuclear workers.

In Tsukuba city, Ibaraki prefecture, a member of Cyberdyne wears the new Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) suit, which supports the 132 lb anti-radiation jacket. Cyberdyne

The Japanese maker of an exoskeleton robot suit to assist walking on Monday unveiled a model that could help nuclear workers weighed down by heavy anti-radiation vests in contaminated zones.
Cyberdyne, based northeast of Tokyo, demonstrated an upgraded version of the robot device called the Hybrid Assistive Limb, or HAL, that can be worn under anti-radiation tungsten vests as heavy as 132 pounds
Lightweight Tyvek protective outfits can provide a barrier between radioactive materials and the body, but are not effective in blocking radiation itself.
Vests made of tungsten can block radiation but are very heavy, making it difficult for workers to take on long shifts at highly contaminated sites, Cyberdyne noted.
"This new type of HAL robot suit supports the weight of tungsten-made protective clothing and enables their wearers to work on the site without feeling the burden," the company said in a statement.
"It is hoped that this will reduce risks of working under harsh environments and contribute to early restoration operations by humans in the wake of disasters," it said.
The massive earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, sparked an atomic emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) in the northeast of the country.
Efforts to contain the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986 are still continuing, with high levels of radiation hampering operations.
More than 2,000 employees of TEPCO and other companies are working at the plant on weekdays with the number falling on weekends, according to the plant operator.
It has not been decided whether the new robot suit will be used in work to contain the situation at the Fukushima plant.
HAL gives power to its wearer by anticipating and supporting the user's body movements using sensors monitoring electric signals sent from the brain to the muscles.
The company had already leased the lower-limb version of the battery-powered suit to 113 hospitals, welfare and other facilities by the end of October.

Via Discovery News

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Device that harvests water from thin air wins the James Dyson Award

Young Melbourne-based inventor Edward Linacre has won the 2011 James Dyson Award, making it the second year in a row where the prestigious prize has gone to an Aussie. Linacre stole this year's competition with his Airdrop irrigation concept that collects water from thin air. The Swinburne University of Technology design graduate was driven to transform an ancient cooling technique into a new sub-surface irrigation system, following the enduring Australian drought that saw high levels of farmer suicide along Australia's Murray- Darling Basin.

The Airdrop irrigation concept is a low-tech design that uses the simple process of condensation to harvest water from the air. Utilizing a turbine intake system, air is channeled underground through a network of piping that quickly cools the air to soil temperature. This process creates an environment of 100-percent humidity, from which water is then harvested. The collected water is stored in an underground tank, ready to be pumped out via sub-surface drip irrigation hosing. The Airdrop design also features an LCD screen displaying water levels, pressure strength, solar battery life and system health.
Although the backyard trial was successful on a small scale, Linacre did prove that it could be implemented on a large agricultural scale
The James Dyson Award is an international competition that attracts designs and inventions from young creators all over the world. As the winner, Linacre will receive GBP10,000 (US$14,000), with a further GBP10,000 (US$14,000) going to Swinburne's Faculty of Design.

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Electronic nose aims to sniff out disease

Dr. Ranjan Nanda demonstrates the device at an experimental stage. The electronic nose aims to diagnose tuberculosis without a lab test.

A breathalyzer-like device that aims to detect tuberculosis, pneumonia and lung cancer from someone's breath could help replace time-consuming tests, researchers hope.

The electronic nose received a $950,000 grant from the federally funded Grand Challenges Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Monday, to try to develop the hand-held device for use in the developing world.

"It's almost like a breathalyzer test that the police might use for alcohol," Dr. Peter Singer, CEO of Grand Challenges Canada, said in an interview from New Delhi.

"If they can bring that to the window of your car, what we're trying to do is bring the diagnosis of tuberculosis to the door of the hut in the village where it really needs to reach."

Scientists say electronic noses could also be created for early detection of lung cancer and pneumonia, also based on signature biomarkers of disease detectable in a patient's breath.

Singer called the device a "bold idea" with potentially a big payoff in preventing the 1.7 million deaths from TB each year, mainly in the developing world. Up to 400,000 of them could be saved with better diagnosis, he said.

People may not think about diagnosis as life-saving, Singer said. But if a patient in a village isn’t diagnosed, it is very likely many others will be infected and then die.

For the prototype, someone breathes into the device, which has a little tub at the end to capture the sample, which is then tested.

