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Autonomous Quadrotors Fly Amazing Formations
Saturday, 04 February 2012 05:19
Mark Gardner
Autonomous Quadrotors Fly Amazing Formations
Roboticists at the University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP are able to get as many as 20 of their autonomous microcopters to fly in formation and perform complex maneuvers flawlessly.
In an impressive new video, the GRASP — General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception — team makes their swarm of flying microbots flip, change direction, navigate through obstacles and even fly figure-eights with jaw-dropping agility and precision.
This stealthy X-47B unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is the size of a fighter jet, and will be taking off and landing from the deck of an aircraft carrier. This is an unusual overhead view of the scary looking plane, which was mistaken for a UFO last month. When will it be ready for battle? Unknown. It's a concept plane so far, but as you can see, it's in the midst of flight testing.
Wikipedia replaced article pages with this anti-SOPA message.
Three of the Internet's most popular destinations--Google, Wikipedia, and Craigslist--launched an audacious experiment in political activism this evening by urging their users to protest a pair of Hollywood-backed copyright laws.
Wikipedia's English-language pages went completely black at 9 p.m. PT, with a splash page saying "the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet." The online encyclopedia's blackout, intended to precede next week's Senate floor vote on the legislation, is scheduled to last 24 hours.
Craigslist and Google have taken a more modest approach. Unlike Wikipedia, the sites will remain online during Wednesday's virtual protest, but the home pages now feature exhortations to contact members of Congress and urge them to vote against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate version called Protect IP. Craiglist's snarky note: "Corporate paymasters, KEEP THOSE CLAMMY HANDS OFF THE INTERNET!" (See CNET's FAQ on the topic.)
It's a novel experiment in grassroots-outreach-by-the-millions that could, if successful, derail SOPA and Protect IP, which have come under increasing criticism since last fall. Their authors -- Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) -- responded in the last week byoffering some changes. But Smith said in a statement today that, one way or another, a House committee vote will be held in February.
CNET predicted the protest in a December 29 article that said opponents of the bills may "simultaneously turn" their home pages "black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress."
This is "classic Hollywood trying to do heavy handed legislation to protect its business interests," Casey Rae-Hunter, deputy director of the Future of Music Coalition, told reporters this morning.
Pentagon Scientists Use ‘Time Hole’ to Make Events Disappear
Sunday, 08 January 2012 11:24
Mark Gardner
Pentagon Scientists Use ‘Time Hole’ to Make Events Disappear
Jan. 4, 2012
Soldiers could one day conduct covert operations in complete secrecy, now that Pentagon-backed physicists have figured out how to mask entire events by distorting light.
A team at Cornell University, with support from Darpa, the Pentagon’s out-there research arm, managed to hide an event for 40 picoseconds (those are trillionths of seconds, if you’re counting). They’ve published their groundbreaking research in this week’s edition of the journal Nature.
This is the first time that scientists have succeeded in masking an event, though research teams have in recent years made remarkable strides in cloaking objects. Researchers at the University of Texas, Dallas, last year harnessed the mirage effect to make objects vanish. And in 2010, physicists at the University of St. Andrews made leaps towards using metamaterials to trick human eyes into not seeing what was right in front of them.
Masking an object entails bending light around that object. If the light doesn’t actually hit an object, then that object won’t be visible to the human eye.
Where events are concerned, concealment relies on changing the speed of light. Light that’s emitted from actions, as they happen, is what allows us to see those actions happen. Usually, that light comes in a constant flow. What Cornell researchers did, in simple terms, is tweak that ongoing flow of light — just for a mere iota of time — so that an event could transpire without being observable.
The entire experiment occurred inside a fiber optics cable. Researchers passed a beam of green light down the cable, and had it move through a lens that split the light into two frequencies, one moving slowly and the other faster. As that was happening, they shot a red laser through the beams. Since the laser “shooting” occurred during a teeny, tiny time gap, it was imperceptible.
Sure, the team’s got a ways to go before they’re able to mask 30 seconds of action, let alone several minutes. But the research certainly opens up new possibilities. For one, masking super-quick events, like those that occur with data transmission, could help conceal covert computer operations.
In the words of Nature editors, the research marks “a significant step towards full spatio-temporal cloaking.” But it could be decades before military personnel will basically be able to zap history, as it happens: According to Cornell scientists, it’d take a machine 18,600 miles long to produce a time mask that lasts a single second.
Masaru Emoto was born in Yokohama, Japan in July 1943 and a graduate of the Yokohama Municipal University's department of humanities and sciences with a focus on International Relations. In 1986 he established the IHM Corporation in Tokyo. In October of 1992 he received certification from the Open International University as a Doctor of Alternative Medicine. Subsequently he was introduced to the concept of micro cluster water in the US and Magnetic Resonance Analysis technology. The quest thus began to discover the mystery of water.
