Wearable exoskeleton lets you sit in thin air

Wearable exoskeleton lets you sit in thin air

FIONA MACDONALD

SATURDAY, 23 AUGUST 2014

Share on emailShare on print Sick of not getting a seat on the train? Now thanks to the Chairless Chair exoskeleton, you can wear your own. Image: noonee & Massimo Brega/The Age of Robots Meet the Chairless Chair, an exoskeleton that attaches to your legs and lets you sit down, literally, in thin air.  When the aluminium and carbon fibre device is switched, you can walk around as usual, but when you want to sit, the device uses battery-powered mechanics to channel your body weight into the heels of your shoes. All you have to do is bend your knees to the height you’d like to sit at, hit a button and, voila, you’re sitting sans chair. Created by Swiss start-up noonee, the exoskeleton is still in prototype form and looks pretty chunky, but developers are working on creating a version so thin you can wear it inconspicuously under your pants. This current model weighs around 2 kg and can run at least eight hours on one charge. There’s no word on price as yet. For people who sit down all day at a desk the device might not sound too useful, but it could help those who are on their feet all day working in factories, warehouses or kitchens, and who are at risk of muscular and skeletal health problems. It’s not all about comfort either - exoskeletons are also being used to help people with spinal injuries walk, and in the future this kind of research could translate into therapeutic benefits for patients with mobility issues. Source: ExtremeTech

Windowless Airplane Will Give Passengers High-Res Panoramic Views

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Windowless Airplane Will Give Passengers High-Res Panoramic Views

Any scene can be projected on to the interior screens in high-res.

IMAGE: TECHNICON DESIGN

TRACY STAEDTER for Discovery News Aug 15, 2014

 

You don’t need a window for these views. Paris-based design company Technicon Designrecently won an award for their IXION Windowless Jet Concept. The idea is to provide a 360-degree view using cameras mounted on the plane’s exterior to capture the scenery and then project that on high-res screen on the interior cabin walls and ceiling.

SEE ALSO: What The Future Of Transportation Looks Like

And actually any scene could be displayed on the interior. Let’s say the view is mostly clouds or ocean. How about displaying a rainforest? A flight through the Grand Canyon? A trip to the Moon?

Solar panels on the exterior would help power the displays.

Removing windows has its advantages, too. It reduces the materials and cost needed as well as reducing the weight of the plane. Not having windows allows for a greater flexibility of the interior design of the aircraft, too.

“The ethos of the project is simple, to challenge current thinking, and propose something a little different, but not just a fantasy. It has to be credible and relevant, yet provoke discussion,” design director Gareth Davies said in a press release.

See the video below.

Other aircrafts are exploring similar ideas of transparent cabins. In 2012 at the Paris Air Show, Airbus presented an aircraft with an interior fuselage made of displays. And earlier this year, Boston engineering firm Spike Aerospace unveiled a windowless supersonic jet with displays.

New robotic fingers upgrade the human hand

Researchers at MIT have developed a prototype that will benefit people with disabilities or limited arm strength. 

Image: Melanie Gonick/MIT

A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US have invented a robotic hand with two extra fingers that will allow users to perform a wider range of tasks.

The device is a glove with two long fingers and a sensor that can be worn around the wrist. “You do not need to command the robot, but simply move your fingers naturally. Then the robotic fingers react and assist your fingers,” explained Harry Asada, a mechanical engineering professor at MIT to Jennifer Chu over at MIT News.

People with disabilities and those who have lost arm strength due to neck injuries will be greatly benefitted from the technology, because it allows wearers to perform many actions that would normally be difficult for them, such as opening a jar or slicing a loaf of bread.

The research team is working towards more practical solutions, as well as on smaller models for the 'supernumerary robotic fingers'. As Asada explains, “We could make this into a watch or abracelet where the fingers pop up, and when the job is done, they come back into the watch. Wearable robots are a way to bring the robot closer to our daily life." 

Samsung Galaxy K Zoom goes official with 20.7MP camera, 10x Optical Zoom

Samsung's camera-centric phone has a compact body with increased screen size and megapixel count.

Samsung has officially unveiled its new camera phone, Galaxy K Zoom. As expected, the device has an array of features focussed on photography - 10x optical zoom, 20.7 megapixel BSI CMOS sensor, Optical Image Stabilizer (OIS), AF/AE Separation and more.

The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom captures 1080p video at 60 frames per second and features next gen Pro Suggest mode, which delivers 5 optimized filter settings. There's a 'Selfie Alarm', which allows users to take timed selfies. Other notable features of the Galaxy K Zoom camera include Xenon Flash, which is brighter than an LED flash and Object tracking for a clearer and focussed shot of a mobile object. There's a 2MP front facing camera as well.

The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom is a major upgrade over the last year's Galaxy S4 Zoom. The display has bumped up to 4.8-inch (Super AMOLED and 720p resolution) from S4 Zoom's 4.3-inch. The K Zoom runs Android 4.4 KitKat and is powered by a hexa-core processor (1.3 GHz quad-core + 1.7GHz dual-core) along with 2GB of RAM.

The K Zoom has 8GB of storage onboard, expandable via the microSD. In terms of connectivity, the camera phone supports LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, USB and A-GPS + GLONASS. The device is powered by a 2,430 mAh battery.

The K Zoom will be available in charcoal black, shimmery white and electric blue colour options. There's no official word on the pricing of the device, though Samsung confirms K Zoom will be available from end of May.

“With the introduction of the Galaxy K zoom, Samsung continues to demonstrate our commitment to creating products that meet the diverse demands of our consumers,” says Sun Hong Lim, Senior Vice President of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics.

