Archive for October 2013

Google Earth Helps Lost Indian Boy Go Home

Monday, October 21, 2013
Posted by Unknown
26 Years Later, Google Earth Helps Lost Indian Boy Go Home




6 Years Later, Google Earth Helps Lost Indian Boy Go Home


Today in international tech news: Google tells the story of an Indian man who used Google Earth to track down his family 26 years after an ill-fated train ride. Also: Huawei enlists a former EU diplomat; the "Snooper Charter" doesn't pass in the UK; Ireland aims to close a tax loophole; an Aussie startup plans drone-delivered textbooks.
Indian Saroo Munshi Khan used Google Earth to track down his long-lost family 26 years after accidentally falling asleep on a train.
In a tale that's almost too Hollywood to believe, then 5-year-old Saroo reportedly took a break from searching for change with his brother in Berhanpur, India, and hopped onto a stationary train where he fell asleep. Hours later, he woke up in Calcutta, alone and more than 900 miles away from home. He was taken to an orphanage and adopted by an Australian family.

A few years ago, Saroo used Google Earth's "ruler" feature to take a stab at figuring out how far he had traveled on that fateful day. After hours upon hours of scouring, he spotted a neighborhood that looked right.

Confident -- or at least as confident as he could be -- he made the trek home in 2012, talked to locals, and eventually found his mother, brother and sister.

Massive asteroid to hit Earth in 2032? (Well, maybe)

Ukrainian astronomers discover an asteroid, called 2013 TV135, with the power of 2,500 nuclear bombs. It's officially described as "potentially hazardous." You've been warned.
I know from all the financial ads on TV that you like to plan your portfolio well in advance.
Might I therefore suggest that you keep a vast stack of money for the vacation of several lifetimes in the early summer of 2032?
You see, I don't want to alarm you excessively, but the world might end in August 2032.
Yes, the chances are small -- perhaps 1 in 63,000. But, as they say in lottery ads, you never know.
My mildly alarmist tone comes from hearing that scientists at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in the Ukraine have spotted a rather large asteroid.
As Russia's RIA Novosti observed it, this menacing object is more than 1,300 feet wide and packs within it the power of 2,500 megatons of TNT. It is, indeed, the sumo wrestler of asteroids. And it's headed our way.
It's already got a name: 2013 TV 135. This seems a little disappointing. Why can't we name asteroids like hurricanes? Why can't this be Asteroid Annie? Why not Asteroid Spumante? Or, at the very least, The Big One?

You can use internet in an Ocean

Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Posted by Unknown

Underwater Internet may be coming to an ocean near you

Researchers are developing a "deep-sea computing network" that could bring Wi-Fi access underwater to better detect tsunamis, collect data, and monitor offshore activity.


Wi-Fi can now be found in Africa's grasslands, around the glaciers of the North Pole, and in airplanes flying high above the Earth's surface, but underwater is one place the Internet still can't go... until now.
Researchers at the University of Buffalo in New York are developing a "deep-sea computing network" that can beam data from submerged sensors in oceans, seas, and lakes to users' wireless devices in real time.
The goal of creating underwater Internet is to help people get a better gauge of what's going on in the oceans' depths. For example, underwater Wi-Fi could help scientists detect tsunamis and send warnings to coastal residents, collect data on water pollution, and monitor offshore oil and natural gas rigs.
"A submerged wireless network will give us an unprecedented ability to collect and analyze data from our oceans in real time," the project's lead researcher Tommaso Melodia said in astatement. "Making this information available to anyone with a smartphone or computer, especially when a tsunami or other type of disaster occurs, could help save lives."
"We could even use it to monitor fish and marine mammals, and find out how to best protect them from shipping traffic and other dangers," Melodia continued. "An Internet underwater has so many possibilities."
Typical wireless networks use radio waves to transmit data, but that doesn't work in water. Agencies that do use underwater communication, like the Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, use sound waves. While sound waves work for sending information that can then be converted into radio waves, it's a lengthy multi-step process.
What Melodia and his team have been working on would streamline the process by transmitting data from submerged sensor networks directly to laptops, smartphones, tablets, and other wireless devices in real time. Recently, the researchers successfully pulled off a test of their underwater computing network in Lake Erie.
While the scientists have made significant progress on their underwater Internet endeavor, the project is still in development. So, it may be awhile before people can do things like look up fish species on their smartphone while snorkeling.

Nightmarish sea creature found on California coast

An 18-foot-long, serpent-like beast washes up near the coast of Southern California to provide nightmare fodder for all who behold it.
Oarfish head

Oarfish



The ocean coughs up some odd things on occasion. You might find a message in a bottle, a giant octopus, or a massive overgrown eel of a fish that wants to take up residence in the deepest, darkest realms of your psyche and scare the bejeezus out of you.
Fortunately, I didn't personally stumble across this very creature. Marine science teacher Jasmine Santana found the 18-foot-long oarfish while snorkeling off the coast of Catalina Island in Southern California. Rather than scream like a girl, as I would have, Santana bravely dragged the carcass toward shore where 15 people helped pull it onto dry land.
Unlike cuddly sea lions and sleek dolphins, oarfish sightings are rare. When they have been spotted, they tend to be much smaller specimens. Generally, the serpent-like fish keeps to itself thousands of feet deep in the ocean.
The now-famous fish may live on as a resident of the Catalina Island Marine Institute, unwittingly donating its body to science. If the institute keeps it, it will be buried in the sand to decompose. Then, the skeleton will be dug up and put on display. For some reason, this method is considered preferable to just hosting a giant sushi party.

