Crave

Researchers at Japan's Chiba University are developing a hummingbird-style flying robot that could be used to find people trapped in collapsed buildings, search for criminals, or even explore other planets.

Engineering professor Hiroshi Liu said the micro air vehicle, or MAV, is equipped with a mini motor that allows it to flap its wings up to 30 times per second--roughly in the same range as a hummingbird.

(Credit: Chiba University)

The remote-controlled ornithopter is nearly 4 inches long and weighs about 0.09 ounces. Its rechargeable battery allows for six minutes of flying time, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.

It has four polyethylene wings and apparently can be more stable in figure-eight flight than a helicopter, though Liu has yet to make it hover in mid-air.

In earthquake-prone Japan, finding victims in destroyed buildings could be one application of the ornithopter. Liu said it could also be used to track criminals or explore Mars from the air.

Other MAVs in development already have indoor navigation, outdoor navigation, and features that mimic nature. Liu's robot, though, is one of the smallest and most lightweight in its class. He plans to equip it with a tiny camera in the next few months.

It would then be in competition with the DelFly Micro, a similar-sized ornithopter from Delft University of Technology that already carries a camera. The Dutch machine is slightly heavier at 0.1 ounces and can only fly for three minutes. Check out a video of it here.

The Chiba University project cost has already topped $2 million. Liu has drawn inspiration from nature in the design and optimization of MAV wings, running biomechanical simulation models on a supercomputer to find the best wing shape.

(Via Physorg and Agence France-Presse)

I have no doubt musicians will continue to perform throughout the 2010s, but they'll make less and less money from recorded music. The passion to make and sell recorded music is already starting to wane.

Big record labels will be increasingly irrelevant so I wouldn't be surprised if Warner, Universal, Sony/BMG, and EMI eventually merge into one mega-label to sell and license back-catalog music. New music, that's another story. Already established bands, like Radiohead, have already proved the point: they don't need record companies anymore. They can sell their music directly to fans.

Will anybody be making 'albums' in 2020?

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)

But that model won't work for smaller groups. Recorded music for them may survive purely as a promotional tool, as fewer and fewer bands have any expectation of seeing recording as a potential source of income. Buying music, in physical form or by legal download, doesn't seem to have much of a future. So why would a band make an effort to make music people would want to listen to decades from now? The art of making albums--a suite of songs if you will--may become a rare pursuit.

"Please, Mommy, tell me this baby is going back to the hospital!"

(Credit: University of Tsukuba)

We've written about creepy robot children before, but none as lachrymose as Yotaro, an interactive baby-bot that actually sheds tears when tired.

"No Tommy, real babies don't come with electronic parts."

(Credit: University of Tsukuba)

Created in the Uchiyama Lab at Japan's University of Tsukuba, Yotaro is meant to be a baby simulator for teaching new parents and about-to-be-older-siblings the ways of babyhood. As crying is obviously a big part of infancy, warm water comes out of a small opening in the interactive screen that doubles as Yotaro's touch-sensitive face.

Yotaro, just a concept for now, is not a standalone robot, as a rather extensive set of devices must be attached for it to perform its baby-like functions.

The computer controlling Yotaro's changing facial expressions is external, the water that serves as the tired-baby tears is stored in a separate tank, and sensors direct Yotaro's "emotional" responses (tickling Yotaro's belly, for example, results in it wiggling its motorized legs under the blanket). A projector under the bed projects the appropriate countenance upward onto Yotaro's 2D face, while a speaker offers up the right baby sounds.

All that hardware kind of makes you long for the old-fashioned mannequin baby, doesn't it?

Thanks to designboom for bringing Yotaro to our attention and to my erai CNET colleague Takayuki Sakurai for translating the Japanese on the University of Tsukuba Web site. Now please excuse us while we go cry some very real adult tears.

CNET calls the Logitech Harmony One "arguably the best consumer remote control currently available," and I agree. I've owned one for about two years, and it's without a doubt my favorite remote ever.

Alas, Logitech still sells it for $250, same as when it debuted in early 2008. But right now, CompUSA is offering the Harmony One for $139.99 shipped.

(If this deal sounds a bit familiar, that's because I posted a similar one back in October--but the price then was $150, and it was a refurb. This one's brand-new!)

The Harmony's claim to fame is a simple (relatively speaking) Web-based interface for setting up your devices, programming "activities" (aka macros), and so on.

This particular model features a color touch screen, a perfect button layout, and a docking station that keeps the rechargeable battery topped off.

CNET's review (and the above video) should tell you everything you need to know about the Harmony One. For what it's worth, CompUSA customers rated it 5 stars on average, while some 900 Amazon buyers rated it 4.5 stars. Needless to say, it's a winner.

Thus, if you're in the market for the ultimate universal remote, this is the best deal I've seen yet. (If you know of a better one, be sure to mention it in the comments!)

A group of researchers from Stanford University have figured out a way to transform ordinary copy paper into storage units for electricity.

This week a group led by Yi Cui, professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford, demonstrated (see video) the use of an ink consisting of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires. Once dipped in the ink and then baked, ordinary paper turns into a black paper that can act as a battery or supercapacitor. The paper retains its ability to hold a charge regardless of whether it's bent, crumpled, or rolled.

The ink looks identical to common India ink, which makes sense given the fact that Cui's ink is also made of carbon, albeit carbon nanotubes.

Cui and his team tried the ink on plastic, but found paper to be preferable because of its absorbent properties and its ability to endure crumpling. The ink could also be used as paint to create conductive walls.

The nanotechnology paper would have applications in electricity storage devices connecting to electrical grids, and could last through 40,000 charge/recharge cycles, according to Cui.