He undertook extensive research of water around the planet not so much as a scientific researcher, but more from the perspective of an original thinker. At length he realized that it was in the frozen crystal form that water showed us its true nature through. He has gained worldwide acclaim through his groundbreaking research and discovery that water is deeply connected to our individual and collective consciousness.
He is the author of the best-selling books Messages from Water, The Hidden Messages in Water, and The True Power of Water. He is a long-time advocate for peace in relation to water. He is currently the head of the I.H.M.General Research Institute and President Emeritus of the International Water for Life Foundation, a Not for Profit Organization.
Mr. Emoto has been visually documenting these molecular changes in water by means of his photographic techniques. He freezes droplets of water and then examines them under a dark field microscope that has photographic capabilities.
Some examples from his works include:
Water from clear mountain springs and streams had beautifully formed crystalline structures, while the crystals of polluted or stagnant water were deformed and distorted.
Distilled water exposed to classical music took delicate, symmetrical crystalline shapes.
When the words "thank you" were taped to a bottle of distilled water, the frozen crystals had a similar shape to the crystals formed by water that had been exposed to Bach's "Goldberg Variations"- music composed out of gratitude to the man it was named for.
When water samples were bombarded with heavy metal music or labeled with negative words, or when negative thoughts and emotions were focused intentionally upon them, such as "Adolf Hitler", the water did not form crystals at all and displayed chaotic, fragmented structures.
When water was treated with aromatic floral oils, the water crystals tended to mimic the shape of the original flower.
Sometimes, when we cannot see the immediate results of our affirmations and or prayers, we think we have failed. But, as we learn through Masaru Emoto's photographs, that thought of failure itself becomes represented in the physical objects that surround us. Now that we have seen this, perhaps we can begin to realize that even when immediate results are invisible to the unaided human eye, they are still there. When we love our own bodies, they respond. When we send our love to the Earth, she responds.
For our own bodies at birth are more than 60 percent water, and the percentage of water in our bodies remains high throughout life (depending upon weight and body type). The earth's surface is more than 60 percent water as well. And now we have seen before our eyes that water is far from inanimate, but is actually alive and responsive to our every thought and emotion. Perhaps, having seen this, we can begin to really understand the awesome power that we possess, through choosing our thoughts and intentions, to heal ourselves and the earth. If only we believe.
Whether you participate in global meditations, or simply do this inner work in the quiet of your own loving mind and heart -- we can heal the body of our earth and recreate a clear, pristine world to hand down to our children for seven generations.
Music by: Antony Raijekov-Photo theme Peace, love and light.
Disclosure 2012
Monday, 26 December 2011 03:11
Mark Gardner
Disclosure 2012
Last Updated on Monday, 26 December 2011 03:17
New Invisibility Cloak: Not Only Invisible, But Also Inaudible -“As If Nothing Was There”
Friday, 23 December 2011 00:59
Mark Gardner
New Invisibility Cloak: Not Only Invisible, But Also Inaudible -“As If Nothing Was There”
New Invisibility Cloak: Not Only Invisible, But Also Inaudible-“As If Nothing Was There” KIT researchers transfer the concept of an optical invisibility cloak to sound waves. Progress of metamaterials in nanotechnologies has made the invisibility cloak, a subject of mythology and science fiction, become reality: Light waves can be guided around an object to be hidden, in such a way that this object appears to be non-existent. This concept applied to electromagnetic light waves may also be transferred to other types of waves, such as sound waves. “Circling“ around the silent center: Design (top) and intermediate step of production (bottom) of the elastic invisibility cloak.
Researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now succeeded in demonstrating for the first time an invisibility cloak for elastic waves. Such waves also occur in strings of a guitar or drum membranes. It is as if Harry Potter had a cloak that also makes him unhearable. “Maybe a place of peace and quiet in the Christmas season,” say the KIT researchers, who succeeded in transferring the concepts underlying the optical invisibility cloak to acoustic waves in a plate.
“The key to controlling waves is to specifically influence their local speed as a function of the ‘running direction’ of the wave,” says Dr. Nicolas Stenger from the Institute of Applied Physics (AP). In his experiment, he used a smartly microstructured material composed of two polymers: A soft and a hard plastic in a thin plate. The vibrations of this plate are in the range of acoustic frequencies, that is some 100 Hz, and can be observed directly from above.
The scientists found that the sound waves are guided around a circular area in the millimeter-thin plate in such a way that vibrations can neither enter nor leave this area. “Contrary to other known noise protection measures, the sound waves are neither absorbed nor reflected,” says Professor Martin Wegener from the Institute of Applied Physics and coordinator of the DFG Center for Functional Nanostructures (CFN) at KIT. “It is as if nothing was there.” Both physicists and Professor Martin Wilhelm from the KIT Institute for Chemical Technology and Polymer Chemistry have now published their results in the journal “Physical Review Letters.”