The battery-powered technology is based on the finding that people with TB have a different biological signature in their breath.

The two-year grant will be use to validate the finding in four centres throughout India.

Dr. Ranjan Nanda of the New Delhi-based International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, one of the lead researchers on the electronic nose project, aims to have a validated prototype by December 2013.

If it works, it could be in use shortly after that, Singer said.

The existng sputum test for TB has challenges, especially for developing countries that may not have facilities or trained lab staff, says Dr. Michael Gardam, an infectious disease specialist with Toronto's University Health Network.

"It's just such a wonderful idea and it's such a simple idea," Gardam said. "The challenge is going to be, at the end of the day, can it jump through all the necessary hoops to actually be something that people can use?"

The development of the device is a collaboration between Nanda's centre and and Next Dimension Technologies in California.

CBC News

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Eco-friendly futuristic fold-out camper van

ECCO

Despite the state of the art design, the driver must give up the most important human freedom: driving without pants. The 4.62-meter-long electric vehicle, which is set to go on sale as early as 2014, can sleep up to five people and sports a quaint little kitchen, bathroom and lounge area.
Soon the trailer park will no longer connotate beer cans and shot guns. Round up a couple of these bad boys and you've got a neighbourhood fit for The Jetsons.

ECCO-ii

Inspired by the most famous Swiss compact design -- the Swiss Army knife -- Swiss design company NAU is creating an eco-friendly egg-shaped camper van that folds out into a comfortable living space.
The camper van -- called ECCO -- gives off zero emissions, but that doesn't mean other cars won't be eating its dust--the aerodynamic van can reach a top speed of 145 kph, not bad for a portable home.
The vehicle can be quickly charged at a standard 240V station. It is topped with a solar panel roof to charge a battery. Just eight hours of charging can provide 24 hours of use.
The NAU website explains,"When used for extended living purposes, even where no electricity is available, it has a built-in photovoltaic panels and solar sail roof, meaning it can cut out the middleman and charge directly from the sun."

ECCO-iii

The 4.62-meter-long electric vehicle, which is set to go on sale as early as 2014, can sleep up to five people and sports a quaint little kitchen, bathroom and lounge area.
A NAU spokesman says that the ECCO was inspired by the VW and the Airstream caravan.
The company hopes the futuristic vehicle will prove as iconic as the VW camper van (without the suggestion that a questionable cloud of smoke shall emit from the door during a music festival).
Passengers enter the ECCO via a convenient stairway that folds into the ceiling.
While a bit wider than its Volkswagen predecessor, the ECCO’s form is more aerodynamic, and rides closer to the ground.  NAU says it has not yet decided on a price for the vehicle.

NAU

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Weird/A new alarm clock only wake users up once they were ready

Indian scientists are working on an alarm clock that would monitor the user's brain activity, and wake them up only when they weren't in deep sleep

Have you ever noticed how your alarm clock sometimes wakes you up in a much more jarring fashion than usual? That's because on those occasions, you happen to be in one of the deeper states of sleep when it goes off. Not only is it more difficult to wake from these states, but people who do so also end up feeling less rejuvenated by their time in the sack. Scientists in India, however, think they may be on their way to designing an alarm clock that only wakes you up when the time is right.
There are five levels of brain activity that people vary between while sleeping, ranging from the relatively close-to-awake Stages 1 and 2, to the deep-sleeping Stages 3 and 4, followed by REM. Researchers at Jerusalem College of Engineering in Tamil Nadu would like to see a consumer alarm clock that monitors the user's brain activity, and waits until they're in Stage 1 or 2 before waking them.
In lab tests, they had volunteers set a wake-up time on a modified alarm clock, which was receiving output from electrodes that were wired to those peoples' scalps. The volunteers then proceeded to go to sleep. Ninety seconds before the set time arrived, the system started to monitor their brain activity. If they were in one of the first two stages within that period, the alarm would go off. If they stayed in the deeper stages, however, the clock would automatically go into "snooze" mode, and try again later.
While it's doubtful that anyone would want to wire themselves up every night, the Jerusalem College team envision a simpler commercial version of the system, in which users would wear a headband that wirelessly transmitted their sleep data. People could also use the system to obtain a timetable of their typical sleep pattern, so they could set their alarm for a time when they tended to be in one of the lighter sleep stages. Although this could result in their being woken considerably earlier than they would be otherwise, the scientists state that they would nonetheless end up being more refreshed and relaxed.
Other "bio alarm clocks" do already exist, such as the aXbo and the SleepTracker, although these monitor the user's sleep stages through an attachment on their wrist. Would a headband work better?
A paper on the research was recently published in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology.
Source: EEG Info - www.eeginfo.ch

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Robotic Bug Gets Wings, Sheds Light On Evolution of Flight

Adding wings to a robotic bug improved running performance and stability. However, the boost may not have been good enough for flight. (Credit: Image by Kevin Peterson, UC Berkeley Biomimetic Millisystems Lab, All rights reserved.)

When engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, outfitted a six-legged robotic bug with wings in an effort to improve its mobility, they unexpectedly shed some light on the evolution of flight.
Even though the wings significantly improved the running performance of the 10-centimeter-long robot -- called DASH, short for Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod -- they found that the extra boost would not have generated enough speed to launch the critter from the ground. The wing flapping also enhanced the aerial performance of the robot, consistent with the hypothesis that flight originated in gliding tree-dwellers.
The research team, led by Ron Fearing, professor of electrical engineering and head of the Biomimetic Millisystems Lab at UC Berkeley, reports its conclusions online on Oct. 18, in the peer-reviewed journal Bioinspiration and Biomimetics.
Using robot models could play a useful role in studying the origins of flight, particularly since fossil evidence is so limited, the researchers noted.
First unveiled by Fearing and graduate student Paul Birkmeyer in 2009, DASH is a lightweight, speedy robot made of inexpensive, off-the-shelf materials, including compliant fiber board with legs driven by a battery-powered motor. Its small size makes it a candidate for deployment in areas too cramped or dangerous for humans to enter, such as collapsed buildings.
A robot gets its wings
But compared with its biological inspiration, the cockroach, DASH had certain limitations as to where it could scamper. Remaining stable while going over obstacles is fairly tricky for small robots, so the researchers affixed DASH with lateral and tail wings borrowed from a store-bought toy to see if that would help.
"Our overall goal is to give our robots the same all-terrain capabilities that other animals have," said Fearing. "In the real world, there will be situations where flying is a better option than crawling, and other places where flying won't work, such as in confined or crowded spaces. We needed a hybrid running-and-flying robot."
The researchers ran tests on four different configurations of the robotic roach, now called DASH+Wings. The test robots included one with a tail only and another that just had the wing's frames, to determine how the wings impacted locomotion.
With its motorized flapping wings, DASH+Wings' running speed nearly doubled, going from from 0.68 meters per second with legs alone to 1.29 meters per second. The robot could also take on steeper hills, going from an incline angle of 5.6 degrees to 16.9 degrees.
"With wings, we saw improvements in performance almost immediately," said study lead author Kevin Peterson, a Ph.D. student in Fearing's lab. "Not only did the wings make the robot faster and better at steeper inclines, it could now keep itself upright when descending. The wingless version of DASH could survive falls from eight stories tall, but it would sometimes land upside down, and where it landed was partly guided by luck."
The flapping wings improved the lift-drag ratio, helping DASH+Wings land on its feet instead of just plummeting uncontrolled. Once it hit the ground, the robot was able to continue on its way. Wind tunnel experiments showed that it is aerodynamically capable of gliding at an angle up to 24.7 degrees.
Tree-dwellers vs. ground-runners
The engineering team's work caught the attention of animal flight expert Robert Dudley, a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology, who noted that the most dominant theories on flight evolution have been primarily derived from scant fossil records and theoretical modeling.
He referenced previous computer models suggesting that ground-dwellers, given the right conditions, would need only to triple their running speed in order to build up enough thrust for takeoff. The fact that DASH+Wings could maximally muster a doubling of its running speed suggests that wings do not provide enough of a boost to launch an animal from the ground. This finding is consistent with the theory that flight arose from animals that glided downwards from some height.
"The fossil evidence we do have suggests that the precursors to early birds had long feathers on all four limbs, and a long tail similarly endowed with a lot of feathers, which would mechanically be more beneficial for tree-dwelling gliders than for runners on the ground," said Dudley.
Dudley said that the winged version of DASH is not a perfect model for proto-birds -- it has six legs instead of two, and its wings use a sheet of plastic rather than feathers -- and thus cannot provide a slam-dunk answer to the question of how flight evolved.
"What the experiments did do was to demonstrate the feasibility of using robot models to test hypotheses of flight origins," he said. "It's the proof of concept that we can actually learn something useful about biological performance through systematic testing of a physical model."
Among other robotic insects being tested in the Biomimetic Millisystems Lab is a winged, bipedal robot called BOLT (Bipedal Ornithopter for Locomotion Transitioning) that more closely resembles the size and aerodynamics of precursors to flying birds and insects.
"It's still notable that adding wings to DASH resulted in marked improvements in its ability to get around," said Fearing. "It shows that flapping wings may provide some advantages evolutionarily, even if it doesn't enable flight."
The National Science Foundation's Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory helped support this research.
Credit: University of California - Berkeley.

