Gatebox reimagines Amazon Alexa as fawning anime girlfriend

While artificial intelligence-based smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home may be grabbing the headlines, Tokyo-based Vinclu's Gatebox is looking to set itself apart with a virtual assistant who isn't just a disembodied voice, but takes the holographic form of a tiny anime girl who seems a bit too eager to please. The device was first announced back in January, but Vinclu is now taking limited pre-orders for those interested in a virtual personal assistant that also doubles as a surrogate girlfriend.

.. Continue Reading Gatebox reimagines Amazon Alexa as fawning anime girlfriend

Category: Around The Home

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Ice found in the eternally dark craters at Ceres' poles

NASA's Dawn deep-space probe has discovered ice inside the eternally shadowed craters of the polar regions of the dwarf planet Ceres. Discovered using onboard cameras built by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), the water ice survives in the crater interiors thanks to the extreme cold there.

.. Continue Reading Ice found in the eternally dark craters at Ceres' poles

Category: Space

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Latest Northop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye makes maiden flight

Northrop Grumman's newest version of the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye has made its maiden flight. The latest iteration of the carrier-borne turboprop airborne early warning aircraft – designed for the US Navy starting in the late 1950s – the new Hawkeye now has the ability to refuel in the air from a tanker aircraft. This allows it to remain on station longer and operate at longer range.

.. Continue Reading Latest Northop Grumman E-2D Advanced Hawkeye makes maiden flight

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Sideways launch for microsatellites set to study heart of hurricanes

NASA launched a new class of hurricane monitoring microsatellites today – and did it sideways. At 8:37 am EST Dec. 15, a modified Orbital ATK L-1011 Stargazer aircraft dropped a Pegasus XL rocket from an altitude of 39,000 ft (11.900 m) over the Atlantic Ocean off the east coast of Florida as part of NASA's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission. The three-stage booster then fired its engines in midair before soaring into orbit with its payload of eight microsatellites designed to monitor hurricanes with a new generation of remote sensors.

.. Continue Reading Sideways launch for microsatellites set to study heart of hurricanes

Category: Space

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Autonomous, unmanned swarmboats secure harbor approaches for US Navy

The US Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR) recently showed off the progress it's making in the area of robotic warfare with a demonstration of how autonomous swarmboats can patrol and secure harbor approaches. The swarm of rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIB) equipped with the latest version of the agency's Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS) technology patrolled the reaches of lower Chesapeake Bay, Virginia with only remote human supervision as they coordinated actions to intercept and evaluate targets on the water.

.. Continue Reading Autonomous, unmanned swarmboats secure harbor approaches for US Navy

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US Marine Corps receives first Amphibious Combat Vehicle I.I prototype

At its York, Pennsylvania facility, BAE Systems has unveiled the first of 16 Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) 1.1 prototypes it is developing for the US Marine Corps. The fully amphibious, ship-launchable and ship-recoverable 8x8 wheeled armored troop carrier is being developed under a US$103.7 million contract for the Engineering, Manufacturing, and Development phase of the ACV 1.1 program.

.. Continue Reading US Marine Corps receives first Amphibious Combat Vehicle I.I prototype

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ACTUV unmanned sub-hunter begins operational trials

Main contractor Leidos has announced that it is starting operational trials of the robotic sub-hunter it's building for DARPA. The Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) will take to the seas off the coast of San Diego, California in the coming months for tests of the unmanned ship's sensors, mission control hardware and software, and the autonomy system.

.. Continue Reading ACTUV unmanned sub-hunter begins operational trials

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First manned flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft postponed until 2018

SpaceX has suffered another setback with the first manned flight of its Crew Dragon spacecraft being delayed until 2018. According to NASA, the SpaceX Demonstration Mission 2 will not fly until May 2018 instead of in the second quarter of 2017 as previously planned. Though no reason was given for the postponement, it's likely related to the ongoing investigation of the September 1 launchpad explosion of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket during fueling operations.

.. Continue Reading First manned flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft postponed until 2018

Category: Space

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Jets stir up stronger aluminum, reduce casting waste

Aluminum is a ubiquitous part of our modern age, but it's surprisingly hard to produce alloys for it without putting up with significant waste from bad mixtures. MIT researchers Antoine Allanore and Samuel R. Wagstaff have been studying how aluminum alloys harden and have come up with a way to use jets to produce more even distributions of copper and manganese in castings.