“The new Galaxy K zoom empowers users to effortlessly capture and share their most important everyday moments in stunning clarity, with the convenience and connectedness of a Galaxy smartphone, for a unique, all-in-one mobile experience." Check out more details about the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom here. 

The Rainforest Guardian: Spaceship like irrigation skyscraper for Amazon rainforest

The Rainforest Guardian: Spaceship like irrigation skyscraper for Amazon rainforest 

NASA has said that the Amazon rainforest has been the victim to forest fires that have claimed around 33,000 square miles of the forest over the last decade. In order to tackle this, a group of designers who entered the eVolo 2014 Skyscraper competition, and who got an honourable mention, have come up with an idea. Jie Huang, Jin Wei, Giaowan Tang, Yiwei Yu, and Zhe Hao designed a spaceship like irrigation skyscraper with the name of “The Rainforest Guardian.” The whole idea of the concept is for the skyscraper to collect rainwater in the rainy season and then distribute it in the dry. -

The Rainforest Guardian skyscraper was designed to be a water tower, weather station and forest fire station, along with offering laboratories for education and scientific research.

The top of the skyscraper has an almost flat circular shape, giving it the look of a spaceship. There are pipes that hang down from the structure and it is able to collect the rainwater in two different ways. Not only does it collect water in the flat top as it falls, but it is able to suck up excess water from the ground. Water that has been collected is filtered and then stored up in reservoirs.

The aerial roots of the Rainforest Guardian make use of capillary motion and have a sponge-structure which is able to take in and store any excess water; this doesn’t affect the ecosystem of the Amazon. While the water stored can be used to help irrigation of the land, in the event of a fire breaking out in the rainforest, fire-fighters are able to use the water that has been collected and stored to help them fight the outbreaks. The skyscraper uses drone-like aircraft, which can be sent out to tackle the fire with their in-built spray systems and water tanks. - 

Extra interior space in the skyscraper offers housing for laboratories, allocated in the widest part of the structure – the top. Home to three floors (excluding the technical rooms above), these rooms allow scientists to monitor any changes to the climate and check for stability in the ecosystem. There are also exhibition spaces, allowing tourists to become more environmentally aware through an educational centre.

eVolo is to publish “eVolo Skyscrapers 2” as a limited edition book of only 1000 copies, featuring 150 projects from the last years of the competition, to celebrate their 9th annual Skyscraper Competition.

Kepler Team Announces Discovery of Earth-Sized Planet in Habitable Zone

Since its launch in the spring of 2009, NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has been hunting exoplanets. The holy grail being a planet that is essentially like ours in terms of size, composition, and habitability: an Earth-twin. While we still haven't found a planet that exactly fits that bill, Kepler has now confirmed the discovery of an Earth-sized exoplanet in its star’s habitable zone. The announcement was made at a press conference and the findings have been published in Science.
Kepler-186f is about 10% larger than Earth and orbits an M dwarf star around 500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. The star is about half of the size and mass of our sun, and it takes Kepler-186f about 130 Earth days to complete a revolution. On the outer edge of the star’s habitable zone, the planet receives about a third of the radiation from its parent star as we do from ours.
Life as we know it requires the presence of liquid water, so a planet with the potential for life would be not too close to the star (which would be too hot and the water would be vapor) yet not too far away (where it would be too cold and the water would be ice). Habitability requires a “Goldilocks Zone” where conditions are just right.
"We know of just one planet where life exists -- Earth. When we search for life outside our solar system we focus on finding planets with characteristics that mimic that of Earth," said Elisa Quintana, lead author of the paper. "Finding a habitable zone planet comparable to Earth in size is a major step forward."
Co-author Thomas Barclay added: "Being in the habitable zone does not mean we know this planet is habitable. The temperature on the planet is strongly dependent on what kind of atmosphere the planet has. Kepler-186f can be thought of as an Earth-cousin rather than an Earth-twin. It has many properties that resemble Earth."
Determining the composition of planets out in the habitable zone isn’t as easy as those who are incredibly close to the star, because there isn’t as much radiation from the parent star available to determine what is or isn’t getting absorbed. While previous findings have indicated that Kepler-186f is a rocky planet, further analysis must be done before any definitive conclusions can be made.

Source: IFL Science

ISRO Press Release: "Mars Orbiter Spacecraft Crosses Half Way Mark of its Journey"

On April 09, 2014 at 9:50 am IST, India's Mars Orbiter Spacecraft crossed the half-way mark of its journey to the Red Planet along the designated helio-centric trajectory.

Mars Orbiter Spacecraft was launched onboard PSLV-C25 on November 05, 2013. On December 01, 2013, Trans Mars Injection manoeuvre was conducted successfully and the Spacecraft was set in its course towards Planet Mars through a helio-centric trajectory. Soon after the Spacecraft crossed the sphere of influence of Earth, a Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre (TCM) was performed successfully on December 11, 2013.

ISRO has been continuously monitoring the Spacecraft using its Deep Space Network complemented by that of NASA-JPL. As the Spacecraft is on its designated trajectory, the TCM planned for April 2014 is not considered essential. If required, the next TCM is planned to be carried out in June 2014.

Mars Orbiter Spacecraft and its five scientific instruments are in good health. Periodic tests are being done on the different levels of autonomy built into the Spacecraft for managing contingencies.

At present, the radio distance between the Spacecraft and the Earth is 39 million km. A signal from the Earth to the Spacecraft and back to Earth takes 4 minutes and 15 seconds. Soon, the High Gain Antenna of the Spacecraft will be put in service for handling communications with the ground stations.

The Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) manoeuvre would be performed on September 24, 2014.