Hasta La Gadget!

Turbulence. A minor bother for us, but a huge issue for enlisted seamen. So-called “ducts” in the lower atmosphere can wreak all sorts of maritime havoc; trapping radar and causing radio comms to travel further than expected and into the hands of the enemy. The Office of Naval Research‘s Ocean Battlespace Sensing Department (rad name, right?) isn’t satisfied with using balloons to keep track of the ducts anymore, and is deploying drones instead, including Insitu’s ScanEagle shown above. The result should be a greater understanding of how atmospheric conditions affect radar and communications, which could ultimately provide a tactical advantage — at least while we wait on those 100-kilowatt lasers.

[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]

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It seems every six months or so these photos of Marilyn Monroe from World War II make the rounds on the good ol’ internet machine. At the time they were captured in 1944 she hadn’t yet taken the name Marilyn Monroe, nor had she dyed her curly locks blonde. She was simply known as Norma Jeane Dougherty and worked in a factory in Van Nuys, California. David Conover, the Army photographer who snapped these shots is credited with "discovering" her, as she soon went on to fame and fortune. But there’s one detail about these photos that rarely seems to gets mentioned: Marilyn Monroe, the future sex symbol that would set a generation’s heart aflutter in the postwar era, is assembling a drone.

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The Oculus Rift will most likely lead to a new genre of first-person games, but it could also make drones a lot more fun to use. For his master’s thesis, Jonathan of Intuitive Aerial is working on Oculus FPV, a drone camera system that streams 3D video that can be viewed with the Rift.

The system uses a Black Armored Drone carrying a laptop and two cameras. The laptop compresses the feed from the two cameras and sends them to a second computer on the ground via Wi-Fi. It’s a crude setup, but it works. According to Intuitive Aerial the current rig has a range of about 160′ to 320′ when using Wi-Fi cards. The video latency is 120ms, good enough for the viewer to pilot the drone at the same time.

That shot of the pilot wearing the Rift reminds me of Ghost in the Shell. Intuitive Aerial said it will improve Oculus FPV if it receives enough interest from potential clients. They should incorporate the MYO armband to Oculus FPV make it more fun to use.

[via Intuitive Aerial via Walyou]

Los Angeles flaunts its celebrity and pumps its cleavage and yogas its fitness and bikinis its summer and juices its vapidity and sells its dream better than any city in the world. We’ve seen beautiful time lapses and showcases of the nightlife of LA before, so here is a deliciously futuristic (and Big Brother-ish) view of Los Angeles from a drone’s perspective. It’ll show you angles of Los Angeles even the paparazzi don’t see.

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The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset was originally developed with only gaming in mind, but since the company has been sending out units to game developers, the headset has been used for all sorts of neat things. Most recently, the Oculus Rift has given users a first-person view of RC drones thanks to a little hack.

Co-founder of Intuitive Aerial Erik Torkel Danielsson took his company’s Black Armor Drone and paired it with the Oculus Rift. Since the VR headset essentially uses two displays, two cameras were mounted on top of the drone to stream video simultaneously. The drone also has a laptop on board that encodes the video as it’s being received.

From there, the video is then sent to the computer on the ground, from which it is then transmitted to the Oculus Rift. You’re probably thinking this creates a lot of lag, and you’re almost correct, as Danielsson noticed a latency of about 120 milliseconds, which isn’t bad, but it’s ultimately not ideal.

Danielsson and company are working to make the system better, though, including using newer hardware and cutting down the weight of the electrics on board the drone, as well as upgrade the cameras and increase the range of the transmitters.

If you’re wondering what the company will do with this technology, they haven’t mentioned whether or not they plan to sell these kits to the public at some point in the future, but Oculus Rift and drone owners would undoubtedly love to get their hands on this type of technology, and frankly, it’s possible for anyone to do this with a little know-how.

VIA: Hackaday

Oculus Rift hack puts user inside Black Armor Drone with first-person view is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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