Thursday, April 17. 2014Google's Project Loon balloon goes around the world in 22 days | #unmanned #Internet
Via Computed·Blg via PCWorld -----
When Jules Verne wrote Around the World in Eighty Days, this probably isn’t what he had in mind: Google’s Project Loon announced last week one of its balloons had circumnavigated the Earth in 22 days. Granted, we’re not talking a grand tour of the world here: The balloon flew in a loop over the open ocean surrounding Antarctica, starting at New Zealand. According to the Project Loon team, it was the latest accomplishment for the balloon fleet, which just achieved 500,000 kilometers of flight.
While it may seem like fun and games, Project Loon’s larger goal is to use high-altitude balloons to “connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters.” Currently, the project is test-flying balloons to learn more about wind patterns, and to test its balloon designs. In the past nine months, the project team has used data it’s accumulated during test flights to “refine our prediction models and are now able to forecast balloon trajectories twice as far in advance.” It also modified the balloon’s air pump (which pumps air in and out of the balloon) to operate more efficiently, which in turn helped the balloon stay on course in this latest test run. Project Loon’s next step toward universal Internet connection is to create “a ring of uninterrupted connectivity around the 40th southern parallel,” which it expects to pull off sometime this year.
Thursday, April 03. 2014Snowden's mediated mobility | #tele-
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Culture & society, Interaction design
at
08:31
Defined tags for this entry: culture & society, interaction design, mediated, presence, robotics, tele-
Thursday, December 05. 2013Why Is Google Buying So Many Robot Startups? | #robotics
-----
Forget robotic product delivery. As usual for Google, I suspect it’s all about the data.
Google-bot: The M1 Mobile Manipulator from Meka, one of several robot companies acquired recently by Google.
Google has quietly bought seven robotics companies, and has given Andy Rubin, the man who originally led the Android project, the job of developing Google’s first robot army. And so, the New York Times suggests it might only be a few years before a Google robot driving in a Google car is delivering products to your door. I somehow doubt Google has anything quite so futuristic in mind. I think the effort is quite similar to both Google’s self-driving car endeavor and its Android project. In other words, it’s all about gaining a dominant position in markets where data is about to explode. Take Google’s self-driving cars. Contrary to common perception, the company didn’t “invent” this technology; most carmakers were already working on autonomous system when Google got involved, and academic researchers had made dramatic recent progress—propelled in large part by several DARPA challenges (see “Driverless Cars are Further Away than You Think”). Google just saw that this was where the automotive industry was headed, and realized that the advent of automation, telematics, and communication would mean a tsunami of data that it could both supply and profit from. Given that many of us spend several hours a day in automobiles, this data could help Google learn more about users and tailor its products accordingly. Similarly, I suspect Google has recognized that a new generation of smarter, safer, industrial robots is rapidly emerging (see “This Robot Could Transform Manufacturing” and “Why This Might be the Model-T of Workplace Robots”), and it’s realized that these bots could have a huge impact both at work and at home. Whoever provides the software that controls and manages these robots not only stands to make a fortune by selling that software; they will have access to a vast new repository of data about how we live and work. In this sense, I think Google is being true to its stated mission: “to organize the world’s information”—although it’s worth noting that in an increasingly connected and data-rich world that could mean seeking to organize just about every aspect of our lives. Luckily for Google, it may soon have a robot army to help it keep everything in order.
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Culture & society, Science & technology
at
09:04
Defined tags for this entry: artificial reality, culture & society, data, monitoring, product, research, robotics, science & technology
Saturday, November 23. 2013Vers une nouvelle approche du drone? | #drones
Note: here comes the "peace drone"!
Via Transit-City -----
Dans le cadre de l'exposition "Air Right" montée par le Drone Research Lab, on peut découvrir un joyeux et très conceptuel Peace Drone censé pouvoir lutter contre la violence non pas tant grâce à sa bonne bouille hilare que par sa capacité à distribuer par les airs de l'oxycotin, un puissant analgésique anti-douleur utilisé par certains toxicos comme une drogue euphorisante.