.. Continue Reading Jets stir up stronger aluminum, reduce casting waste

Category: Materials

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Piccadilly Circus' famous adverts are being replaced by Europe's largest LED screen

The saying goes that Piccadilly Circus is the one place in the world where, if you stand long enough, you'll meet everyone you've ever known. It's small wonder, therefore, that it's famous for its wall of light-up adverts, which are some of the primest eye ball real estate going. To get the most out of the landmark, site owner Land Securities will switch off the six existing screens in January so they can be replaced by a single high-resolution LED screen that will be the biggest in Europe.

.. Continue Reading Piccadilly Circus' famous adverts are being replaced by Europe's largest LED screen

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Japanese cargo ship en route to space station

Eight days after an unmanned Russian Progress cargo ship failed to reach orbit, a Japanese space freighter is on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). Today at 8:26 am EST (10:26 pm JST), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)'s HTV-6 mission lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan atop an H-IIB rocket. Carrying 4.5 tons (4.1 tonnes) of supplies, it's scheduled to rendezvous with the station on Tuesday.

.. Continue Reading Japanese cargo ship en route to space station

Category: Space

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Home sweet home for US Navy's largest ever destroyer

The US Navy's largest and most technologically advanced destroyer, the USS Zumwalt(DDG 1000), arrived at its new homeport of San Diego, California today. The first-in-class warship left the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, Maine on September 7 and made passage through the Panama canal, making goodwill visits to various ports along the way.

.. Continue Reading Home sweet home for US Navy's largest ever destroyer

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US pioneering astronaut John Glenn dies

Space pioneer and former US senator John Glenn died today at the age of 95, after a brief stay in hospital. One of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, Glenn was America's first man to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962 aboard the Mercury-Atlas Friendship Seven space capsule. He later went on to serve in the United States Senate for 25 years and became the world's oldest astronaut in 1998 when he returned to space as a passenger/specialist on STS-95 Discovery.

.. Continue Reading US pioneering astronaut John Glenn dies

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Apollo 15 drill chuck that helped bore into lunar surface up for auction

Such a tiny fraction of the massive Saturn V rocket returned home from each Apollo Moon mission that it's surprising what has survived over the years. One example is an odd artifact: the chuck used by Apollo 15 Mission Commander David Scott that was part of the Apollo Lunar Surface Drill used to burrow into the lunar soil to retrieve samples and place experiments. It's up for auction at RR Auction as part of its Autographs, Artifacts & Animation sale in Boston, Massachusetts, where it's expected to fetch US$50,000.

.. Continue Reading Apollo 15 drill chuck that helped bore into lunar surface up for auction

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Next SpaceX Falcon 9 launch delayed until January

SpaceX has set back the date for its next Falcon 9 launch until sometime in January. The company says the much anticipated return after a Falcon 9's launchpad explosion on September 1 was delayed to make time for close-out vehicle preparations and complete extended testing to ensure the safety of the flight.

.. Continue Reading Next SpaceX Falcon 9 launch delayed until January

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Enigma machine sells for a record $463,500

One of the rarest surviving Enigma cipher machines has sold at auction for a record price of US$463,500. An artifact of one of the most exciting episodes of World War II, the fully operational Enigma M4 was made in 1943 for Admiral Doneitz's Kriegsmarine to send secret messages to the German U-boat packs at the height of the war. It was part of the Bonhams History of Science and Technology Sale in New York City and easily surpassed the previous record of US$350,000 set in 2015.

.. Continue Reading Enigma machine sells for a record $463,500

Category: Collectibles

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Gearing up space robots with metallic glass

In a quest to give robots human-like grace even in the frozen wastes of space, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California is looking at exotic gears made out of exotic materials. In a pair of papers, technologist Douglas Hofmann and his team describe how high-precision gears made of Bulk Metallic Glass (BMG) could lead to more graceful robots that cost less to build.

.. Continue Reading Gearing up space robots with metallic glass

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Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity glides in for first free flight

Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity took to the sky's today on its first free flight. The company says the suborbital passenger spacecraft was dropped by the WhiteKnightTwo mothership at the Virgin Galactic test site over the Mojave Desert during one hour 20 minute flight that included a ten minute, unpowered free flight to test the craft's systems and collect telemetry data.

