A battery that uses nanotechnology to charge your smartphone in 30 seconds may sound like something out of a sci-fi movie but an Israeli startup claims to have created just that.
StoreDot unveiled its battery charging prototype Monday at Microsoft’s Think Next conference in Tel Aviv.
Click here to read more at Mashable.com
Elephant in Tsavo National Park. Credit: ian 1602
Drones To Be Employed in Kenyan Anti-Poaching Effort
When it comes to protecting wildlife, those who work to protect animals against poaching are up against some serious obstacles. Lack of funds often leave rangers overworked and underpaid, often not even with adequate equipment to patrol such an expansive area. In some countries, rangers aren’t even allowed to carry firearms even though they are up against armed poachers. Some poachers have even gained employment as rangers in order to have better access to the animals. Even the rangers with the best of intentions are struggling to combat poaching and keep the animals alive. For the rangers in Kenya, however, help is on the way.
Government officials have stated that rangers will soon be getting assistance from drones to use for surveillance purposes. Patrick Omondi, who serves as Deputy Director for Wildlife Conservation at the Kenya Wildlife Service has stated that the first drones to be put into use will be in Tsavo National Park. At 40,000 square kilometers, this is one of the largest parks in the world, making it a challenge to stop poachers. In 1967, Tsavo National Park was home to over 35,000 elephants. That number has been cut down to about 12,500 today and represents a third of all elephants in Kenya.
Read more at IFLS.com
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Shiva Nathan’s new prosthetic can read patterns in the wearer’s brainwaves and transmit them to a robotic arm, allowing the user to flex the mechanical fingers with nothing more than their thoughts. And if this project needed any more cool points, its creator is 15 years old.
Read more at I Love Science
Photo Source: Shiva Nathan via Parallax
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Image via: LifeHand 2 / Patrizia Tocci
Source: I Love Science
A video game designed by Northrop Grumman to train The U.S. Army‘s soldiers!
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Highly accurate system learns to decipher images on its own
If we’ve learned anything from post-apocalyptic movies it’s that computers eventually become self-aware and try to eliminate humans.
BYU engineer Dah-Jye Lee isn’t interested in that development, but he has managed to eliminate the need for humans in the field of object recognition. Lee has created an algorithm that can accurately identify objects in images or video sequences without human calibration.
“In most cases, people are in charge of deciding what features to focus on and they then write the algorithm based off that,” said Lee, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. “With our algorithm, we give it a set of images and let the computer decide which features are important.”
Not only is Lee’s genetic algorithm able to set its own parameters, but it also doesn’t need to be reset each time a new object is to be recognized—it learns them on its own.
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German architect André Broessel, of Rawlemon, has looked into his crystal ball and seen the future of renewable energy. In this case it’s a spherical sun-tracking solar energy-generating globe — essentially a giant glass marble on a robotic steel frame. But this marble is no toy. It concentrates both sunlight and moonlight up to 10,000 times — making its solar harvesting capabilities 35 percent more efficient than conventional dual-axis photovoltaic designs.
Rawlemon was a finalist in the World Technology Network Award 2013 with the globe’s design and afterward produced this latest version, called Betaray, which can concentrate diffuse light such as that from a cloudy day.
Sources: I Love Science & Discover.com
Industry leaders showcase and prep for their turn on the international stage. Photo courtesy of F&E Aerospace/Dubai Airshow
One hundred and ten years after the Wright Brothers brought powered flight to the world, the next chapter of global aviation is being written at the Dubai Air Show. -Raytheon
U.S. companies that dominate global aviation [have eyed] the Middle East’s largest airshow in hopes of inking deals worth billions of dollars as the region’s economies continue to expand on the backs of the industry –AP
Planes leave a cloud trail of smoke colors honoring the colors of the United Arab Emirates national flag. Photo courtesy of F&E Aerospace/Dubai Airshow
More than 1,000 companies are exhibiting, tens of billions of dollars in deal-making are under way and visitors are flocking to the show from more than 50 countries. -Raytheon
The Dubai Airshow is a biennial show held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Organized by the “F&E Aerospace” since 1989, this leading aerospace event serves as the international stage for the industry’s finest to show off their biggest, fastest, best, and loudest products and innovations in hopes of scoring major economy-boosting deals.
A major US competitor, Boeing, is currently leading the order books race.
Airlines in the Gulf have placed a number of high-value plane orders on the first day of the Dubai Air Show, with US giant Boeing a major winner.
Additionally, major contractors such as Raytheon have thrown a few cards in play as well.
Raytheon’s red-and-white show headquarters is showcasing many of the technologies that make aviation work, including the air traffic management software that safely guides planes on the most efficient routes from Point A to Point Z and everyplace in between.
With January 2014 marking the 100th year of commercial aviation, it’s amazing to see what all the Aerospace Industry has in store for the future. Who know’s what they’ll come up with next! Guess we’ll just have to wait and see…
From Orville and Wilbur Wright’s wooden flying contraption to today’s supersonic jets, the superlatives just keep flying for aviation. From the biggest to the fastest to the best, they’re all on display in Dubai. -Raytheon
Photo courtesy of F&E Aerospace/Dubai Airshow
For more on the 2013 Dubai Airshow check out:
…Dumbledore would be so proud!
New Invisibility Cloak Completely Conceals Objects
“Science may have just given us one of the greatest gifts foretold by science fiction: invisibility cloaking. The experimental device is thin and flexible and can be applied to objects of very different sizes.”
Sources: IFLscience.com & University of Toronto (Photo)
Source: Science is Awesome
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