En découvrant ce projet je n'ai pas pu m'empêcher de penser à la parade imaginée par le Joker dans le Batman de Tim Burton, au cours de laquelle il espère pouvoir diffuser son fameux gaz vert, l'Hilarex, pour prendre le contrôle de Gotham City. Ou quand une certaine pop culture permet d'aborder un peu autrement les nouvelles fonctions et les nouvelles formes possibles des drones et de leurs dérivés dans le futur. Pour rester dans le ludique, voir par exemple là pour les drones, et là pour les ballons. Related Links:Wednesday, October 30. 2013Le drone, objet violent non identifié | #drones
Via Le Temps (thx Nicolas Besson for the link) ----- Par Réda Benkirane Dans un livre pionnier, «Théorie du drone», le philosophe français Grégoire Chamayou analyse le rôle grandissant du drone dans la guerre moderne, et sur ce qu’il changera en termes de géopolitique et de surveillance globale.
Grégoire Chamayou, Editions La Fabrique, 363 pages.
Le drone est un «objet violent non identifié» qui est en train de miner le concept de guerre tel qu’on le connaît depuis Sun Tzu jusqu’à Clausewitz. Dans une œuvre de pionnier, le philosophe français Grégoire Chamayou décode cet objet qui soulève quantité de questions relatives à la stratégie, à la violence armée, à l’éthique de la guerre et de la paix, à la souveraineté et au droit. Le drone et ses clones robotiques ouvrent au sein des conflits violents une vaste terra incognita totalement impensée par le droit international et les lois immémoriales de la guerre. Dans un ouvrage magistral, le philosophe entreprend la toute première réflexion sur cette nouvelle forme de violence, née de la généralisation d’un gadget militaire, le drone, ce véhicule terrestre, naval ou aéronautique sans homme à son bord (unmanned). Les drones Predator et Reaper ont la particularité de voler à plus de 6000 mètres d’altitude et d’être télécommandés par des individus souvent civils (faut-il les considérer comme des combattants?) depuis une salle de contrôle informatique du Nevada. D’un clic de souris, un téléopérateur appuie sur une gâchette et déclenche un missile distant de milliers de kilomètres qui immédiatement s’abat sur un village du Pakistan, du Yémen ou de Somalie. Le drone est «l’œil de Dieu», il entend et intercepte toutes sortes de données qu’il fusionne (data fusion) et archive à la volée: en une année, il a généré l’équivalent de 24 années d’enregistrements vidéo. Cette Théorie du drone a le mérite d’informer sur la mutation majeure des conflits violents entamée sous les présidences Bush et adoptée par l’administration d’Obama. Le drone et la suite des engins tueurs qui se profilent à l’horizon – les Etats-Unis disposent de 6000 drones et travaillent à des avions de chasse sans pilote pour 2030 – transforment une tactique adjacente en stratégie globale, et font de l’anti-terrorisme et de la politique sécuritaire leur doctrine de combat du siècle. Initiés par les Israéliens, premiers adeptes de l’euphémique devise «personne ne meurt sauf l’ennemi», puis repris par les «neocons» américains, les drones font le miel de l’équipe d’Obama, pour qui «tuer vaut mieux que capturer», liquider par avance les suspects terroristes étant préférable à leur enfermement à Guantanamo. L’auteur poursuit sa démonstration sur l’imprécision et la contre-productivité du drone; du fait de l’altitude à laquelle il opère, son rayon létal est de 20 mètres, tandis que celui d’une grenade est de 3 mètres. Seule la munition classique peut être véritablement considérée comme une «arme chirurgicale» du point de vue de sa précision létale. Etant donné les milliers de morts civils qu’ils ont occasionnés, les drones ont aussi le désavantage de rallier toujours plus les populations locales aux groupuscules terroristes. L’auteur montre comment la diminution croissante des morts des militaires et l’extension continue du «dommage collatéral» – ce mot qui cache depuis la fin de la Guerre froide la liquidation informelle de civils non combattants – procèdent de l’assomption suivante: dès qu’un actant de «l’axe du mal» est identifié, son réseau social fait de facto partie du c(h)amp du mal que l’on pourra vitrifier depuis une interface informatique. Certains avancent même l’idéal déréalisant que la robotique létale constituerait l’«arme humanitaire» par excellence et l’auteur fait observer combien l’euphémisation des enjeux militaires est légitimée par la rhétorique du care. Chamayou voit dans la novlangue sur le militaire humanitaire les débuts d’une politique «humilitaire». La géopolitique est en train de laisser place à une aéropolitique. La guerre n’est plus un affrontement ni un duel entre parties combattantes sur un territoire délimité, mais une «chasse à l’homme», où un prédateur poursuit partout et tout le temps une proie humaine. Les notions de temporalité, de territorialité, de frontière, d’éthique guerrière et de droit humanitaire sont rendues obsolètes par ces armes low cost et high-tech. L’auteur prédit un avenir fait de robots-insectes miniaturisés – les nanotechnologies aidant – concourant à la mise en place d’un système panoptique complet qui risque d’enserrer les Etats et les citoyens. Cet ouvrage, d’ores et déjà incontournable, en appelle à une prise de conscience politique face à la déshumanisation en cours derrière ce nouvel art de surveiller, d’intercepter et d’anéantir.
