Be Wary Of Using Drones When in France

Mar 18, 2014 Brandon 5 Comments

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With the popularity and availability of drones seemingly increasing everyday, it’s not all that hard to order a drone, set it up, and send it to the skies. You can even buy drone kits on the internet if you’re interested enough. But just because you can do something, as we all know, doesn’t mean you should do something. If you do end up purchasing one for yourself, make sure you do yourself a favor and look up the laws for drone use for wherever you plan on using it.
Nans Thomas, an 18 year-old in France, is probably wishing he would’ve done just that right about now. He recently bought a drone online, installed a GoPro camera onto it, and launched it into the sky to capture some pictures and video of the city of Nancy. It turns out what he did was slightly illegal and he will be facing serious repercussions.

What’s The Big Deal, Anyway?
Apparently France has some pretty solid laws concerning the use of drones within city limits. According to the local law, drone users must receive permission and special training before they operate the drone in a public setting. Thomas failed to meet either of those requirements, and as a result is being prosecuted.
When he realized he messed up, he tried to make amends through the media, but it doesn’t seem to be doing a lot of good at the moment, as he is still being prosecuted. According to the prosecutor’s office, the law is in place to protect both the safety and privacy of French citizens. They are worried about the possibility of the drone crashing into an area where a lot of people are gathered, as well as private footage being recorded without any kind of permission or knowledge.
What do you think? Are they being too hard on the young man?
[Image via BayNews9]
SOURCE: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/80020.html

WiTricity Develop Wireless Electricity

Mar 18, 2014 Allanah 12 Comments

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Dr Katie Hall is developing ways to transfer power without wires. As part of a crude experiment, she filled a tiny room with gigantic copper refigerator coils. In the middle of the room was a light bulb. Incredibly it lit up the room despite the fact that there were no wires attached to it.
“Let’s work on this. This is the future,” she said at the time. Now Chief Technology Officer at WiTricity, Dr Hall is working to develop wireless “resonance” technology.
“We’re going to transfer power without any kind of wires,” says Dr Hall. “But, we’re not actually putting electricity in the air. What we’re doing is putting a magnetic field in the air.”

WiTricity has developed a “Source Resonator”, which is a coil of electrical wire that can generate a magnetic field when power is attached. When another coil is brought into close proximity, an electrical charge can be generated in it.
“When you bring a device into that magnetic field, it induces a current in the device, and by that you’re able to transfer power,” explains Dr Hall. And that is how the light bulb is able to light up.
These magnetic fields are just the same kind that are used in WiFi routers and therefore are perfectly safe. In the future we could see our houses completely free of wires.

“I’m Never Going To Have To Plug It In”

WiTricity plans that one day smartphones will charge whilst in your pocket or bag as you walk around, you will watch your favourite program on a TV that has no wires and that electric cars will refuel without the need to be plugged in.
Hall imagines the endless possibilites of life without the constraints of wires.
“We just don’t think about it anymore: I’m going to drive my car home and I’m never going to have to go to the gas station and I’m never going to have to plug it in.
“I can’t even imagine how things will change when we live like that.”
“The idea of eliminating cables would allow us to re-design things in ways that we haven’t yet thought of, that’s just going to make our devices and everything that we interact with, that much more efficient, more practical and maybe even give brand new functionality.”
[Image via Computerwelt]
SOURCE: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/14/tech/innovation/wireless-electricity/index.html

US Students Create Working 3D Bio-Printer

Mar 20, 2014 Scott Lee 3 Comments

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‘The youth of today’ is often spoken of with a negative connotation attached to it, but for three high school students in the US it should have a glowing report of excellence stamped squarely on the front!
The students in question are, Nathan Bryant, Cameron Spicer and Thomas Worsham.  These bright young minds have created a working 3D bioprinter, which has the ability to print and grow bacteria.  This fully operational bioprinter is the conclusion of a nine-month long capstone project, which the students began as part of the LHS biotechnology class, the Loveland City School District in Ohio, U.S. announced recently.

