Really Rocket Science

Ever lose your mobile phone, never to see it again? Well, what if it could find it’s way back to you? Or what if it could at least come when you called it? (Assuming, of course, that you’ve given it a name.) Sounds a little crazy, but having lost a few phones myself, that’s the first thing that came to mind when I heard about WiMo; the Windows Mobile Robot. 

WiMo uses a Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone as the central "brain" of the robot. This Smartphone sits directly ontop of a Windows Mobile SDK cd (I did say i was using the SDK in a fun and unique way). The Smartphone communicates to a microcontroller via Bluetooth, using our Managed Bluetooth classes and also communicates with a Pocket PC (and soon to be desktop pc instead) via WiFi. The Pocket PC can be used to remotely control WiMo. The action pad of the Pocket PC is used for standard movement (up, down, left, right, stop).

… WiMo is learning to make conversation and respond to voice commands via some new prototype APIs in Voice Command. These APIs are not available yet, but we are looking to make them available in the future. WiMo can respond to his name, tell jokes if asked, and even dance!

OK. So your phone would have to be a Windows Mobile Smartphone and find its way into that contraption before it it could find its way home. But the idea’s gotta start somewhere, right?

Seeing as how GPS can be used to track just about everything and everyone, and how easy it it to find anyone who has a mobile phone, why not a phone that kind find it’s way home?  If my cat can do it, so should my phone someday.

Via Robot Gossip.  

This past March, the EU issued a report on the urgent need for broadband connectivity throughout Europe. A new project announced on May 15^th is designed to bring high-quality broadband service in less developed areas to address this demand with the HYLAS satellite.

For Giuseppe Viriglio, Director of European Union and Industry Programmes for the European Space Agency, “HYLAS will play an important role in demonstrating the advanced technological capabilities of European space companies which are truly competitive on a global scale. It also makes significant progress in solving the social problem of poor broadband coverage in many parts of Europe and serves as a template for future large scale projects ".

 

 Responding to the i2010 initiative, the satellite will use Ka-band for broadband data communications and Ku-band for HDTV broadcasting. Considering the report does not include new EU Member States added in 2004 (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia), space-based broadband connectivity will play a key role in less-developed and rural communities around the world.

How appropriate as Wednesday is the first World Information Society Day.

Astronomers have released the largest-ever atlas of the cosmos — and it’s coming soon to the world wide web.

The Royal Astronomical Society reports:

Traditionally, astronomers have needed to take a "spectrum" of each galaxy to determine [the distance between galaxies], splitting its light into many components to reveal sharp features with which to measure the amount of redshifting. This requires a time-consuming, individual observation of each galaxy.

The new cosmic map has been constructed using a novel technique focusing on a special class of galaxy whose intrinsic colour is very well known. For these ‘Luminous Red Galaxies’ researchers can measure the amount of colour distortion, and hence the approximate distance of the galaxy, just by looking at digital images of the sky, without the need to obtain a full spectrum.

What is most striking is that the new study and atlas have revealed that "the ordinary matter our bodies are made of and that we experience in everyday life only accounts for a few percent of the total cosmic budget:"

Our Universe contains billions of galaxies of all shapes and sizes. In recent years astronomers have used increasingly large surveys to map out the positions of these galaxies, stepping their way out into the Cosmos.

The new cosmic map unveiled today is the largest to date — a three-dimensional atlas of over a million galaxies spread over a distance of more than 5 billion light years. The findings confirm that we live in a Universe filled with mysterious dark matter and dark energy.

"We have analyzed the patterns in this map and discovered waves of structure over a billion light years across," said Dr. Chris Blake of the University of British Columbia, principal author of the study. "These waves were generated billions of years ago and have been vastly stretched in size by the expanding Universe."

I wouldn’t change your plans yet (though you might want to get busy practicing the Ameriroids game), but Michael Cabbage at the Orlando Sentinel reports on the progress of NASA’s program to identify asteroids that cross the earth’s orbit — and takes a look at the odds of a an asteroid striking the earth in the coming decades:

 Mark your calendar for Sunday, April 13, 2036. That’s when a 1,000-foot-wide asteroid named Apophis could hit the Earth with enough force to obliterate a small state.

The odds of a collision are 1-in-6,250. But while that’s a long shot at the racetrack, the stakes are too high for astronomers to ignore.

For now, Apophis represents the most imminent threat from the worst type of natural disaster known, one reason NASA is spending millions to detect the threat from this and other asteroids….

Objects this size are thought to hit Earth about once every 1,000 years, and, according to recent estimates, the risk of dying from a renegade space rock is comparable to the hazards posed by tornadoes and snakebites. Those kind of statistics have moved the once-far-fetched topic of killer asteroids from Hollywood movie sets to the halls of Congress.