Cui said the nanomaterial transfers electricity more efficiently than normal conductors. He sees the paper providing a lightweight storage solution for energy sources, like wind and solar, which contend with the problem of not always being available on-demand. It could also be used in hybrid or all-electric cars.

Ink or printing has become a common method for scientists using nanotechnology to convey unusual properties onto ordinary objects. Innovalight has developed a proprietary silicon ink for ink-jet-manufacturing solar cells. In 2007, IBM and ETH Zurich researchers developed a method for "printing" molecules.

Cui's Stanford team for the ink project includes Liangbing Hu and JangWook Choi, both post doctoral scholars, and Yuan Yang, a graduate student.

Credit: Jack Hubbard/Standford News Service

Why did it take take Blu-ray two years to catch up to HD DVD?

(Credit: Amazon)

Universal is set to roll out the first Blu-ray/DVD "flipper discs"--a single, dual-sided disc that contains Blu-ray on one side and DVD on the other. The "Bourne" trilogy ("Identity," "Supremacy," "Ultimatum") will be the first movies to get the dual-sided treatment, with all three discs coming out on January 19.

The flipper discs are a good idea, as one of the biggest drawbacks to Blu-ray is that new movies you buy can't be played in DVD players. That loss of flexibility can be a real pain in locations other than your home theater (car, plane, bedroom), where you probably haven't upgraded to Blu-ray yet.

On the other hand, the flipper discs aren't quite as attractive an option as the increasingly popular Blu-ray-DVD combo packages that include separate discs for both formats. Overall, Blu-ray-DVD combo packages offer more value--you do get two discs to take anywhere you like. The only advantage flipper discs might have is if they can drive down the price of the movies.

HD DVD fanboys (somehow they still exist) will also be quick to point out that this is hardly new technology. HD DVD/DVD combo discs were around back in 2007; in that sense, it's unbelievable that it took Blu-ray this long to get onboard with a good idea.

Add another robot to the list of helping bots for seniors. A robot named Charlie rolled into a New Zealand retirement village on Monday to take residents' vital signs, deliver their medication reminders, and call for assistance if they fall.

Charlie's trial stint at Selwyn Retirement Village in Auckland's Point Chevalier is, in part, a response to a University of Auckland study exploring seniors' attitudes toward robots.

The study--part of a three-year "HealthBots" collaboration by the University of Auckland and Korea's Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute--collated the opinions of Selwyn Retirement Village residents, their families, and staff on what tasks health care robots could perform and what the mechanical helpers should look like.

Results showed respondents felt most comfortable with robots taking vital signs such as blood pressure, calling for help, lifting heavy objects, cleaning, and making phone calls to a doctor or nurse. They did not identify personal care, medical advice, and assessing emotions as tasks they'd like to see taken over by robots.

Posing with Charlie the robot are HealthBots team members (from left) Rebecca Stafford, Bruce MacDonald, and Elizabeth Broadbent.

(Credit: University of Auckland)

As far as physical appearance, residents and staff indicated they preferred a "middle-age robot" with a clear voice, though they didn't have a preference for male or female features. The robot shouldn't be too human-like, they suggested, with some residents explicitly saying they'd rather be tended to by a robot without a face. The preferred design was silver and around 4 feet tall, so the robot was not too imposing, with wheels and a screen.

Enter Charlie, which pretty much fits that description. ... Read more

"9" will be one of the new Blu-ray titles to feature iPhone interactivity.

(Credit: Amazon)

Excluding the recent Netflix PS3 disc, BD-Live has been a bust. Still, we give the movie studios credit for not completely abandoning the technology yet, and according to a recent Video Business story, Universal will feature iPhone interactivity on many several releases, "including Bruno, Public Enemies, 9, and Inglourious Basterds."

While it's easy to write it off as a gimmick, the iPhone functionality (called "Pocket Blu") is aimed at overcoming one of the biggest hurdles to interactive content, which is the painful process of entering text using a standard Blu-ray remote. While iPhone functionality won't solve that problem for Blu-ray owners that don't own iPhones, it's probably the easiest workaround at this stage. (We would have loved if Blu-ray players included a remote with a built-in keyboard, similar to Vizio's bluetooth remote.)

Universal is also planning to offer some exclusive content for iPhone users. We've complained about this before, but there's really no reason to limit that content to iPhone users (or even BD-Live users), since there's nearly always extra capacity on the disc for the bonus features.

Perhaps the best news is hidden at the bottom of the Video Business article; Universal says new titles will allows users to view much of the BD-Live content without having to register first. BD-Live has plenty of problems, but nothing kills enthusiasm faster than having to enter an e-mail address using an onscreen keyboard and a Blu-ray remote.

The maple seed device seen next to actual samara seeds.

(Credit: Eric Schurr/A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland)

Remember as a kid being entertained by how maple tree seeds (or samara fruit) would spin like helicopters as they fell around you in the fall? I do, and that's why I love this prototype rotorcraft by graduate students at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering.

It's a remote-controlled monocopter with a design based heavily on the aerodynamic and geometric properties of maple seeds. Researchers have tried for years to create an unmanned aerial vehicle that could mimic maple seeds' spiraling fall. The results out of Maryland are awesome.

As you can see in the video after the jump, the patent-pending device uses just one blade to take off, as well as a stabilizer to keep it steady. It looks weird, but it works. This is a great example of nature influencing science.

The students say they've created he world's smallest controllable single-winged rotorcraft, with the most minuscule having a maximum dimension of about 3.7 inches and a wing equal in size to a natural samara. Graduate student Evan Ulrich says he thinks the 'copter could be mass produced as a toy for less than $100, which even sounds high to us given that one of the parts experimented with is a vibrating motor from a pager.

There could also be military or rescue applications: a flyer fitted with a small camera could easily be sent across an area looking for survivors--or targets.

But no matter what the flyer ends up being used for, one thing is sure: I want one badly.