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Robot 'Mermaids' Swim Seas to Detect Seismic Waves

Each robot is known as a Mobile Earthquake Recorder in Marine Areas by Independent Divers, or Mermaid. They are equipped with hydrophones, or underwater microphones, with which they record seismic waves from quakes and other earth-shaking phenomena as they ripple through the water. The mics can pick up the waves of quakes from as far away as 7,450 miles (12,000 km).

The seismic waves sent out by these temblors help scientists draw a picture of the Earth's insides.
"Seismologists use seismic waves very much as X-rays," said researcher Yann Hello, a geophysicist at the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis in Villefranche-sur-Mer, France.
For instance, seismic waves slow down when they hit hotter rock and speed up when they encounter  colder rock, and "we analyze this information and translate it into a picture of the hot and cold regions inside the Earth," Hello told OurAmazingPlanet.
The heat-driven motions of rock in the deep Earth underlie the movements of continents and the earthquakes that can devastate cities, so having a more detailed picture of what's happening beneath our feet could better prepare us for such natural disasters.
Ocean gaps
One problem facing the effort to "see" what's happening down below is the vastness of the Earth's oceans. There are very few seismic stations in the oceans, which cover nearly three-quarters of the Earth, leading to gaps in our picture of the world's interior. Having robots out there can thus help fill in our picture of the deep Earth, Hello said.
The Mermaids float freely about 3,300 to 6,500 feet (1 to 2 kilometers) below the ocean's surface. During the initial testing of the robots, currently under way, they surface after recording data for a short time so that researchers can gather their data.
In the future, the robots will surface only after detecting powerful seismic waves, transmitting their data to satellites before returning to their floating depth. Each robot carries a GPS unit to provide its location, as well as sensors for temperature, salinity and ocean current strength.
Two prototype Mermaids have just completed their longest autonomous trips so far. One had a carbon hull, the other, aluminum. The carbon hull is lighter, helping a robot carry more batteries and work for longer in the field, but the aluminum hull proved less sensitive to perturbations in the water and ballasting errors.
Achieving new depths
Launched in June in the Ligurian Sea just south of Nice, France, these prototypes were programmed to dive to a series of cruising depths, surfacing after each new depth was maintained for three or four days. They detected a strong earthquake 5,870 miles (9,450 km) away, a magnitude 7.4 temblor near the Fox Islands off the coast of Alaska. [Related: Seafloor Sensors Listen to Quake Rumblings]
The first fleet of a half-dozen fully operational aluminum-hulled Mermaids will be launched in the Indian Ocean in the second half of 2012. Their hardware will allow for oceanographic, weather, biological and seismological observations, researchers said.
The technology of these robots will only improve over time, researchers added. Scientists and engineers are now refining the artificial intelligence algorithms that help the Mermaids decide what seismic waves are meaningful or not, and are hoping to develop larger and more lightweight floats with batteries that allow them to survive for up to five years.
The scientists detailed their findings in the Oct. 4 issue of the journal Eos.

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OmniTouch turns any surface into a touchscreen interface

 Shoulder-mounted OmniTouch prototype

In its current proof-of-concept iteration, which was prototyped at idea-rich Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington, by PhD student Chris Harrison and his team, the rough-hewn shoulder mounted device resembles a sci-fi prosthetic weapon, but looks can be deceiving.
"We explored and prototyped a powerful alternative approach to mobile interaction that uses a body-worn projection/sensing system to capitalize on the tremendous surface area the real world provides," explains Harrison.