The team transformed a 3D router system, originally designed to fashion wood, into the 3D bioprinter. Then they put live bateria cells into sugar-based gelatine like material and subsequently printed them out layer by layer to construct the 3D structure.
“In medicine what you can do is take cells from an organ if a patient needs an organ transplant and then put the patient’s cells into it and actually make an artificial organ…Ours is printing scaffolding that has bacteria in it, where they would have real human live cells and be creating very complex shapes and living structures,” explained Worsham.”

Jamie Allison, LHS biotechnology teacher said, “You don’t see this happen every day…I’ve seen something like this happen now once in my career…before I realized it, I had tears running down my face,” Allison said. “We brought the AP Bio teacher down – she was teary on the spot. I hope I get to see it again, but if I don’t, I know that I was in a school where I had students that were prepared enough by the district, and then I just gave them the push and a few other skills to do something like this. If this is what my career ends like, I’m OK… I’m fine with that.”
If you have any sensible comments regarding this story, please leave your comments in the section below.
[Images via lovelandschools & textually]
SOURCE: http://www.3ders.org/articles/20140314-three-ohio-high-school-students-create-working-3d-bioprinter.html

Diver Captures Shark Attack On A GoPro 3 Camera

Mar 21, 2014 Allanah No Comments

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Jason Dimitri not only lived to ‘tell’ of his shark attack ordeal but also captured and shared video footage of the event on YouTube.
Whilst diving and hoping to catch a glimpse of a lion fish in the Caribbean Sea, Dimitri got more than he bargained for when he came face to face with a shark, which he says “scared the cr*p out of him.” He managed to keep the predator at bay thanks to a short spear, which he used to jab at the shark. You can see from the video footage that it tries several times to bite him in between circling him from below.

Even as he swam towards the surface, the shark wasn’t willing to let him go, approaching him with its jaws open wide but yet another blow from the spear was enough to scare the animal away.
Dimitri caught the action on his GoPro 3 camera and uploaded the video to YouTube, which has now been watched hundreds of thousands of times.
In the video description, Dimitri explains how this hair-raising experience has not put him off entering the water.
“I love this place and will continue diving here for the rest of my life. In no way did this encounter discourage me from getting back into the water.
“I want to make it clear that I am hunting lion fish to help protect the reef from the destruction that they cause. The shark was acting in his natural environment. I have no ill will toward him and will get back in the water and continue to protect the reef for future generations.”
[Image via Huffington Post]
SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2582935/Heartstopping-moment-diver-wearing-GoPro-camera-comes-face-face-shark-POKES-spear.html

Electronic Membrane Created To Keep Your Heart Beating Forever

 MAR 9, 2014SCOTT LEE22 COMMENTS

 

 

 

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“My heart will go on, and on..” I can hear Celine Dion now.  And soon, your heart may be able to go on and on as well, thanks to a revolutionary electronic membrane designed to keep your heart rate beating perfectly.  The membrane is made from a  thin, circuit-lined stretchable material that has been developed at the University of Illinois and Washington University by scientists.  This technology may be available for human hearts in 10 to 15 years.

At this point, only rabbits can have a perfectly beating heart.  Scientists custom-made the membrane to exactly fit the shape of a particular rabbit’s heart.  In order to do this, they followed two procedures.  Firstly, they scanned the rabbit’s heart while it was still alive and created a 3D model using computer aided tomography (sectional images through penetrating waves). Secondly, using a 3D printer, they assembled the model which they then used as a mould to design the membrane. Once the membrane was created, they took the heart out of the rabbit, put the membrane on it and kept it beating at its perfect pace.
John Rorgers, materials researcher at the University of Illinois, stated that this technology is just like the natural membrane that is already on the heart, not just a pacemaker.  However, this artificial pericardium is equipped with high quality, man-made technology that can sense and communicate with the heart in ways that are relevant to clinical cardiology.  Igor Efimov, Washington University’s biomedical engineer, says that this is a big advancement.  The circuits are a combination of sensors that continuously track the tissues’ way of behaving and electrodes that exactly control the heart muscles’ movement:
If the heart were to suffer a heart attack, the membrane can apply therapy.  It can apply stimuli that can stop sudden cardiac death. What an amazing feat!!
If you have any sensible comments regarding this story, please leave your comments in the section below.
[Image via firstapp]
SOURCE: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/revolutionary-membrane-can-keep-your-heart-beating-perf-1534678803
   

