The Techy Blog for the Tech Freaks

Archive for December, 2009

Draganflyer X6 is a most modern helicopter designed to operate without a pilot, controllable from a remote location using controllers. The main intension behind the invention of Draganflyer X6 is to carry cameras of all types-still cameras and movie cameras and ease with which the helicopter can be controlled remotely, makes it a supreme technological invention.

A six-rotor design set up decorates the internal functioning of Draganflyer X6. This helicopter has been under construction since the year 2006 and it comes with a total of 11 sensors. Along with that, there are hundreds of codes which make the copter very much stabilized and optimized during its flight. Preparing itself to become a revolutionary invention in the arena of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Draganflyer X6 is going to be extensively used in numerous applications and in variety of projects. Every nation would love to own one to enhance its security attributes in today’s volatile situations.

Vulture is an aircraft which can stay in air for more than five years without a pilot and it is developed by scientists at the Defense Advanced research Projects Agency (DARPA). This can be considered as one of the very recent and highly relevant technological innovations of the world. They have named the aircraft as “vulture” due to its peculiar nature of satellite capability.

Daniel Newman is the man behind the curtains and he is the project head of vultures. All aircrafts work just like satellite. The major difference between a satellite and an aircraft is that aircrafts are not regulated or controlled by orbital mechanics. Vultures are designed to operate in the stratosphere layer and this is the major reason why vulture can also be termed as pseudo satellites. NASA has not yet unveiled the date of release of this giant project, but is expected to launch very soon.

Scientists at Stanford have developed helicopters powered by artificial intelligence. This invention enables the helicopters to fly themselves without the help of a pilot. Helicopters powered by artificial intelligence can fly themselves by watching what other helicopters are doing. This invention is a great stepping stone to success of developing autonomous helicopters and will advance even further.

Autonomous helicopters were there even in the past, but the functionalities were very much limited. Those copters were unable to control or fly in abrupt in environmental circumstances. Intelligent helicopters however, can handle all tasks efficiently. Advanced copters of these types powered by artificial intelligence are capable of handling various functions such as rolls, loops, tail slides etc.

Numerous algorithms govern the functionalities of intelligent helicopters and the entire team is led by Professor Andrew NG. These types of helicopters are going to define new dimensions in autonomous helicopter systems and are raking up global interest.

MIT Media lab has come up with a very latest invention of robots with facial expressions. The robot is able to make some facial expressions like lifting of eye brows with anger or surprise. Also, the robot can make other expressions when communicating with people and is the true face of interactive bots.

This achievement of MIT Media labs is termed as NEXI which is intended to be described as next generation robots. Next generation robots will be able to perform a wide variety of applications including personal interactions.
The face design as well as head design of NEXI robots were done by Xitome designs, which is a development company. The neck of robot has freedom of flexibility and it can turn or tilt its neck a maximum of four degrees. The face itself is highly innovative as the eyes, eye brows, eye lids and other parts of face are designed creatively and aesthetically.

It has been sometime since we started hearing that Microsoft is developing operating systems based on cloud computing and cloud computing is considered to be as the next generation technology for operating systems. MIDORI is being developed to cater cloud computing requirements for operating systems to make things simple..

The conventional theory of how operating system works are likely to get outdated as people becomes very mobile. Normally, an operating system will be loaded on a hard drive which means the OS is very much dependant on the underlying hardware. When mobile requirements become so important, cloud computing is very relevant. As a matter of facts, MIDORA expected to function in a cloud computing environment will bring in the much awaited virtualization requirements in a highly mobile world. The release date of MIDORA is not yet announced but it is heard that MIDORA will hit the market in early 2010.