  The OmniTouch wearable interface projector

Like the proverbial "better" mousetrap, the concept of mobile interaction seems prone to constant tinkering. The OmniTouch draws from a blend of disciplines to overcome numerous issues that beset similar devices. Some approaches require placing markers on the fingertips but still can't discern whether the fingers are "clicked" (touching the surface) or hovering. Others can't "read" surfaces beyond those of the user's own body or they lack the ability to respond to touch/drag motions.
To surmount these hurdles, Harrison and his colleagues combined a PrimeSense short-range depth camera with a Microvision ShowWX+ laser pico-projector. The camera generated a 320x240 depth map at a rate of 30FPS, even for objects as close as 8 inches (20cm). The projector delivered a sharp, focus-free, wide-angle image independent of the surface's distance - a useful property in such applications. Both devices were then linked to a desktop computer.

 OmniTouch displays interface on user's hand

The OmniTouch gets its edge in finger position detection through a complex series of calculations that begins with the generation of the depth map. The second video below contains a detailed description of the process which enables the device to determine whether one's fingers are floating above a surface of actually contacting it. The inputs yielded closely approximate those of touchscreens and mice, so the possibilities for the OmniTouch are seemingly endless. Let's hope the wait for a commercial version isn't.
The paper, OmniTouch: Wearable Multitouch Interaction Everywhere, by Chris Harrison, Hrvoje Benko and Andy Wilson was presented in the Proceedings of the 24th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (Santa Barbara, California, October 16 - 19, 2011)

(Source: Chris Harrison)

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Throwable ball camera captures panoramic images

The 36 CMOS sensor ball camera (Photo courtesy Jonas Pfeil)

Taking pictures is about to get a lot more fun if computer engineer Jonas Pfeil and his colleagues have anything to say about it. A recent graduate from the Technical University of Berlin, Pfeil and his team designed and built a working prototype "ball" camera- a foam-studded sphere (about 8 inches in diameter) peppered with 36 tiny 2-megapixel cell phone cameras. Throw it in the air and it captures an image at the top of the ball's trajectory. Talk about redefining photography- one day, snapping pics may give way to "tossing" them.
Panoramic images, with their large width to height ratio, are appealing because they better approximate the way we humans view the world. But capturing them typically requires a tripod, several camera positions and lots of stitching together. Pfeil's invention eliminates all that since the component images are captured simultaneously. That's especially handy since it also freezes moving objects that might otherwise blur or shift during the image-gathering process.

To view the roughly 72-megapixel images from the ballcam, the data is downloaded via USB port into a spherical panoramic viewer which will ship with the camera. The resulting images look similar to those on Google's Street View and can be similarly panned and zoomed to examine all the captured details.
The multi-faceted housing that holds the ball-cam together was fabricated with a 3D printer. Aside from the 36 STMicroelectronics quarter-inch CMOS camera modules, the well-padded interior also houses an accelerometer (to gauge toss acceleration and maximum height) and two Atmel microcontrollers to sync up and control all the cameras. Most of the components are fairly inexpensive, so while there's no price point yet, it's likely to be competitive with mid-range digital point-and-shoots.
"We used the camera to capture full spherical panoramas at scenic spots, in a crowded city square and in the middle of a group of people taking turns in throwing the camera," says Pfeil.
The team plans to demo their patent-pending new camera this December at SIGGRAPH Asia 2011, and it's sure to cause a stir. Hopefully it'll generate a marketing deal, too, because, as Pfeil notes, "above all we found that it is a very enjoyable, playful way to take pictures."

(GIZMAG)
Video Watch
Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera

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Branson opens world's first 'spaceport' in US

    The new Spaceport America hangar backdrops the spacecraft White Knight Two, Monday, Oct. 17, 2011 in Upham, N.M. British billionaire Richard Branson dedicated the newly completed terminal Monday where his Virgin Galactic is slated to begin his commercial space tourism venture from the remote patch of desert in Sierra County. (AP Photo/Matt York)

British billionaire Richard Branson opened the world's first-ever commercial spaceport in the New Mexico desert, the new home for his company, Virgin Galactic.

The eccentric businessman, with usual flair, sported a black jacket and waves of hair flying as he inaugurated the building by breaking a champagne bottle against a hanger building, while rappelling down the side of it.