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OCZ Create Lightning Fast 3.2 TB SSD

 MAR 9, 2014SCOTT LEE3 COMMENTS

 

 

 

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Toshiba purchased OCZ last month for $35 million after OCZ were bankrupt.  OCZ are starting shipments of a new line of solid-state drives (SSD’s), which offer a maximum storage capacity of 3.2TB.  The Z-Drive 4500 range of Solid State Drives ship in capacities of 800GB and 1.6TB.  The new SSD’s are manufactured using the Japanese company’s latest developing process.

OCZ does already offer 3.2TB drives with the Z-Drive R4 SSD range, but the new drives are quicker, OCZ said in a statement. You may want to break into your savings account if you plan to purchase one though as the 3.2TB drive is priced at $6,533, the 1.6TB at $3,806 and 800GB at $2,355. This SSD range offers endurance of 2.5PB and random read times of 252,000 IOPS and random write times of up to 76,000 IOPS.
The Z-Drive 4500 SSD connects through a PCI-Express slot.  The SSD also uses software as a tool to increase the speed of read/write operations.  OCZ is also bundling Windows Accelerator software, which manages the SSD storage when it is functioning as cache. Other software bundled with the SSD is OCZ’s VXL virtualization software that manages deployment of virtual machines across blocks in SSD arrays.  This process minimizes resource waste. The virtualization software ensures quicker deployments of Virtual Machines and faster read/ write times.

At 3.2TB, OCZ are offering the maximum storage capacity available in Solid State Drive. SSD’s are quickly catching up to optical drives, which have reached a maximum capacity of 6TB. SSD’s, however, still remain more expensive to produce and purchase, than hard drives do.
Scott Harlin, director of marketing communications for enterprise at OCZ, said, OCZ will continue to offer its own line of SSD’s and nothing has been affected by Toshiba’s acquisition of the firm.  “Toshiba will continue to develop, produce, and market their own line of Toshiba-branded SSD’s while we will focus on developing, producing and marketing OCZ-branded SSD’s that leverage our in-house technology.”
OCZ’s SSD’s are what is known as MLC (multi-level cell), in which multiple bits are stored into one cell. The drive is also equipped with security and it has features to protect data in case of a power surge/outage. It is interesting to note that the drivers for the SSD for Windows and Linux have been rebuilt from the ground up. Also OCZ is offering a five-year warranty with the new products, which should quash any worries which people have regarding the reliability of OCZ drives.
If you have any sensible comments regarding this story, please leave your comments in the section below.
[Images via thessdreview]
SOURCE: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2104420/toshibas-ocz-cranks-up-speed-on-new-32tb-solid-state-drives.html
   

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CUPID Drone Delivers 80,000 Volts To Stun Victims

 MAR 12, 2014ALLANAH1 COMMENT

 

 

 

Chaotic Moon, the company behind SharkPunch and the Pizza Hut touch table has modified a Tarot Hexacopter so that it can shoot an unsuspecting victim with an 80,000 volt taser. This drone was developed as a tech demo but the Chaotic Unmanned Personal Intercept Drone (CUPID) could soon be snapped up by a personal security or law enforcement firm.
The Tarot Hexacopter was originally developed to carry a digital SLR on board for capturing aerial photos and videos but Chaotic Moon replaced this with a Phazzer Dragon, turning it into a different machine entirely. By law the drone would be required to have a pilot who would fly the craft and a second person who would operate the stun gun. There is a camera which sends a live feed back to the operators, helping them to evaluate a situation before unleashing 80,000 volts on a target.