Related Links:Personal comment: Following my recent post about drones (as scanning devices), there are obviously different types of drones and like any other technology, it looks like that this one too has two sides... We are now probably in need of some renewed "Contrat Social" that would take into account additional "parameters" (between humans and machines/technologies + between humans and our planet --Contrat naturel--).
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Culture & society, Science & technology, Territory
at
09:36
Defined tags for this entry: books, culture & society, politics, robotics, science & technology, surveillance, territory, thinkers, thinking, war
Tuesday, October 29. 2013eBee drones create 3D model of the Matterhorn | #drones #scan
Via Treehhugger ----- The possible applications for drones are growing every day. From watching out for poachers in wildlife parks in Africa to delivering textbooks to students, the autonomous flying machines are tackling problems both big and small. The ability for the drones to have onboard sensors and HD cameras makes them ideal tools for mapping and surveillance. Taking that idea to the extreme, engineers from senseFly, partnered with Drone Adventures, Pix4D and Mapbox, were able to create a digital model of the Matterhorn with a 20-cm resolution in three dimensions. Two teams took the company's eBee drones to the mountain with Team 1 hiking to the summit and launching the devices to fly around the top of the peak. Team 2 launched eBees from the bottom of the mountain to cover the lower parts of the mountain.
© senseFly
SenseFly says, "The main challenges successfully overcome were to demonstrate the mapping capabilities of minidrones at a very high altitude and in mountainous terrain where 3D flight planning is essential, all the while coping with the turbulences typically encountered in mountainous environments." For the project, 11 flights were made totaling 340 minutes. The drones took 2,188 photos and created an HD point-cloud with 3 million datapoints. The company's eMotion2 software provided the ground control for the flights, automatically creating flight paths for the multiple drones.
© senseFly
You can watch a video about the project below and see how the mapping and flight planning took place.
Related Links:Monday, June 17. 2013Alive 2013
An interesting conference that will take place at the ETHZ CAAD department next July that I'm fowarding here:
--------------- Via DARCH - ETHZ By Manuel Kretzer
Dear friends, colleagues and students, I'm happy to invite you to join us for the - international symposium on adaptive architecture
The full day event will be take place on July 8th, 2013 / 9:00 - 18:00 at the Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design ETH Zürich-Hönggerberg, HPZ Floor F. Speakers include: Prof. Ludger Hovestadt (ETH Zürich, CH) | Prof. Philip Beesley (University of Waterloo, CA) | Prof. Kas Oosterhuis (TU Delft, NL) Martina Decker (DeckerYeadon, US) | Claudia Pasquero (ecoLogicStudio, UK) | Manuel Kretzer (ETH Zürich, CH) Tomasz Jaskiewicz (TU Delft, NL) | Jason Bruges (Jason Bruges Studio, UK) | Areti Markopoulou (IAAC, ES) | Ruairi Glynn (UCL, UK) Simon Schleicher (Universität Stuttgart, DE) | John Sarik (Columbia University, US) | Stefan Dulman (Hive Systems, NL) More info on the speakers, the detailed program, location and registration can be found on the event's website and the attached flyer. www.alive2013.wordpress.com The symposium is free of charge however registration until July 3rd, 2013 is obligatory. Seats are limited. http://alive13.eventbrite.com
The event is organised by Manuel Kretzer and Tomasz Jaskiewicz, hosted by the Chair for CAAD and supported through the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Architecture, Interaction design, Science & technology
at
08:49
Defined tags for this entry: architects, architecture, automation, conferences, generative, interaction design, research, robotics, science & technology, teaching
Monday, February 11. 2013MeCam $49 flying camera concept follows you around, streams video to your phone
Via Computed By via liliputing -----
Always Innovating is working on a tiny flying video camera called the MeCam. The camera is designed to follow you around and stream live video to your smartphone, allowing you to upload videos to YouTube, Facebook, or other sites. And Always Innovating thinks the MeCam could eventually sell for just $49.