British billionaire Sir Richard Branson stands along side the spacecraft White Knight Two after a test flight outside the new Spaceport America hangar Monday, Oct. 17, 2011 in Upham, NM. Branson dedicated the newly completed terminal Monday where his Virgin Galactic is slated to begin his commercial space tourism venture from the remote patch of desert in Sierra County. (AP Photo/Matt York)

"Spaceport America," as the site is called, will serve "as the operating hub for Virgin Galactic and is expected to house up to two WhiteKnightTwos and five SpaceShipTwos, in addition to all of Virgin’s astronaut preparation facilities and mission control," said the company in a statement to the press.

About 150 people already booked for travel on the first flights to orbit attended the event, said the company.

Guests outside the new Spaceport America hangar Monday, Oct. 17, 2011 in Upham, N.M. British billionaire Richard Branson dedicated the newly completed terminal Monday where his Virgin Galactic is slated to begin his commercial space tourism venture from the remote patch of desert in Sierra County. (AP Photo/Matt York)
Also attending were head of Virgin Galactic George Whitesides, commercial director Stephen Attenborough, and famed US astronaut -- and second human being to step on the moon -- Buzz Aldrin.
Branson last month said he hoped to launch a vessel into space within the next 12 months, which he said would kick off an era of commercial space travel.

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Electric Plane Wins $1.35 Million in NASA Challenge

NASA has doled out the largest prize in aviation history, in an effort to help make future aircraft cleaner and greener.
A team called Pipistrel-USA.com, of State College, Pa., has taken home the $1.35 million top prize, NASA officials announced Monday (Oct. 3).
The space agency helped organize a competition called the CAFE Green Flight Challenge, which tasked teams to design, build and demonstrate super-efficient aircraft.
Team eGenius, of Ramona, Calif., came in second and scored $120,000. Both top finishers demonstrated working electric planes.
"NASA congratulates Pipistrel-USA.com for proving that ultra-efficient aviation is within our grasp," Joe Parrish, NASA's acting chief technologist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. "Today we've shown that electric aircraft have moved beyond science fiction and are now in the realm of practice." [10 Future Public Transportation Vehicles]
Fourteen teams registered for the competition, whose guidelines instructed them to build aircraft that could fly 200 miles (322 kilometers) in less than two hours using less than one gallon of fuel per passenger, or the equivalent in electricity.
Three of the original 14 teams met these requirements and competed in a fly-off over the past week near Santa Rosa, Calif. Both Pipistrel-USA.com and eGenius flew the 200 miles using just over a half-gallon of fuel equivalent per passenger, NASA officials said.
"Two years ago the thought of flying 200 miles at 100 mph in an electric aircraft was pure science fiction," said Jack Langelaan, team leader of Team Pipistrel-USA.com. "Now we are all looking forward to the future of electric aviation."
The competition marked the culmination of more than two years of work for the teams involved. Collectively, the competing teams spent more than $4 million to design, develop and test their aircraft. The technologies demonstrated during the challenge could find their way into commercial aviation in the future, officials said.
The competition was managed by the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency (CAFE) Foundation under an agreement with NASA. It was sponsored by Google.

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Student-built electric car sets world land speed record of 155.8 mph

Brigham Young University (BYU) students are celebrating after setting a new land speed record for an electric car in the "E1" (under 1,100 lbs/499 kg) class. The record of 155.8 mph (250.7 km/h) set by the "Electric Blue" streamliner at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah was averaged over the two required qualifying runs, one of which saw the car reach a speed of 175 mph (281.6 km/h). The record marks the end of a seven year quest by BYU students led by Perry Carter who, having just retired as an associate professor, gets to bow out on top.

