Hasta La Gadget!

How many times have you been at the airport and waited what seemed like an eternity for your bags to show up. Oftentimes, this is due to the long, slow process of unloading bags from the gate and driving them all the way to the baggage claim area. This new baggage conveyor system hopes to speed up that ponderous system and make it more efficient.

Daifuku’s Baggage Tray System can move bags at speeds up to 600 meters-per-minute. To put that in perspective, that’s a speedy 22 miles per hour. Sure, Usain Bolt can run faster, but probably not with a bag strapped to his back (though the Cheetah robot might be able to.) Anyhow, here’s a video of the system in action, showing off just how fast it truly is.

I certainly wouldn’t want to try and catch up to a bag moving around on the fast straightaway right behind the guy in the video.

The baggage trays in the conveyor have RFID tags on them so their location can be monitored, as well as the position of each individual bag placed on the trays. Daifuku also offers equipment to automatically load and unload the conveyor. In addition to being useful for airports, this system could be very handy for moving parts around quickly in large manufacturing operations.

[via DigInfo.TV]

With Iran’s nuclear capabilities escalating to an all-time high, it
appears Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has built his very own
bomb in retaliation. Except his high-octane ammunition was not of the world-annihilation kind.
Identified as the "Bibi Bomb," named after the PM’s nickname "Bibi," his
explosive came in the form of a cartoonish drawing to illustrate what is
perceived as Iran’s probability to create an atomic weapon. Used as a
prop at the UN General Assembly this past week,  it was seen as Israel’s first preemptive salvo launched at its number-one enemy, Iran.

After watching the Woody Allen classic, Sleeper for the 1000th time, I assumed that we’d all have cold, impersonal robot butlers in our homes by now. Well, it turns out that one of the main challenges for robo-butlers is their lack of ability to carry items on a tray without spilling them.

The issue is that keeping a tray horizontal during movement will result in easy spills when moving quickly. Thankfully, the guys at Willow Garage are working on a solution.

By developing a set of balancing motions that minimize lateral force on the object, PhD student Tobias Kunz of Georgia Tech was able to get a PR2 robot to handle delicate objects on a tray, and glasses full of liquid without so much as a spill.

With a PR2 selling for $285,000 to $400,000, I’m still not sure we’ll have robot butlers serving us martinis any time soon, the same technique can be used to help industrial robots carrying delicate objects on trays, or open containers of liquids. If you happen to have a PR2 robot lying around, you can test out the movements on your ‘bot using the path trajectory files here.

All you need to say is the name SLS AMG Coupe to fans of supercars to conjure images of gull wing doors and an epic exhaust note from a massive V8 engine. Now, Mercedes-Benz has unveiled a new version of the SLS AMG Coupe that ditches that V8 engine in favor of an all-electric powertrain. This is the new Mercedes-Benz electric supercar.

The new car is called the SLS AMG Coupe Electric Drive and is powered by a quartet of electric motors. Each wheel gets its own motor and the motors combined to produce 740 HP and 737 pound-feet of torque. The electric-powered car is able to hit 62 mph in 3.9 seconds. That’s only a tick behind the gasoline-powered version of the car.

The vehicle also uses a KERS system developed from the Mercedes-AMG Formula One team. Using a standard outlet the car would need 20 hours to recharge fully. A quick charger is available that will fully recharge the battery packs in just three hours. When the car launches it will cost approximately $537,930(USD) – about $300,000 more than its gas-powered older brother.

[via Autoblog]

It wasn’t all that long ago that Modbook Inc‘s CEO, Andreas Haas, made the mac-in-tablet Modbook Pro official, now we’re learning that the super-slate will launch with high performance SSD storage. So, as you wield your MacBook Pro come tablet, you’ll be free from spinning disks. Great, but what impact will this have on capacity? Well, according to the firm, storage will start at 64GB as standard, with upgrades possible all the way up to a, not-unreasonable, 480GB. Pre-orders go live on October 3rd, along with the all important reveal on price. Regardless of cost, if that void between the iPad and full-fat Windows 8 slates had been irking you, here’s your answer.

Continue reading Modbook Pro to launch with SSD storage, up for pre-order October 3rd

Filed under: Tablets, Apple

Modbook Pro to launch with SSD storage, up for pre-order October 3rd originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Sep 2012 10:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments