In this week's wrap, Uk roboticists have spent $1 million dollars building a state of the art robot using prosthetic limbs and organs and an SA teen is connecting holidaymakers with an app that informs game lovers where they can spot their favourite animals. Get the details on these stories and more below.
Pentagon looks to tech that vanishes, literally
The Pentagon's blue-sky researchers want military hardware of the future to literally cease to exist at a predetermined point. The programme to create these transient electronics is called VAPR, for Vanishing Programmable Resources. The idea is to prevent adversaries from collecting, studying and reverse-engineering US-developed electronics. More details about the project will be revealed in coming weeks. Thus far, the idea is to make hardware that performs like current sensors, but is fabricated from materials that can rapidly disintegrate on command.
Via: Wired
Apple iPad gets wheels
Apple's iPad has gone mobile, with a platform designers say brings a new perspective to remote interaction. Developed by Double Robotics, the telepresence robot makes use of an iPad as the eyes, ears and brain of the intelligent device. Attached to a frame with wheels, the robot can be operated by remote control over the Internet, allowing the user to drive the robot and adjust its height from anywhere in the world. The creators of the robot are marketing their product to companies looking to trim their travel budgets.
Via: Reuters
Nokia working with wonder-material
Nokia has been granted $1.35 billion to develop a 2D wonder-material that is stronger, lighter and thinner than anything else on Earth. The Finnish mobile phone maker will conduct the research over the next 10 years, using grapheme, which has various noteworthy qualities, including being 300 times stronger than steel. The thinnest object ever obtained by man, grapheme looks a bit like sellotape, and is transparent, bendable and a better conductor than copper.
Via: CNet
Teen connects tourists
Teenager Nadav Ossendryver is the founder and developer of Latest Sightings, a crowdsourcing Web site providing real-time updates on animal sightings in the Kruger National Park. Founded two years ago, the Site utilises social media to enable park visitors to share the location of animals with other holidaymakers, increasing their chances of spotting the animals they want to see. According to Ossendryver, the crowd-powered site has fans all over the world helping wildlife enthusiasts enhance their bush experience.
Via: CNN
BlackBerry fans tattoos dedication to the brand
As part of a "What would you do for a BlackBerry 10 phone?" contest on the BlackBerry fansite, CrackBerry, BlackBerry superfan Brian Heffren of New York had both the BlackBerry 10 logo and the CrackBerry logo tattooed on his upper back. An engineer technician and field planner for Time Warner Cable who has been working on LTE towers and setting up fibre-optic routes for businesses for years, Heffren became a BlackBerry lover years ago while using one at work. Other winners of the contest include BlackBerry addicts holding bikini photo shoots, eating the world's hottest hamburger or folding 1 000 origami paper cranes.
Via: Huffington Post
Roboticists spend $1m on robot Rex
A robot called Rex is an indication that science is starting to catch up with science fiction in the race to replace body parts with man-made alternatives. UK roboticists Richard Walker and Matthew Godden built Rex using $1 million-worth of state-of-the-art limbs and organs. Kitted out with equipment borrowed from world-leading laboratories and manufacturers, Rex is a result of extensive research into advanced prosthetic arms and legs, artificial eyes, hearts, lungs and even hybrids between computer chips and living brains.
Via: Telegraph
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