With its long, slender shape and enclosed wheels to reduce air resistance, Electric Blue falls into the category of a streamliner. The BYU students modeled the vehicle's body using a wind tunnel program on a computer and custom built it using carbon fiber. The team says the aerodynamic body, in combination with the vehicle's lithium iron phosphate batteries helped the car reach its record-setting speeds.
The Electric Blue was piloted on its two runs by Utah Salt Flats Racing Association president, Jim Burkdoll, and they were certified by the Southern California Timing Association - Bonneville Nations, Inc.
The 155.8 mph time is record-setting rather than record-breaking as there were no prior certified speed runs for the lightweight "E1" class. This is because electric vehicles rely on heavy batteries and engineering a speedy vehicle that complied with the 1,100 pound weight restriction had proved difficult. However, previous unofficial records were in the 130 mph (209 km/h) ballpark, with the BYU team completing a qualifying run of 139 mph (223.7 km/h) last year, but failed to complete the second run when the car rolled, damaging its body.
To put the record in some kind of perspective, the Electric Blue's 155.8 mph record leaves the Tesla Roadster, with a top speed of 125 mph (201 km/h), in its wake and is just short of the 176.43 mph (283.9 km/h) record set by the Riches/Nelson E-Race electric motorcycle. The BYU team's effort also outdoes the 161.5 mph (260 km/h) top speed of the TMG EV P001, which broke the lap record for an electric vehicle at the Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit in August. Although the Electric Blue, with its one inch of ground clearance and extremely wide turning circle, would likely struggle to negotiate the turns on the legendary Nordschleife (northern loop).
Of the roughly 130 BYU students that have worked on the streamliner program over its seven years, about half have been manufacturing engineering technology majors, about 40 percent mechanical engineering majors, and the remainder coming from various other disciplines. While many worked on the car as part of an annual capstone course, most were unpaid volunteers.
"This is a wonderful closure to 31 years of teaching at BYU and many projects," Carter said after the record was certified. "But this is the one that takes the cake. I'm done."

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Weird Tech/New device to generate electricity from human breathing

A simulated lung with the piezoelectric PVDF microband (in yellow) that vibrates as air flows past it (Image: EES Blog)

One of the biggest hurdles facing the developers of biological implants is coming up with a power source to keep the implanted devices ticking. We've seen various technologies that could be used instead of traditional batteries (which require the patient to go under the knife so they can be replaced) such as wireless transmission of power from outside the body, biological fuel cells that generate electricity from a person's blood sugar, and piezoelectric devices that generate electricity from body movements or the beating of the heart. Now researchers have developed a device that could be used to generate electricity from a patient's breathing.
The device created by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison relies on the piezoelectric effect - whereby an electrical charge accumulates in certain materials in response to mechanical stress. But instead of relying on body movements to create the mechanical stress, the UW-Madison team's device uses low speed airflow like that caused by normal human respiration to cause the vibration of a plastic microbelt engineered from a piezoelectric material called polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF).
"Basically, we are harvesting mechanical energy from biological systems. The airflow of normal human respiration is typically below about two meters per second," says Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Xudong Wang who created the device along with postdoctoral researcher Chengliang Sun and graduate student Jian Shi. "We calculated that if we could make this material thin enough, small vibrations could produce a microwatt of electrical energy that could be useful for sensors or other devices implanted in the face," said Wang.
To thin the PVDF material to micrometer scale while preserving its piezoelectric properties, Wang's team used an ion-etching process. Wang believes that, with improvements, the thickness of the material, which is biocompatible, can be controlled down to the submicron level and lead to the development of a practical micro-scale device that could harvest energy from the airflow in a person's nose.
Tests conducted by the team saw the device reach power levels in the millivolt range, but reached up to 6 volts with maximum airflow speeds. Wang and the UW-Madison team now plan to look for ways to improve the efficiency of the device. The team's research appears in the September issue of Energy and Environmental Science.
Source: EES Blog via MedGadget

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ICTINEU 3 submersible dives to depths of almost 4000 feet

While NASA makes plans to send man to Mars, there's still so much we don't know about our home planet - particularly when it comes to what lies beneath the ocean waves. Over the past few years we've seen the emergence of a number of submersibles that bring underwater exploration to a wider audience, such as the C-Quester and C-Explorer lines from Uboatworx and the EGO semi-submarine boat. The latest to catch out eye is the ICTINEU 3, a three-seater (one pilot and two passengers) submersible that is designed to dive to a maximum depth of 1,200 meters (3,937 ft), which its makers claim will make it the world's ninth deepest submersible.

Intended for everything from oceanography, archaeology, industrial work, filming and photography and leisure applications, the ICTINEU 3 is designed to be modified to suit the task at hand with the ability to accommodate various instrument and sensor payloads and to integrate new technology and equipment as they become available. It will also come equipped with two robotic arms with seven degrees of freedom, 1.5 m (4.9 ft) range and exchangeable claws.

To ensure the craft is also attractive for the leisure market, passengers are able to enter and exit from the water surface or a small boat. There's also a 1.5 m (4.9 ft) diameter acrylic window for taking in the view and the interior is maintained at atmospheric pressure so passengers won't have any decompression issues.