.. Continue Reading Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity glides in for first free flight

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Audi lunar Quattro books trip to the Moon

In 2015, Audi went into partnership with Germany's Part-Time Scientists team to help develop the Audi lunar Quattro unmanned lunar rover in competition for the Google Lunar X-Prize. The company announced recently that the latest iteration of the rover and its landing craft are undergoing extensive testing to the run up to a visit to the landing site of the Apollo 17 mission by late next year.

.. Continue Reading Audi lunar Quattro books trip to the Moon

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Meat glue and crustacean shells form the right recipe for patching wounds

The kitchen and the laboratory have come together at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, where researchers have developed a method that allows a biodegradable, and biocompatible bioplastic derived from the chitin shells of crustaceans and insects to be used to patch up wounds or hold implanted medical devices in place. The technique involves combining the material with a cutting edge culinary ingredient called transglutaminase or "meat glue".

.. Continue Reading Meat glue and crustacean shells form the right recipe for patching wounds

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Changes in cerebrospinal fluid volume the culprit behind astronauts' blurry vision

As missions aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have grown longer, astronauts have been repeatedly complaining of blurred vision and, fearing that this condition might not be reversible on returning from Earth, NASA has been investigating the causes. Now a team led by Noam Alperin, professor of radiology and biomedical engineering at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami, Florida has completed a study that indicates the culprit might be a change in volume in the astronaut's cerebrospinal fluid.

.. Continue Reading Changes in cerebrospinal fluid volume the culprit behind astronauts' blurry vision

Category: Space

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Diamonds turn nuclear waste into nuclear batteries

One problem with dealing with nuclear waste is that it's often hard to tell what's waste and what's a valuable resource. Case in point is the work of physicists and chemists at the University of Bristol, who have found a way to convert thousands of tonnes of seemingly worthless nuclear waste into man-made diamond batteries that can generate a small electric current for longer than the entire history of human civilization.

.. Continue Reading Diamonds turn nuclear waste into nuclear batteries

Category: Energy

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Spaceworthy optical clock promises centimeter-level GPS precision

As sailors in the 17th century learned the hard way, having an accurate clock for navigation is pointless if it's too delicate to carry aboard ship and the and the same goes for the super accurate optical clocks being developed for future GPS satellites. Now an optical clock built by a team led by Matthias Lezius of Menlo Systems not only has the potential to one day produce centimeter-level GPS location fixing, but is capable of operating in a zero-gravity environment.

.. Continue Reading Spaceworthy optical clock promises centimeter-level GPS precision

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Clever clip keeps time on luxury watches

One of the problems of owning a luxury mechanical wrist watch is making sure it's keeping proper time. You could check it against radio time signals over a period of weeks, or you could take it to an upmarket watch repair shop to be hooked up to some very large and expensive equipment, but the Geneva-based watchmaker Frederique Constant has an inexpensive alternative. The Frederique Constant Analytics is an accuracy measuring clip and smartphone app that allows owners to measure the performance of their watches at home and make sure they're properly maintained.

.. Continue Reading Clever clip keeps time on luxury watches

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ExoMars sharpens its scientific tools

After a long cruise and eventful arrival, the ExoMars mission gets to work next week as the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) makes its first observations of Mars during two orbits. The calibration tests are designed to make sure the instruments are working properly and ready to make a detailed study of the atmosphere of the Red Planet beginning in 2018.

.. Continue Reading ExoMars sharpens its scientific tools

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Ecotricity wants to heat British homes with gas from grass

The old saying goes that you shouldn't let the grass grow under your feet, but a British green energy company sees that neglected greenery as the solution to the UK's energy needs. Ecotricity has announced it plans to produce methane using grass harvested from marginal farmland that could one day heat 97 percent of British homes and create a whole new energy industry.

.. Continue Reading Ecotricity wants to heat British homes with gas from grass

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BAE Systems takes a cue from ironclad beetle to build self-repairing military suspensions

Seeking ways to make military vehicles less vulnerable to blast damage, BAE Systems is looking to one of the toughest insects in nature. Inspired by the frighteningly hard to kill ironclad beetle, the defense contractor is developing a new bendable titanium alloy suspension system that not only does away with springs, but snaps back into shape after taking on landmines.