DJI Phantom quadcopter

Monday, October 14, 2013
Posted by Unknown

DJI Phantom quadcopter




Gizmag reviews the DJI Phantom quadcopter

Whether you call it a quadcopter, quadrocopter, quadrotor, UAV or (gasp) a drone, DJI’s new GPS-equipped Phantom is certainly a nifty little radio-controlled aircraft. We first heard about the Phantom when it was officially launched this January and since then I've had a chance to try out the, uh – let’s call it a quadcopter – for myself. Here’s a quick look at my experiences with it, and I'll say this right now: the thing was more fun than a barrel full of flying monkeys.




Getting it together

Upon opening the box, I discovered that the Phantom required some basic assembly. I followed along with one of the well-produced instructional videos on the DJI website, though, and it turned out to be pretty straightforward. I also downloaded the Quick Start Manual, just to make sure the video wasn’t leaving anything out.
Those videos – along with the manual, to a lesser extent – also proved invaluable when learning to fly the quadcopter.

Adding an eye in the sky

The Phantom is promoted as being an excellent aerial platform for the GoPro HERO actioncam, and it comes with an adjustable-angle mount designed specifically for the camera. Unfortunately, in order to fit the camera into that mount, you have to remove its protective outer housing. Additionally, that mount doesn’t have room for any of the HERO’s add-on modules, such as the LCD screen or extra battery.
The Phantom's supplied camera housing
Given that I anticipated making some unavoidably rough landings on the hard, uneven late-winter snow, I decided that my HERO wasn’t about to fly “unclothed.” There is a solution to this dilemma however – the GoPro’s housing can be mounted to the quadcopter in exactly the same way as the provided mount. Whichever method you choose, the camera ends up upside-down, so you’ll either want to enable its video-flipping feature, or flip the footage yourself in editing.

Does anyone here speak Phantom?

When it was time for my first flight, I took the quadcopter to a nearby field, turned on its control unit first (as per the instructions), and then turned on the aircraft itself by installing its rechargeable 2200mAh 11.1 V lithium-polymer battery.
The Phantom proceeded to perform a self-check on its systems, and relayed its findings via its single prominent RGB LED indicator – something that it does every time you use it. While the GoPro mount is really just a nit-pick, this method of status display is one of two things that I think could actually stand to be improved.
The Phantom's RGB LED indicator
The LED flashes on and off in various patterns of colors, first of all letting you know that the systems are warming up, and then potentially alerting you to the facts that the Phantom’s compass can’t be calibrated, it can’t find enough GPS satellites, or it’s just too cold. Unfortunately, unless you’ve used the aircraft many times, there’s no way of knowing which of those things these patterns mean, without having a printout or download of the manual close at hand – even then, cross-referencing the rapidly-blinking multiple colors with the written descriptions can be quite challenging. It would be far easier if the controller had a one-line calculator-like LCD screen, that displayed simple text messages like “Wait, initializing” or “Insufficient GPS satt.”

Getting it off the ground

I did eventually get it into the air, although I still wasn’t entirely clear on whether or not it was able to access enough satellites for all of its GPS features to work. This was the first time I’d ever flown a remote-control aircraft of any kind, plus it turns out the field I’d chosen wasn’t really big enough, so ... well, the rough landings I’d anticipated did indeed happen. Some of them even incorporated a violent descent through tree branches. To the Phantom’s immense credit, though, the only damage it appeared to sustain was a snapped landing strut – not a disabling injury, as it turned out.
Gluing a broken landing strut – the only damage sustained by the Phantom (that I know of)
The next few times I flew it, I chose a much larger field and ensured that there were enough satellites, plus I was just generally more experienced. It was a blast. Really opening up the throttle, I found that the quadcopter could go fast (10 meters/32.8 feet per second, going forward), it could go high (I don’t know how high, but it looked kind of scary), and it responded to commands instantaneously.
Battery life for all of my flights was about ten minutes, which is right in keeping with DJI’s figures. Although I definitely would have preferred a longer duration, existing battery technology will only take you so far – additionally, the Phantom was lugging my GoPro, and the temperature outside was right around freezing.
Some people might not like the idea of having to pay for its dedicated controller, as the AR Drone (which at US$300 costs a little less than half as much as the $679 Phantom) simply utilizes the user’s smartphone. I found that the two physical joysticks really made controlling the quadcopter intuitive, however, in a way that I doubt touchscreen controls could.

A sense of direction

Making things easier was the option of flying in GPS Attitude mode. This allowed the Phantom to hold its position in mid-air, automatically compensating for wind gusts. Additionally, it kept the quadcopter’s inertia from carrying it forward when coming to stops – as soon as I released the throttle control, the aircraft stopped moving.
The Phantom’s Enhanced Fail-safe feature also made the whole experience less intimidating. If the quadcopter had lost contact with the controller (such as if it had exceeded its 300-meter/984-foot radio range, or the controller’s batteries died), it would have simply flown itself back to its take-off point.
The Phantom has a maximum forward speed of 10 meters (32.8 feet) per second
I additionally experimented with its Intelligent Orientation Control, which is a handy feature for newbies like me. Ordinarily, when you want a remote-control aircraft to turn to your left (as an example), you have to first consider which way that aircraft is facing. If its nose is facing away from you, then the aircraft’s left is still your left – if the aircraft is coming towards you, however, then a left turn for it involves its moving to your right. The controls become reversed, which can be very disorienting.
By selecting one of the two Intelligent Orientation Control modes, however, a left turn on the controller will always result in the Phantom moving to your left – regardless of which way its front end is pointing. The same thing goes for right turns, obviously. While this would be impossible with a fixed-wing aircraft, it’s not such a tall order with a multi-directional, symmetrical-bodied quadcopter. It definitely makes those first flights simpler, although it’s probably not a feature you should come to rely on, plus it only works if the aircraft is at least 30 feet (nine meters) away.
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