The camera is docked in a nano copter with 4 spinning rotors to keep it aloft. There are 14 different sensors which help the copter detect objects around it so it won’t bump into walls, people. or anything else. Always Innovating also includes stabilization technology so that videos shouldn’t look too shaky. Interestingly, there’s no remote control. Instead, you can control the MeCam in one of two ways. You can speak voice commands to tell it, for instance, to move up or down. Or you can enable the “follow-me” feature which tells the camera to just follow you around while shooting paparazzi-style video. The MeCam features an Always Innovating module with an ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 1GB of RAM, WiFI, and Bluetooth. The company hopes to license the design so that products based on the MeCam will hit the streets in early 2014. If Always Innovating sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the same company that brought us the modular Touch Book and Smart Book products a few years ago. If the MeCam name sounds familiar, on the other hand, it’s probably worth pointing out that the Always Innovating flying camera is not related the wearable camera that failed to come close to meeting its fundraising goals last year.
Personal comment: Will each of us be soon sourrounded by its own arrow of little flying devices / personal agents? Like swarm of electronic flies. Monday, December 03. 2012Ban ‘Killer Robots’ Before It’s Too Late
Via Human Rights Watch via Computed | Blg ----- (Washington, DC) – Governments should pre-emptively ban fully autonomous weapons because of the danger they pose to civilians in armed conflict, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. These future weapons, sometimes called “killer robots,” would be able to choose and fire on targets without human intervention.
The United Kingdom’s Taranis combat aircraft, whose prototype was unveiled in 2010, is designed strike distant targets, “even in another continent.” While the Ministry of Defence has stated that humans will remain in the loop, the Taranis exemplifies the move toward increased autonomy. © 2010 AP Photo
The South Korean SGR-1 sentry robot, a precursor to a fully autonomous weapon, can detect people in the Demilitarized Zone and, if a human grants the command, fire its weapons. The robot is shown here during a test with a surrendering enemy soldier. © 2007 Getty Images
“Losing Humanity” is the first major publication about fully autonomous weapons by a nongovernmental organization and is based on extensive research into the law, technology, and ethics of these proposed weapons. It is jointly published by Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic.
“It is essential to stop the development of killer robots before they show up in national arsenals,” Goose said. “As countries become more invested in this technology, it will become harder to persuade them to give it up.”
Personal comment: It has obviously some deep link (contradiction) with the "Three Laws of Robotics" ... Wednesday, October 24. 2012Get movingRelated Links:Personal comment: Tony Dunne & Fiona Raby would certainly produce a far less slick scenario for this type of robotic product (they would probably rather even not design such a functional robot at all ;)). But still, it is now the third time that I see an ad for this type of product and I find it interesting to envision streets of cities filled with "ghosts" of remote citizens from distant cities or countrysides (that won't be the countryside anymore therefore) hanging around in the form of robots. Therefore, we'll have to design cities and architectures for its many inhabitants including now, robots.
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Culture & society, Science & technology
at
08:46
Defined tags for this entry: artificial reality, culture & society, design (products), devices, robotics, science & technology, tele-
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fabric | rblgThis blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research. We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings. Most articles concern the intertwined fields of architecture, territory, art, interaction design, thinking and science. From time to time, we also publish documentation about our own work and research, immersed among these related resources and inspirations. This website is used by fabric | ch as archive, references and resources. It is shared with all those interested in the same topics as we are, in the hope that they will also find valuable references and content in it.
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