New Drone Could Usher In A Modern Day Quidditch Equivalent

New Drone Could Usher In A Modern Day Quidditch EquivalentI am not quite sure about you, but for most of the time, humanity has had their feed grounded. Yes sir, grounded when we play games, ranging from soccer to football, basketball, and others as the force of gravity helps keep everything and everyone rooted and happy. However, Harry Potter’s fantasy world of wizardry has opened up the imaginations of the masses to Quidditch. A recently invented drone has resurrected the possibility of seeing Quidditch introduced in the real world, thanks to engineer Jun Rekimoto who developed a ball that contains a drone within.

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    Droplet Sprinkler Targets Plants to Save Water: Sniper Medic

    Traditional sprinklers simply spread water over an area, which leads to lots of water wasted and uneven watering. Droplet wants to change all that with its eponymous robot. Instead of blindly spraying water around like Bill & Lance with a Spread gun, Droplet knows where your plants are and aims at them like Mr. Mundy in Doublecross.

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    When you get a Droplet, you’ll go to a web app to specify the type and location of your plants. I don’t know how exactly the web app works, just that you can go through it on a computer or a mobile device and in just a few minutes. In addition to that data, Droplet will also supposedly tap into the United States’ weather station and soil sample data to gauge when and how much water to spray. One Droplet should be able to tend to a 2700sq.ft. area.

    Grow a browser and head to Amazon, where you can pre-order Droplet for $300 (USD). That’s a lot of money for a sprinkler, but when you consider its resulting water savings and positive impact on the environment I think it’s worth it.

    [via Digital Trends]

    U.S. Navy Tests Out Firefighting Robot

    U.S. Navy Tests Out Firefighting RobotWhen you hear of a former United States naval vessel being set on fire later this coming August, fret not, it is not a naval exercise that had gone awry, and neither is it a successful terrorist attack, but rather, the U.S. Navy intends to use it as a platform to test firefighting robots. The use of firefighting robots are meant to prevent the loss of lives in the event of a fire. If successful, I am quite sure that there is still plenty of work to be done before these humanoid robots would be given full reign of a firefighting effort on board a ship, which might take a fair number of years before it is perfected.

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    Z-MACHINES Robot Band: Rage with the Machines

    This is what 80′s rockers would have looked like if they were robots. This robotic band goes by the name Z-MACHINES. It sounds like a human band if you close your eyes, but if they are open you know that they are robots, ready to kill us after the show.
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    The bot called March bangs multi-colored cables in time to the music. Behind him, the drummer Ashura has 22 arms and is playing four times faster than a human. Cosmo is the keyboardist with green lasers hitting each key. The guitarist has 78 fingers, and can shred way faster than you can:

    This robo-band was created by engineers at the University of Tokyo and uses around 300 kilowatts of electricity. They are a big hit in Japan since they made their stage debut at a “Future Party” in Tokyo last year.

    It’s all fun and games until no one returns from their concerts.

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    [via CNN and The Awesomer]

    This Woodworking Robot Used To Build Cars and Trucks

    This Woodworking Robot Used To Build Cars and Trucks

    The auto industry in the US hit a few speed bumps over the past few years, and while many factories have closed, it’s good to see that some workers, like this industrial robot arm, have managed to find work elsewhere. Instead of building sedans, this arm now lathes solid blocks of maple into lovely wooden stools.

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    Phantom Drone Carries GoPro into Active Volcano and Survives

    There are all sorts of things you can do with a flying drone aircraft or quadcopter carrying a camera. You could do the obvious and chase your dog or cat around the house. You could have it follow your significant other around to make sure they’re not causing trouble.

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    One thing I would not have thought of doing with a camera-packing drone is send it into the caldera of an active volcano. I would expect the hot gas and flying molten lava to destroy the drone in short order. I would be wrong, at least in this instance. Recently, Shaun O’Callaghan’s DJI Phantom quadcopter drone carried a GoPro into an active volcano on Tanna Island in Vanuatu.

    You can see in the video that lava and gas are flying everywhere and going all around the camera and drone. I can’t believe the thing survived, but Shaun says the drone says no harm came to it or the camera during filming.

    [via DroneHire]

    Robot Writer Publishes Earthquake Story On LA Times

    Robot Writer Publishes Earthquake Story On LA Times The world is full of firsts, and this time around, the Los Angeles Times happens to be the first newspaper in the world to publish a story concerning an earthquake which did send some TV anchors scurrying away, courtesy of a robot writer. This is made possible thanks to journalist and programmer Ken Schwencke, who managed to come up with an algorithm that is capable of generating a short article automatically each time an earthquake strikes.

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    Drone Flies Into An Active Volcano, Lives To Tell The Tale

    Drones can be used for a variety of things. They can be used in warfare, and they can be used in everyday life such as delivering beer to delivering parcels bought on Amazon. Then it also seems that it can be used to help document events in life which might not necessarily be as readily accessible by a human being, like filming footage of an active volcano in action.

    In the video above, Shaun O’Callaghan, the drone’s operator, flies a drone into the middle of an active volcano in the country of Vanuatu, which is about a two-hour flight from Australia. The drone that was used is a DJI Phantom 2 RTF quadcopter which was attached with a GoPro camera. (more…)

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    Those Mesmerizing Robot Arms Are Back and Playing With Trains Now

    Those Mesmerizing Robot Arms Are Back and Playing With Trains Now

    It seems the best way to impress someone on the market for a set of industrial robotic arms is to demo them playing with kid’s toys. First DENSO Robotics did it with slot cars , and now ABB gets in on the action with this mesmerizing model train demo.

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    CUBESTORMER 3 Crushes World Record In Solving Rubik’s Cube

    It was just a few days ago when we brought you word that the CUBESTORMER 3 robot was being prepared to potentially smash whatever world records that stand in its way, especially when it comes to solving the Rubik’s Cube. Well, it seems that this particular objective has been achieved, as the CUBESTORMER 3 robot that runs on ARM processor technology has managed to achieve a new Guinness World Record title for solving a Rubik’s Cube in just 3.53 seconds at the Big Bang Fair in Birmingham, UK, today.

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