As part of an experiment, intern Jackson Sheehan volunteered to be the first human to be CUPID’s target. CUPID can stun several times in up to 10 second bursts but it wasn’t used to its full potential on Sheehan.
It is thought that with more development CUPID could be used to help police in stunning a suspect until officers can reach the scene and detain them.
To see how Sheehan fared, check out the video below.
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[Image via pagesay]
SOURCE: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/07/stun-copter-video/
   

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Astronomers Discover ‘Death Star’

 MAR 13, 2014SCOTT LEENO COMMENTS

 

 

 

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Astronomers have claimed that vast O-type stars are littered across the galaxy destroying young planets before they have had time to form.  A research team from US and Canadian are using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to discover that massive quantities of ultraviolet radiation from stars 16-times the mass of our own Sun can destroy the raw materials for fresh planetary systems.

The researchers were tracking stars and protostars in the Orion Nebula when they found that any protostars within 0.1 light years (approx 600bn miles) of an O-type star would have their raw material wiped out by the radiation before it even had a chance to cluster together.  Astronomer Rita Mann explained the situation, “Using ALMA, we looked at dozens of embryonic stars with planet-forming potential and, for the first time, found clear indications where protoplanetary disks simply vanished under the intense glow of a neighbouring massive star”
Scientist estimate that it takes millions of years for gases and stellar dust to begin to combine into something denser and over further time, form into planets. The raw materials in these pre-clusters are believed to come from the explosions of massive stars going supernova.  James Di Francesco, National Research Council of Canada said, “Massive stars are hot and hundreds of times more luminous than our Sun. Their energetic photons can quickly deplete a nearby protoplanetary disk by heating up its gas, breaking it up, and sweeping it away.”
Telescopes such as Hubble have previously allowed astronomers to view very young protostars, (known as proplyds) in Orion; they have lacked the skill to recognize how much mass each one had. But using ALMA meant researcher teams could look inside these forms, to reveal what dust was contained within them.  The team says that with future investigations they will hopefully indicate how ‘common’ solar systems such as our own are.  Who knows? Maybe there are a couple of ‘Sith’ trying to control star systems?
If you have any sensible comments regarding this story, please leave your comments in the section below.
[Image via informationdissemination]
SOURCE: http://www.slashgear.com/real-life-death-stars-deadlier-than-darth-vader-astronomers-find-10320145/
   

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Microsoft Backs Qi Wireless Charging Standard

 MAR 13, 2014NOEMINO COMMENTS

 

 

 

Wireless charging is something that will be the standard some time in the future, and I, for one, will be welcoming that time with arms wide open. With several devices in our household, some of which do not use the same cables and/or plugs, it is very easy to have a spaghetti-like arrangement of wires in the lounge and in the bedroom. Thank goodness for the Wireless Power Consortium, an entity that has been working on setting the standard for wireless charging.

Its Qi wireless charging standard holds a lot of promise, with the ultimate goal of being compatible with any phone – regardless of manufacturer or model. So yeah, you’ll end up needing only one charger even if you have an iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPad 2, iPad Mini, Samsung Note 2, Samsung S2 – name it, you can charge it. Without wires even!
How about a Windows phone?
Well, Microsoft has just made public its support of the Qi wireless charging standard, adding its name to a list of 200 other companies. Some of the big names you’ll recognize easily: Qualcomm, LG, HTC, Samsung, Sony, Motorola, IKEA, and Nokia.
It’s a great move, especially since Microsoft does manufacture quite a bunch of mobile devices, and giving them the capability to charge wirelessly following only one standard makes it more attractive for users. It also makes it easy for the manufacturers.
All this is well and good, but it also brings to attention that the WPC is only one of the three entities that are seeking to set a standard in this niche. There’s Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) and the Power Matter Alliance (PMA) – although they have sort of agreed to work together to a certain degree. Still, that means that we are not that near to reaching a single, unified standard for wireless charging. So before we get all excited, don’t you think those three organizations should get their acts together first?
[Image via PROXI]
   

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