Drones are no longer known as mere weapons of war. At least, that’s how Google, Facebook, and other online giants like Amazon appear to be thinking. Google has just acquired Titan Aerospace, a promising solar-powered drone maker, as part of its plans to globalize wireless internet. Titan’s website provides news that the company is working
[Reporting from the annual Science/AAAS meeting in Chicago, Illinois] Lacking proper fins and functional eyes, the electric knifefish (of the order Gymnotiformes; one of over a hundred freshwater species native to South America) has a remarkable ability to rapidly maneuver — and find its food — in the most cluttered and murkiest of waters. For
The field of biomimetics – the mimicking of biological attributes for practical uses — has become an increasingly important discipline in recent years, primarily due to its applications in other emerging fields like bio-engineering, materials science, and robotics. An advance in robot locomotion – a big leap for tiny bots In a recent robot prototype
{Note to the reader: this is my entry into the UNEP’s World Environment Day (WED) blogging competition, addressing the 2012 theme: The Green Economy – Does It Include You? After considering many examples of who the ‘you’ in the title could refer to, I’ve decided to hand over this blog entry to my GAIA (General
Container ships are increasing in size yet the technology that keeps those massive containers strapped down is not. Unsurprisingly, given this, the number of containers lost over the side of these massive ships is increasing each year. But it’s a mostly hidden problem, one that is barely acknowledged by the authorities. Each year, an estimated
Artificial intelligence has taken a big leap forward: two roboticists (Lipson and Zagal), working at the University of Chile, Santiago, have created what they claim is the first robot to possess “metacognition” — a form of self-awareness which involves the ability to observe ones’ own thought processes and thus alter one’s behavior accordingly.
