A team of Swiss scientists recently created a robot that looks and acts just like a small minnow called the zebrafish. That might not sound all that remarkable, but it seems their little fish has gone undercover with several schools of real zebrafish.
And the schools actually believed the robo-fish was one of their own. Not only did they accept the robot as a member of their group, but the robotic fish was able to get the school to change direction and swim along with it to another destination. The scientists plan to use the robot zebrafish to learn more about the behaviour of real fish. The Shark Spotter drone is programmed to fly above open waters and warn swimmers and surfers when a shark has been detected in the area. To do this, the drone has been fitted with loudspeakers.
And the lifeguard can use the loudspeakers to yell down to those in the water that they need to head to dry land. There are already a few drones that look for swimmers in trouble. They drop inflatable life preservers to help them out before a lifeguard can get to them.
This sweet ride is part skateboard and part off-road vehicle. The Track 1 is an electric two-wheeler that a rider stands on like a skateboard. This helps make the Track 1 a powerful vehicle that can go just about anywhere.
Think dirt, sand, grass, pavement, and even snow. Its motor allows this electric board to travel pretty quickly. We all know how the U. Unfortunately, the larger attack drones, such as the MQ-1 Predator, can result in unwanted civilian casualties. Lockheed Martin's Samarai micro-drone could solve that problem. Weighing a mere 5. In the near future, this nature-inspired micro-drone will snap photos using a camera mounted on the gadget's central hub.
But the longer-term goals are to turn the Samarai or other similar micro-drones into armed attack vehicles capable of killing a single individual with little or no collateral damage [source: Weinberger ]. Mercedes-Benz has been an innovator for decades.
You can thank the German auto manufacturer for diesel and supercharged engines on passenger cars, antilock brakes , electronic stability systems and more. Here's how the official press release described the vehicle: "The Mercedes-Benz BIOME grows in a completely organic environment from seeds sown in a nursery.
Out on the road the car emits pure oxygen, and at the end of its lifespan it can be simply composted or used as building material. It is made from an ultralight material called BioFibre so that the finished vehicle, though wider than a typical car, only weighs pounds kilograms. It grows from two seeds -- one that forms the interior and one that forms the exterior. The wheels germinate from four additional seeds placed in the nursery. That's because the far-out design is a vision of the future -- a concept car that's decades ahead of its time.
As such, it couldn't exist today. But it might be as common as a Corolla after 20 or 30 years of innovative thinking and inspired engineering [source: Leavitt]. And it is kind of like that, actually. The Bodyguard, which was patented by a California inventor in under the title of "wearable shield and self-defense device," is designed to be a shield, a non-lethal weapon and a communications device all in one [source: Justia.
The flexible arm, which is armored with Kevlar and hard plastic, contains a rechargeable lithium battery pack that powers an "electronic deterrent" device built into the arm's artificial skin.
All the user has to do is pull a pin, and an assailant who grabs his or her arm is going to get zapped with electricity. The Bodyguard is also equipped with a bright LED flashlight, an HD camera capable of transmitting pictures, and a charging slot into which an iPhone apparently fits nicely. We could see this gadget becoming an indispensible tool for law enforcement officers and bodyguards of the future, but given that you have to inquire about it to get a price quote, we're guessing that it'll be too costly to make much of a dent into the everyday suburban adventurer market [sources: Armstar.
Have you ever wanted to leave the ground and soar like a bird -- or perhaps a bat? In January , a Connecticut-based inventor was granted a patent for what the application describes as "a completely dynamic human powered flying suit" that is modeled after the bat's style of aviation.
The inventor explains in the patent application that bats are fellow mammals and the flying creatures "most closely related to human beings. The device consists of a pair of strap-on batlike wings with rigid and non-rigid portions that can be manipulated by the wearer once aloft. Initially getting off the ground is a bit trickier: Unlike bats , who simply do what comes naturally, the wearer of the flying suit would have to be towed, or ride on a bicycle, skis or rollerblades down an incline and then assume a leaning-forward flying posture and leap into the air at the appropriate moment [source: USPTO ].
The question is: Would this really work? The bit certainly resonated with cat owners, who know how easily felines can get into mischief when they're trying to alleviate boredom. In , a New York-based inventor was granted a patent for one possible solution: a fold-up "cat toy park" equipped with a scratching post, a tunnel for crawling through, a hanging chew toy, and most ingeniously, a tube equipped with a fan that blows colored balls around a mesh tube, a game that's "devised to occupy one or more cats" [source: USPTO ].
We all know about Pegasus and Icarus in ancient Greece. Ader's contraption was the first piloted aircraft to take off under its own steam literally and make a brief uncontrolled hop across a field near Paris. No, he didn't invent the world's coolest electric car. But Nikola Tesla was arguably the greatest geek who ever lived, always fixing things that weren't broken and coming up with amazing inventions in the process.
We have him to thank for alternating current, the modern electric motor, remote controlled boats and, rumour has it, radar technology and wireless communications. He didn't get credit for much of it in his lifetime and died alone in poverty. They patented the cinematograph, and their first movie, released in , is considered the first real motion picture in history.
Sir Timothy Berners-Lee is known as the man who invented the Internet, the biggest breakthrough of the late 20 th century. But it's a bit more complicated than that. The Internet started life at the Pentagon as a distributed computer network designed to withstand a nuclear attack. Sir Tim took the idea and added the concept of hypertext as a way for researchers at the CERN, where he worked, to share resources more efficiently. A Gentler Straightener Dyson Corrale. A Cleaner Charge Lexon Oblio.
Affordable Higher Ed Outlier. Learning Through Play Kiri Toys. A Gaming Revolution Sony Playstation 5. Hydrogen Power for Airplanes ZeroAvia. Banking the Unbanked Remitly Passbook. Free Filing Upsolve. A Virtual Advocate FairShake. Rowing with a Router Hydrow.
0コメント