.. Continue Reading BAE Systems takes a cue from ironclad beetle to build self-repairing military suspensions

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Artificial organs that look and bleed like the real thing take surgical practice to the next level

Practice makes perfect, but if you're a surgeon, truly realistic practice also means doing so at the patient's risk. To provide surgeons and students with an alternative to a living human being to work on, a pair of physicians at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) have developed a way to use 3D printing to create artificial organs that look, feel, and even bleed like the real thing.

.. Continue Reading Artificial organs that look and bleed like the real thing take surgical practice to the next level

Category: Medical

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Near-complete dodo skeleton fetches £280,000 at auction

The only near-complete dodo bird skeleton in private hands went on sale today at Summers Place Auctions, where it fetched £280,000 as part of the Sussex-based natural history auction house's fourth Evolution sale. According to the company, the composite skeleton made from the remains of different birds is 95-percent complete and is one of only 14 such dodo skeletons in the world.

.. Continue Reading Near-complete dodo skeleton fetches £280,000 at auction

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Schiaparelli Mars lander crashed because it thought it was below ground

ESA has identified the malfunction that caused the unmanned ExoMars Schiaparelli Mars lander to jettison its parachute and shut down its landing engines prematurely, causing it to crash and explode on the surface of the Red Planet. According to the space agency, it was due to the navigation system being overloaded, so it not only thought it was on the ground, but beneath it.

.. Continue Reading Schiaparelli Mars lander crashed because it thought it was below ground

Category: Space

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Moving walkway networks would be an efficient transport option for car-free cities

Many urban planners would like to get rid of, or at least minimize, the number of private cars in cities, but what would replace them? Researchers at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) looked at the idea of car-free cities and, using Geneva as a model, they concluded that Jetson-style moving walkways could not only replace the car, but could each carry 7,000 passengers an hour more energy efficiently than buses.

.. Continue Reading Moving walkway networks would be an efficient transport option for car-free cities

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Food bars for astronauts' most important meal of the day

The modern habit of skipping the first meal of the day in favor of grabbing a breakfast bar may be the key to feeding the crews of the first manned deep space missions since Apollo. To save space and weight aboard the Orion space capsule, NASA is developing a next generation breakfast bar that provides enough calories and nutrition to keep a busy astronaut going, yet remains appetizing enough to eat for weeks on end.

.. Continue Reading Food bars for astronauts' most important meal of the day

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ISS-bound cargo ship destroyed after launch

The International Space Station (ISS) had another setback today as a Russian cargo ship was destroyed shortly after launch. At 9:51 am EST (8:51 pm Baikonur time, 14:51 GMT), The unmanned Progress 65 (Progress MS-4) spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan atop a Soyuz-U launch vehicle. According to Roscosmos, the spacecraft separated prematurely from the third stage 382 seconds into flight, at which time telemetry was lost.

.. Continue Reading ISS-bound cargo ship destroyed after launch

Category: Space

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Pilot-optional helicopter and drones work together to fight fires and rescue "missing" person

In what Lockheed Martin claims is a first, pilot-optional helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have worked as a team to successfully carry out firefighting operations and a search and rescue mission. According to the company, the purpose of the demonstration was to illustrate how autonomous aircraft can not only aid in rescue operations, but also increase their efficiency.

.. Continue Reading Pilot-optional helicopter and drones work together to fight fires and rescue "missing" person

Category: Aircraft

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DARPA deploys a thousand radiation detectors in DC "manhunt"

Recently, a geneticist was mysteriously abducted in Washington DC, leading to the US government deploying a small army of detectives to foil a dirty bomb plot. At least, that was the fictional scenario of a DARPA field test that saw a thousand volunteers equipped with smartphone-sized radiation detectors fan out over the National Mall in a radioactive scavenger hunt to test the progress of the agency's SIGMA project, which is tasked with developing technology to combat nuclear terrorism.

.. Continue Reading DARPA deploys a thousand radiation detectors in DC "manhunt"

Category: Science

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Terrorism
DARPA
Radiation

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$396K cobalt chrome wristwatch takes extravagance to new heights

Swiss luxury watchmaker Roger Dubuis has previewed its "deliberately extravagant" Excalibur Quatuor Cobalt MicroMelt wristwatch, which makes its public debut in January. The hand-mechanical timepiece not only has a quadruple spring balance to overcome the effects of gravity, but a cobalt chrome casing that the company claims is a horological first.

