Saturday, June 01, 2013

Saturday Morning Videos

Several videos this morning

Dekko was founded on the belief that society is entering an amazing transition in how we experience our technology. Smartphones and Tablets ushered in the first taste of a Post-PC world and Wearable computers, sensors and interfaces are changing our expectations of where an App actually "runs". We are beginning to experience entertainment, local information & social interactions through natural interfaces that are not just "tiny PCs" but are something else entirely. Multi-sensor devices will provide the hardware foundation for the real world to become the operating system. Apps will run outside the box. We are moving away from intermediated interfaces driven by keyboards and mice towards more natural and direct touch, gesture, motion and voice interactions. Our most powerful sense, Vision, will also have its natural interface, as content is rendered in the world, in a truly natural manner. Dekko is working to let us see our content in the world, through the looking glass, not just on the screen. This visual layer is the missing piece of the real world os.  
While consumer cameras are inspired from the single-lens mammalian eye, most animal species use compound eyes, which consist of a dense mosaic of tiny eyes. Compared to single-lens eyes, compound eyes offer lower resolution, but significantly larger fields of view, thin package, and with negligible distortion, all features which are very useful for motion detection in tasks such as collision avoidance, distance estimation, take-off and landing. Attempts have recently been made to develop artificial compound eyes, but none of the solutions proposed so far included fast motion detection in a very large range of illuminations as insects do. The novel curved artificial compound eye (CurvACE) features a panoramic, hemispherical field of view of 180°x60°, with a resolution identical to that of the fruitfly in less than 1 mm thickness. Additionally, it can extract images at 300 frames per second, 3 times faster than fruitfly, and includes neuromorphic photoreceptors that allow motion perception in a wide range of environments from a sunny day to moon light (~1 lux). Furthermore, the artificial compound eye possesses embedded and programmable vision processing, which allows customizable integration in a broad range of applications where motion detection is important, such as mobile (micro)robots/micro air vehicles (MAVs), home automation, surveillance, medical instruments, prosthetic devices, and smart clothing. Further info: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/05/16/1219068110.abstract Floreano et al. "Miniature curved artificial compound eyes", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2013, available
Synthetic Biology Meets Analog Circuitry (Brainstorm Ep141)
Published on May 27, 2013 Brandon Ivey and Sean Casey got inside of a violent wedge tornado today. Brandon shot this insane footage of the TIV2 (tornado intercept vehicle) inside of a violent wedge tornado northeast of Smith Center, Kansas over eastern Smith County. Wind speeds were 150 to 175 EF3 to EF4 before the tornado ripped the instruments off the top of the TIV. To license this footage, contact http://www.StormChasingVideo.com
Skydiver's near impact and landing on top of a mountain. Location: Ambri - Switzerland The purpose of this video is to show the importance of spotting, no matter where you jump but in particular in the mountains. The group was the 2nd to exit, the drop was at the wrong place (not a pilot error though) and nobody noticed until it was almost too late. It was pure coincidence and only the quick reaction by the skydivers involved prevented injuries or worse. I uploaded this video in order to allow anyone interested to learn from it and to help other people to prevent making the same mistakes. Some of you might say: "of course, I always spot anyway" but in fact, a lot of people don't, especially if they're not the first (group) exiting. Always spot!!! It doesn't cost you anything, certainly not your life! Blue skies N. P.S.: 1. we know what went wrong so there's no need to remind us :-) 2. Audibles as well as AADs don't help in a situation like this as they are set to the pressure level of the landing area more than 4.000 ft lower. 3. Deploying the reserve would have been the right choice (faster, more reliable). However, as you can see, there was NO time for thinking and thus your body intuitively and automatically does what it always does: pull the main

h/t Reddit.


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