Early this year, Google unveiled its Project Tango smartphone, a mobile device equipped with a depth sensor, a motion tracking camera, and two vision processors that let the phone track its position in space and create 3D maps in real time. The device is particularly useful for robots, which have to navigate and locate themselves in the world. Continue reading
Author Archives: The Editor
US Sends UAS and 80 Airmen to Help Nigerian Search
The US Defense Department’s addition of an unmanned aerial vehicle and 80 Air Force troops to U.S. efforts supporting Nigeria’s search for over 200 missing schoolgirls has turned the mission into an air operation, Army Colonel Steve Warren, director of Pentagon Press Operations, said. Continue reading
New Yorker Hit by Quadcopter at Gizmodo Party
A New York partygoer has spoken of his shock after being hit by a Quadcopter at a hi-tech ‘home of the future’ party. Publisher Stephen Kosloff said” I stumbled on a Gizmodo party on Mulberry Street. I flashed my business card, said “Media,” and was admitted. Continue reading
Iran Displays Cloned RQ-170 Sentinel
Iran claims to have successfully copied the US RQ-170 Sentinel it captured in December 2011, with state television broadcasting – and even the country’s supreme leader tweeting – images of the replicated aircraft. Continue reading
Improved Gray Eagle Flies with Sigint Pod and Hellfire Missiles
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA‑ASI),has announced the successful second endurance flight of the U.S. Army’s Improved Gray Eagle (IGE) prototype Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), an advanced derivative of the mission-proven Gray Eagle UAS that has accumulated over 100,000 flight hours since 2008. The flight of IGE lasted 36.7 hours, taking off on January 17 and landing on January 19 at the company’s El Mirage Flight Operations Facility in Palmdale, California. Continue reading
Mumbai Police Investigate Pizza Delivery by QuadCopter
Police have launched a probe into the usage of a quadcopter by a Lower Parel-based outlet of a pizza chain in Mumbai, which has now become an internet sensation. The eatery created its own slice of history on May 11 when it successfully test-delivered a 13-inch Margherita from its Lower Parel outlet to a highrise in Worli, 1.5-km away, in 10 minutes using a remote-controlled, GPS-enabled quadcopter. Continue reading
Poor Maintenance Grounds Nigeria’s Israeli UAS
Aerostar – Photo: Aeronautics Defense Systems
The Aerostar unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) acquired by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) in 2006 have reportedly been grounded due to a lack of maintenance, limiting surveillance operations against Boko Haram militants. Meanwhile the US has deployed a Predator team to Chad to search for kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls. Continue reading
DARPA Unveils Hack-Proof UAS
The Pentagon’s research arm unveiled a new UAS built with secure software that prevents the control and navigation of the aircraft from being hacked. The programme, called High Assurance Cyber Military Systems, or HACMS, uses software designed to thwart cyber attacks. Continue reading