ASIMO introduces Honda Insight Hybrid!

 

Honda's new hybrid car, 2010 Honda Insight-II made its European debut at the Geneva International Auto show last week. The most important part of the launch was involvement of a humanoid robot! Yes, it was ASIMO, the World's most advanced humanoid robot from Honda, that officially introduced the Insight hybrid in the Geneva Motor Show which is now in its 79th year.

"I'm really interested in hybrid technology," the bubble-headed robot said in a boyish voice after being introduced by a Honda spokesman at the company's booth at the show. During a 20-minute presentation for journalists ASIMO fetched two green teas and stood diligently by the Insight on the stage as the spokesman chatted with an engineer about the merits of Honda's first low-cost hybrid car.

ASIMO also greeted Hans-Rudolf Merz, President of the Swiss Confederation, at the Honda stand at the Geneva Motor Show. After hearing a short explanation about the new Insight Hybrid, President Merz and ASIMO shook hands in front of a crowd of photographers.

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First Commercially Cloned Dog

A couple in Florida is now the proud owner of the World's first commercially cloned dog. The Boca Raton couple have had their pet dog cloned, after it died from cancer.  On Monday,  January 26th, Lancey was hand delivered to the Ottos by Lou Hawthorne, chairman of BioArts International, a California based biotechnology company.  It is reported that the couple paid  $155,000 to the California firm for the clone of their pet dog.

Edgar and Nina Otto thought about cloning Sir Lancelot, their pet dog, about five years ago. Sir Lancelot died from a type of cancer last year. So, it was a good time to get the clone. Sir Lancelot's DNA sample was sent to the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in Seoul, South Korea, which provides cloning services to BioArts. Researchers in Seoul put Sir Lancelot's DNA into an egg, and Lancey was born November 18, 2008.

The Ottos were one of five families to bid and win a BioArts auction for a chance to clone their pet dog, according to a BioArts press release. Lancey is the world's first commercially cloned dog and the Ottos are the first of six current clients to receive their clone from BioArts.

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Chinese Flying Saucer

Finally, we will be able to see men-made flying saucers in our skies! A Chinese company has invented a prototype flying saucer that can hover in the sky at heights upto 3,200 feet and can be controlled remotely. The unmanned flying saucer is 1.2 metres (4 feet) in diameter and is able to take off and land vertically. Its top speed is 80 km (50 miles) per hour.

Harbin Smart Special Aerocraft Co Ltd, the company who invented this interesting flying saucer has successfully tested it in the skies above Harbin City in China's Heilongjiang Province. It is reported that the company has spent 28 million yuan (about 4.1 million dollars) in the project and it took them 12 years to develop the prototype flying saucer. This propeller driven, remotely controlled flying saucer can be used for aerial photography, geological surveys and emergency lighting. Link

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The WorldWide Telescope

A good news for star grazers! After years of research and testing, Microsoft Corp has released the WorldWide Telescope software for public download. This unique software will allow everyone to easily explore galaxies, star system and other distant planets. So, the WorldWide Telescope will provide you free tours of the space!

But, how this free software will work? Actually, the WorldWide Telescope takes images from several world-class telescopes including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Then it combines them together into a seamless virtual night sky you can navigate with the help of your mouse. You can click on celestial objects to get more information, from the program itself or from the Web. Even you can figure out what the night sky will look like from your location.

Microsoft said it will release the WorldWide Telescope free of charge as a tribute to Jim Gray, a Microsoft researcher who went missing off the coast of California while sailing last year. Gray worked on projects with astronomers to organize the vast amounts of data and images being pulled from satellites.

You can download the WorldWide Telescope from www.worldwidetelescope.org.

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Hi-tech helmet for RAF fighter pilots

A new Terminator? No! This is a next generation RAF fighter pilots! Pilots flying the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will have an astonishing array of technology encasing their heads - enabling them to see right through their own aircraft fuselage to the ground below.

A series of cameras on the outside of the stealth warplane feed high-resolution images into the helmet, including infra-red images at night, which are then projected on to the inside of the pilot's visor. Special sensors inside the cockpit track the movement of the helmet, so that when the pilot turns his head his view of the skies or ground outside changes accordingly.

When he looks down he sees not his own feet on the cockpit floor but the ground below, slipping past at hundreds of miles per hour. On-board computers also feed in essential flight and combat data on to the display, as well as superimposing target symbols to locate enemy and friendly aircraft or ground targets, even if they are too far away to see with the naked eye.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "The computerised symbology will be displayed directly on to the pilot's visors, providing the pilot with cues for flying, navigatingand fighting the aircraft. It even will superimpose infra-red imagery on to the visor to allow the pilot to look through the cockpit floor at night and see the world below - like something out of Terminator." Link

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