Propelled by four stern and four maneuvering thrusters that are powered by a 42 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, the ICTINEU 3 can travel up to 32 km (20 miles) underwater at a cruising speed of 1.5 knots (2.8 km/h / 1.7 mph). It can operate autonomously for up to 10 hours with emergency life support for up to 120 hours. With a weight of 5,300 kg (11,685 lb) and dimensions of 4.8 m long x 1.95 m across x 3 m high (15.7 x 6.4 x 9.8 ft) that allow it to fit in a 6 m (20 foot) open-top container, ICTINEU says its submersible can be operated from most research vessels and is easily transported.

Construction of the ICTINEU 3 is due to be completed by the end of 2011, with sea trials and final certification and classification to follow. In addition to plans to manufacture the submersible on request with delivery taking two years, ICTINEU will also run diving services that are set to commence in the Mediterranean in early 2012.

The company is already taking bookings for these initial dives with a 1 hour 30 minute dive to depths of 50 - 250 m (164 - 820 ft) in Costa Rica priced at EUR1,250 (approx. US$1,691), while you can book yourself on a 3 - 4 hour dive at depths of up to 1,000 m (3,280 ft) in Rec de la Fonera for EUR6,000 (approx. US$8,117). ICTINEU also offers the option of personalized dives that see you sitting alongside a marine biologist or archaeologist, or even taking part in a scientific experiment. The company can also transport the ICTINEU 3 to your choice of diving location

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Robots Invent Their Own Language

Australian scientists have invented a new breed of robots called Lingodroids, programmed to make, use, and share language. The bots can coin words to describe places they have been, places they want to go, and plans for getting there. “When they need a new word, they invent one,” says Janet Wiles, a cognitive scientist at the University of Queensland who leads an interdisciplinary team on the project.

The rolling chatterboxes “see” using 360-degree cameras, laser range finders, and sonar. A microphone functions as their ears, and a speaker acts as a voice box, emitting the familiar beeps of a touch-tone phone. As for brains, Wiles outfitted each Lingodroid with an alphabet of beeps that correspond to letters. Then she programmed them to play a series of games in which they paired the letters into nonsensical combinations like “ja” or “ku” and joined those syllables to coin neologisms as needed. For example, in one game two robots roamed through a course and met in an unfamiliar part of it. The meeting triggered one robot to name the spot “jaya” and share the new word with its partner, who then added the word to its lexicon. In this way the robots slowly built a new language to describe their travels [pdf] and eventually even learned to communicate and understand directions.

Wiles notes that although the language may seem simple, for robots, grasping spatial information is incredibly complex. “We don’t realize how sophisticated our use of language to describe the world around us is,” she says. Ultimately, she hopes to teach her robots to chat up humans, paving the way for robotic caregivers, companions, and butlers.

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Airships Set to Take Flight Once Again

Photo: Hybrid Air Vehicles

Every year millions of carefree people board cruise ships and never entertain a single thought about the sinking of the Titanic. Same goes for the millions of people everyday who travel and commute via plane, train or automobile. Unless you're severely phobic, chances are transportation disasters are the last thing on your mind as you embark.

So why then does the mere mention of the blimp and zeppelin industry initiate an echo-chamber where all we hear is "Oh the humanity!". Perhaps we should let bygones be bygones and stop fixating on the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, for the dawn of a new age of 'air vehicles' may soon be upon us.

British Company, Hybrid Air Vehicles, is leading the charge. They recently pulled down two major commercial deals, potentially indicating that the airship industry may once again be taking flight.

The company's modern airships are composed of semi-rigid lifting balloons, taking 40 percent of their lifting capacity from onboard engines that provide vectored thrust. Helium provides the remain 60 percent for liftoff.

Additionally, fan-equipped pontoons on the underbelly of the hull give the airship the ability to land on grass, concrete or water, without a ground crew.

Hybrid Air Vehicles most lucrative deal is a $517 million contract with Northrop Grumman to supply a Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) to the U.S. Army for deployment in Afghanistan in 2012. The second deal is with Discovery Air Innovations, who has agreed to buy vehicles capable of lifting 50 tons and flying 115 miles per hour.

The military airships potentially would be used for surveillance and transport, while the Canadian contract intends use the air vehicles to deliver cargo in remote regions of the arctic North.

Hybrid Air Vehicles sees a bright future for their airships. The company seeks to tap the markets of mapping and geographic monitoring, humanitarian aid distribution, offshore drilling and luxury tourism.

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