.. Continue Reading $396K cobalt chrome wristwatch takes extravagance to new heights

Category: Wearables

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Wristwatch

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Did Beagle 2 land successfully on Mars?

One of the mysteries of Mars exploration may have been solved as scientists at the University of Leicester and De Montfort University use a new imaging technique based on 3D modeling technology to uncover the fate of Britain's Beagle 2 lander. According to the team, the unmanned probe didn't crash, but landed successfully and became operational, through its radio antenna failed to deploy correctly.

.. Continue Reading Did Beagle 2 land successfully on Mars?

Category: Space

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University of Leicester
Mars

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Boom unveils XB-1 supersonic passenger plane prototype

In news that brings hope to those who still look wistfully back to the glory days of Concorde, aviation startup Boom Technology today unveiled its XB-1 Supersonic Demonstrator. Nicknamed Baby Boom, the one-third scale prototype of the company's planned Boom passenger liner is designed to test the technologies for 21st century commercial supersonic flight.

.. Continue Reading Boom unveils XB-1 supersonic passenger plane prototype

Category: Aircraft

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Boom
Aircraft
Supersonic

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Distant star is the roundest object in the Universe

When geographers say the Earth is round, they mean it's "sort of" round and a bit squashed at the poles. Comparatively, a team of astronomers led by Laurent Gizon from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the University of Göttingen have found a star 5,000 light years away from us that's not only much rounder than the Earth, but is rounder than any natural object in the Universe.

.. Continue Reading Distant star is the roundest object in the Universe

Category: Space

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Stars
Kepler Mission

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Sandia Labs turns to tritium in quest for fusion power

Sandia National Laboratories is raising the stakes in its quest to develop fusion power by introducing tritium into its experiments with its Z machine. Tritium, the heaviest of the three hydrogen isotopes, promises to boost energy output by a factor of 500 as the scientists continue to seek ways to produce a self-sustaining fusion reaction that generates more energy than it consumes. However, the isotope is difficult and potentially dangerous to work with.

.. Continue Reading Sandia Labs turns to tritium in quest for fusion power

Category: Energy

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Fusion
Sandia Labs

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Magnetic material lets ice slide right off

For most people, icy conditions means a slippery pavement or trying to chip the car out of a freezing glaze, but icing can also bring down aircraft, snap power lines, and cause a surprising amount of structural damage. Now scientists at the University of Houston (UH) have come up with a surprising solution – and it involves magnets.

.. Continue Reading Magnetic material lets ice slide right off

Category: Materials

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University of Houston
Ice
Nanomaterials

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Unmanned UH-1H helicopter in the works

There have been great strides in autonomous flight systems in recent years, but the tricky bit is getting them installed in conventional vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. In North Virginia, Aurora Flight Sciences announced it's using the technology from its Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) to integrate the company's Tactical Autonomous Aerial Logistics System (TALOS) on a UH-1H helicopter as part of a program to produce a "platform agnostic" system that can be used on almost any VTOL aircraft to make it pilot optional.

.. Continue Reading Unmanned UH-1H helicopter in the works

Category: Aircraft

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VTOL
Helicopters
Autonomous Vehicles

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Dainese D-Air technology to hit the water

Anyone who has crewed on a racing yacht can tell you it can be a hard, thrilling, and potentially dangerous ride. With 2017 America's Cup racers expected to reach speed of up to 50 knots (57 mph, 92 km/h), getting a serious injury can be as easy as falling overboard, so Italy's Dainese Group is teaming with Emirates Team New Zealand to develop a new Sea-Guard life jacket that incorporates Dainese's D-Air automatic airbag technology that inflates special airbags when potentially dangerous situations are detected.

.. Continue Reading Dainese D-Air technology to hit the water

Category: Marine

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Yachts
EICMA 2016
Dainese
Safety

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Navy practices Orion crew module recovery

When the next Orion spacecraft splashes down, the mission will be far from over as the US Navy springs into action to safely recover the crew capsule. To practice for the day, the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS San Diego (LPD 22) in conjunction with NASA completed a successful rehearsal in the Pacific Ocean of splashdown recovery operations of the Orion crew module on November 1.

.. Continue Reading Navy practices Orion crew module recovery

Category: Space

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US Navy
Orion Spacecraft
NASA

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