"Certainly we had a major credibility problem at the beginning — a giggle factor," said David Morrison, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. "Now, many people are aware this is something we can actually deal with, mitigate and defend against."

In 1998, lawmakers formally directed NASA to identify by 2008 at least 90 percent of the asteroids more than a kilometer (0.6 mile) wide that orbit the sun and periodically cross Earth’s path. That search is now more than three-quarters complete.

Last year, Congress directed the space agency to come up with options for deflecting potential threats. Ideas seriously discussed include lasers on the moon, futuristic "gravity tractors," spacecraft that ram incoming objects and Hollywood’s old standby, nuclear weapons.

To help explore possible alternatives, former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart has formed the B612 Foundation. The organization’s goal is to be able to significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner by 2015.

For those so inclined, more things to worry about can be found on the NASA Near Earth Object Program website.

Bloggers Blog also has a roundup of other posts on Apophis fron around the blogosphere. 

Is this a case of "turnabout is fair play" or what? I blogged earlier about some California counties using GPS to track gang members after they’re released from prison. Well, this morning I opened my hometown paper (OK, I "opened" it in my web browser) to learn that in my neck of the woods thieves are tracking GPS units, and have started making off with them instead of expensive car stereos.

More than 50 dashboard-mounted Global Positioning System receivers have been stolen from parked cars in Alexandria and Arlington County since January, and police are urging motorists to hide the units, which range in price from $200 to nearly $3,000.

"It’s basically like leaving $700 in cash on the dashboard and asking someone to take it," said Mary Garrand, crime analyst for the Alexandria Police Department, who has noted about 25 stolen devices this year, mostly from Old Town.

Apparently increased demand for these gadgets among car owners has created increased demand among an unexpected demographic. Of course, if you leave your car unlocked or — as in one case — leave the top down, with your GPS unit attached to the dashboard with a piece of adhesive, you might expect to be relieved of it eventually.

[Detective Damon] Washington, one of several detectives who recently canvassed the hardest-hit areas in Arlington in search of suspects, said it comes down to this: "Don’t leave anything in your car that you’re not willing to lose."

It wasn’t long ago that car stereos started coming with removable faces, to ward off would-be thieves. Most GPS units — the dashboard variety, at least — are removable. So take it with you, or you might not be able to find it later.

If they ever catch the folks who’re heisting these GPS units, once they’re convicted and have served their sentences, I think they should be tracked via GPS upon their release. And nabbed if they come anywhere near a major parking lot. That’d be poetic justice. Dontcha think?

Are rockets déclassé when it comes to launching stuff into space?

Well, not really. Nothing can quite compare to the countdown to launch and the rumble as the rocket lifts off from the pad.

But in the future, rockets might not be the only way of lifting things into the Clarke Orbit and beyond. 

We’ve written before about the space elevator; the picture above depicts another method being explored by scientists and engineers — a giant slingshot:

What if we could throw something so hard, it would wind up in space? At NASA’s behest, Ed Schmidt and Mark Bundy of the Army Research Lab are looking at ways of firing projectiles into orbit.

The notion has a very long pedigree. Back in 1687 when Isaac Newton first came up with the theory of gravity he also introduced the concept of an orbital cannon which could fire a cannonball so fast that it would never come down. The first serious attempt to shoot into space was the High Altitude Research Program (HARP) carried out in the US in the 60’s…. HARP used a modified 16-inch naval gun to loft projectiles to the incredible altitude of 112 miles before being cancelled in 1967.

The ARL study looks at more sophisticated approaches than your basic cannon, including a blast wave accelerator, and electro-magnetic rail gun, and an EM coil gun. But the wildest idea may be the Slingatron: a giant, hypervelocity, rapid-fire slingshot. The machine would spin a projectile faster and faster through a spiral-shaped tube, building up increasing amounts of centripetal force along the way – just like a discus-thrower, spinning himself around before a toss, or like a latter-day King David, winding up his weapon before he whacks Goliath.

Personally, we think slingshots are dangerous– you could poke out your brother’s eye, as Mom used to warn– but cannons look pretty cool:

And engineers for a relaunched HARP project could easily be found in the autumn in Montana, at the Annual World Championship Punkin Chunkin.

Then again, slingin’ a punkin would be pretty cool, too. 

In writing about the whole mobTV phenomenon, I’ve been wondering about something that I haven’t asked about until now. Just how does one enjoy watching video on such a tiny screen? I mean, I haven’t measured them, but the screens on even the best phones seem rather small for any serious or enjoyable viewing; definitely not for watching full length programs.

