Lifeboat Foundation

The U.S. military doesn’t just build big, scary tanks and giant warplanes; it’s also interested in teeny, tiny stuff. The Pentagon’s latest research project aims to improve today’s technologies by shrinking them down to microscopic size.

The recently launched Atoms to Product (A2P) program aims to develop atom-size materials to build state-of-the-art military and consumer products. These tiny manufacturing methods would work at scales 100,000 times smaller than those currently being used to build new technologies, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

The tiny, high-tech materials of the future could be used to build things like hummingbird-size drones and super-accurate (and super-small) atomic clocks — two projects already spearheaded by DARPA. [Humanoid Robots to Flying Cars: 10 Coolest DARPA Projects].

Read more

Aerial drones are great for providing a bird’s eye view of our world. That said, some people are more interested in seeing a fish’s eye view of their local seacoast or lake. Previously, such folks had to build their own underwater remote-operated vehicle (ROV). Three years ago, San Francisco startup OpenROV made things a little easier for them, by offering an ROV kit that users put together themselves. Now, the company is crowdfunding the fully-assembled Trident ROV, which can reportedly be “flown” through the water.

Read more

Never mind the 111-inch double-sided TV that LG showed off at IFA earlier this month; that’s so 2015.

A rollable TV, though — now that’s something I could see fitting in nicely to my pimped-out IoT living room of 2016.

Maybe I’ll unroll this rollable TV in bed each morning, and have a drone fly over the coffee that my smart, connected coffee machine poured ahead of time — after it was pinged by my Apple Watch that I was about to wake up.

Read more

“Derek Klingenberg—a farmer in Kansas, according to Popular Mechanics—pulled a bluegill out of his pond by baiting a fishing line attached to a DJI Phantom 2 quadcopter, Popular Science reported. Klingenberg told Popular Science that he used a fake worm as bait, and it took about 10 minutes of drone fishing to catch the fish.”

Read more

Britain’s battleship of the future: torpedoes that travel at almost 350 mph, an electromagnetic rail gun, drones made on board and a holographic control room.

Read more

New article on how tech can help achieve free education while also shrinking the prison system:

Micro drones, robot guards, and tracking chips will turn convicts into tax-paying, law-abiding citizens.

Read more

Drones are everywhere these days. They’re at your local park, they’re in the ocean, they’re hovering over the White House lawn, and they may even be hovering overhead armed with tear gas.

In a world that’s becoming increasingly drone friendly, there are some serious safety considerations that shouldn’t be ignored.

Continue reading “Boeing's new laser canon can destroy drones in mid-flight” »

Long time ago I was wondering why not to use drones (• (named for that concrete application Extreme Access Flyers) to explore the space, to reach new planets, asteroids … it would be exciting … rovers are limited in action, so what if we make it airborne? Once in space, why not to send a drone or a swarm of them from the main spaceship to explore a new planet? They could interact, share capabilities, morph, etc.

While the economy looks more or less promising for civil and military, there is still a long path to walk …

“Teal Group’s 2015 market study estimates that UAV production will soar from current worldwide UAV production of $4 billion annually to $14 billion, totaling $93 billion in the next ten years. Military UAV research spending would add another $30 billion over the decade.”

Read more at http://www.suasnews.com/2015/08/37903/teal-group-predicts-wo…-forecast/

Continue reading “Using drones to explore space” »

How 3D printing is changing the way we manufacture and produce is already a fact, step by step, in different areas, from aerospace to the medical areas.

How will this impact the established processes, the economy, the patient …

Is this the dawn of personalized medicine? patients will be able to print their own pills at home? Will 3D printing represent an enhancement to distribution processes?

Continue reading “FDA approved the first 3D-printed prescription drug” »