The scientists explain their idea by the following story: A city, in the shape of a circle, suffers from noisy car traffic through its center. Finally, the mayor has the idea to introduce a speed limit for cars that drive directly towards the city: The closer the cars come to the city area, the slower they have to drive. At the same time, the mayor orders to build circular roads around the city, on which the cars are allowed to drive at higher speeds. The cars can approach the city, drive around it, and leave it in the same direction in the end. The time required corresponds to the time needed without the city. From outside, it appears as if the city was not there.
Buoyed by a record-setting order from Southwest Airlines, Boeing says it now has 13 customers for its 737 MAX and believes it could have 1,400 to 1,500 firm commitments for the aircraft by the end of 2012.
Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, made the prediction during a press briefing today about Southwest’s firm order for 150 737 MAX narrowbodies and 58 additional 737NG aircraft. Southwest will be the launch customer for the MAX, with the first four deliveries scheduled for 2017.
The order for 208 aircraft is the largest in Boeing’s history in terms of number of airplanes and dollar value, Albaugh says. adding that it even tops the recent AirAsia order for 200 Airbus A320NEOs.
The Southwest deal is the first firm agreement for the MAX, and also includes options for another 150 of the aircraft. Albaugh says the Southwest deal brings the total number of commitments for the MAX to 948, although most are not yet firm orders.
Neither Boeing nor Southwest will disclose how much the airline is paying for the 208 aircraft it just ordered. They have a list value of $19 billion, but both Boeing and Southwest acknowledge the carrier negotiated a deep discount.
The only pricing hint came from Southwest. Chief Operating Officer Mike Van de Ven says that for the 350 total airplanes Southwest now has on order, the carrier’s average annual capital expenditure commitment from 2012 through 2022 will be $1.2 billion—or $12 billion through the period.
Van de Ven says Southwest took a close look at the NEO, although the carrier has been an all-Boeing customer for its entire existence. He says both the NEO and the MAX “deliver substantial improvements on existing aircraft,” but the airline concluded the MAX was the best choice for Southwest with its combination of improved economics, fleet commonality and “network fit.” Southwest officials also cited its weight, which they said would be somewhat lighter, and the ability to opt for a bigger aircraft with the 737 MAX 8.
“It really comes down to what works best for our mission,” says Brian Hirshman, senior VP-technical operations. For example, the MAX works better with the shorter field at Chicago Midway International Airport. Van de Ven says the MAX gives Southwest “a little more mission flexibility at some of the airports we serve” than the NEO would have
Japan’s airline industry is set for a major transformation in 2012 with the debut of three low-cost carriers, as airline executives bet that there is enough demand to match the sudden emergence of a competitive LCC market.
Japan is a late arrival on the low-cost scene compared to other mature airline markets. It has had only a few locally based carriers—most notably Skymark Airlines—offering low-cost service, but now both Japan Airlines (JAL) and All Nippon Airways (ANA) are setting up joint-venture LCCs.
ANA is one of the partners launching Peach Aviation in March, and is also teaming with Malaysia-based AirAsia to debut AirAsia Japan in August. JAL will introduce Jetstar Japan by the end of 2012 in partnership with Qantas subsidiary Jetstar. The main battleground will be Tokyo Narita International Airport, where AirAsia Japan will go head-to-head with Jetstar Japan as well as new service from Skymark.
The Jetstar and AirAsia branded LCCs are drawing heavily on their overseas partners’ expertise in low-cost operations. JAL will not participate actively in setting up Jetstar Japan’s business model or in its operations, says JAL President Masaru Onishi. The business plan will be determined more by the Jetstar Group. JAL was not involved in selecting the CEO of the Japanese startup, who is from outside the airline industry.
While ANA is also relying on its overseas partner’s low-cost savvy, AirAsia Japan CEO Kazuyuki Iwakata is an ANA veteran, and about 20 other ANA employees have been seconded to get the carrier started. However, Iwakata notes that recruiting from outside ANA has now begun.
Iwakata says that while help from ANA specialists is required to set up the LCC, it is vital that the full-service culture is not transferred from ANA. “The most important thing for us is the LCC culture, and we’re learning a lot about that from AirAsia,” he says.
The three new LCCs will each begin with just a handful of aircraft, but have ambitious growth plans. AirAsia Japan, for example, plans to have four Airbus A320s by the end of 2012, and expects the fleet to increase to 30 in 2016. This will include A330s from 2013 for medium- and long-haul international flights.
AirAsia Japan’s goal is to be carrying more than 10 million passengers annually within five years. Iwakata says this is an achievable target, as the “Japanese LCC market potential is huge.”