As usual, I should have known someone would be way ahead of me on this. Enter video glasses for mobile TV. 

Kowon Technology, a South Korean venture start-up, Wednesday announced it plans to introduce an eye-glass type display _ dubbed MSP-209 – in the local market next week at 199,000 won.

The product is equipped with a pair of liquid crystal display (LCD) screens, roughly the size of a human pupil _ 4.2 millimeters by 4.8 millimeters _ in both lenses.

“Weighing just 2 grams each, this micro LCD would be the world’s smallest and lightest screen available. The weight of the video glasses would be also fine at 58 grams,” Kowon vice president Park Hong-tae said.

Park continued Kowon did not compromise the all-important visual quality to minimize the display size because the miniature screen features programs at 320X240 pixels resolution, similar to that of digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB).

They’re also being called "anti-glance" glasses, because you can watch your video without worrying about your fellow commuters or other neighbors peeking over your shoulder. And it’s supposed to be like watching a 32 in. television screen about two yards away. So, it’s like watching television in your living room, but from anywhere. And you also get to look as though you’ve been "enhanced by Borg technology." Not bad for the equivalent cost of $216 in U.S. dollar. 

Via MobileMentalism.Com.

Here’s something interesting in mobile news. YouTube has just started offering a mobile upload option. 

A growing number of handheld devices are capable of recording video. YouTube wants to disconnect users from their Web cams and computers, said Steve Chen, one of the company’s founders and its chief technology officer.

Most user-created clips are taken with Web and digital video cameras, Chen said. The new service will likely produce greater numbers of spontaneous and candid clips.

"The good thing about it is that you don’t have to go home to YouTube anymore," Chen said. "People may not carry their digital cameras with them when they go out. But everybody carries their cell phone…I’m interested in seeing what kind of content this will produce." 

I’ve had a YouTube account since they launched, but I haven’t figured out what to do with it, because the only video camera I own is the one in my mobile phone. I haven’t found much of a reason to use that feature on my phone either. Actually, I have a PDA that shoots video as well, but haven’t had a reason to use the PDA in ages. Until now, that is. 

So, I’ve created a mobile profile on my YouTube account, and plugged in PDA so it can recharge. Now all I need is a reason to shoot video. 

And while you’re at it, YouTube, how about a way for me to view videos on my mobile phone? I mean, Tivo just inked a deal to deliver web-based video to my living room. Can somebody do the same thing for my phone?

Via Blogspotting. 

While we’re on the subject of robots, have you noticed they’re becoming more and more human all the time? This one — developed in Korea — is only the second android ever made, and though she can’t move from the waist down she comes in handy in some situations.

Korea has developed its own android capable of facial expressions on its humanoid face, the second such machine to be developed after one from Japan.

… Ever-1 can move its upper body and “express” happiness, anger, sadness and pleasure. But the robot is still incapable of moving its lower half. Ever-1’s skin is made from a silicon jelly that feels similar to human skin. The face is a composite of two stars, and its torso on a singer.

The 15 monitors in the robotic face allow it to interpret the face of an interlocutor and look back at whoever stands near it. Ever-1 also recognizes 400 words and can hold a basic verbal exchange.

According to the article, Ever-1 (Eve R-1. Get it?) could earn her keep by giving directions in department stores and read stories to children. On that last one, if you asked me, I’d bet that the kids (a) won’t be fooled by Ever-1, and might even be frightened.

But I just might lose that bet. Robot Dreams has a post up about a new robot from NEC that’s also designed to designed to interact with people, and is pictured with some happy looking kids.

Oh well. If I’m right, Ever-1 might be able to get work piloting tentacled flying robots.
 

Call me crazy, but if the folks who came up with flying robots got together with the people who’ve invented tentacled robots, they could potentially take over the world. Or at the very least have a pretty interesting sci-fi flick on their hands.

Robotic "tentacles" that can grasp and grapple with a wide variety of objects have been developed by US researchers.

Most robots rely on mechanical gripping jaws that have difficulty grabbing large or irregularly shaped objects. Replacing these with tentacle-like manipulators could make robots more nimble and flexible, say the scientists.

The tentacle-like manipulators, known as "Octarms", resemble an octopus’s limb or an elephant’s trunk. They were developed through a project called OCTOR (sOft robotiC manipulaTORs), which involves several US universities and is funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

"An elephant’s trunk can pick up a peanut or a tree trunk," says Ian Walker, a member of the project team from Clemson University in South Carolina. "This ability, inherent in the OCTOR robots, gives OCTOR arms a huge advantage over conventional industrial robots." 

Would it be a case of science fact catching up wth science fiction? 

Maybe. Just maybe.

But the question remains, once we have tentacled flying robots … what do we do with them?