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Fleye could be your personal autonomous robot drone
The Fleye is claimed to be the world's safest drone. It may look like a flying soccer ball, but its shape is designed to keep all the moving parts well out of harm's way and make it a bit more resistant to crash damage. It's not just design that sets the Fleye apart though. A dual core Linux brain with an open SDK (software development kit) and API (application program interface) make this machine less like a conventional drone and more like a flying development platform.
Admit it. The drones of today look nothing like the personal flying robots we imagined in our youth. In fact, in this regard, they've been somewhat disappointing. Instead of the helpful companion doing our bidding, getting our drones to do anything requires our full and complete engagement. In other words, our drones still aren't following us home carrying our groceries.
Enter the Fleye. While not quite at the "helpful companion" level, this new entry into the exploding drone market is definitely different and, with the help of the developer community, might even prove to go beyond a fun toy to something useful.
To get the Fleye to fly, the Belgium-based development team has launched the project on Kickstarter. While the standard specs of the Fleye aren't very exciting when compared to those of some other drones (such as its 1080p/30 fps camera and 10-minute flight time), this isn't what's interesting.
On the functional side the Fleye's design takes a cue from industrial and defense UAVs, relying on something called a "ducted fan" concept. Unlike most drones on the market that have multiple open rotors, the Fleye's lift is generated by a single shielded propeller with four control vanes providing directional control. This means that users can safely push it around, touch or hold it, or even bump into it without worrying about that spinning prop causing harm.
The Fleye is designed to work in conjunction with an iOS or Android app, but is more "set it and forget it" than "buy it and fly it". The drone sports an array of sensors including an accelerometer, gyroscope, altimeter, GPS, sonar, optical flow, and a magnetometer, so right out of the box, the Fleye can track you, take 360-degree images or fly other preplanned autonomous missions at the tap of an icon. Basically all you need to do is power it up, open the app, choose what you want your drone to do, and toss it into the air.
But don't be deceived by the claimed simplicity and ease of use for the novice. Though the Fleye may work for anyone, it's built to be hacked and developers who want to get busy with small flying robots are clearly being targeted by the company. In fact, the creators have indicated that it intends to have an application marketplace for software developers.
"A machine becomes a robot when it is capable of observing its environment and taking autonomous decision based on what it sees," the company states. "This is exactly what you can do with Fleye. You can write on-board applications that leverage the camera feed, perform computer vision tasks and control the drone based on the content of the image. Fleye runs Linux and supports OpenCV, a popular computer vision library."
The drone can be controlled remotely through its Wi-Fi connection using a JSON-over-UDP API. In other words, any device that can send messages – such as a game controller, smartphone or a computer – can communicate with the Fleye. The company is currently developing an API, and plans to provide various SDKs to make it easy to work with the aircraft.
The standard edition of the Fleye comes with an 800 MHz ARM A9 dual-core computer, 512 MB of RAM and a microSD slot for storage, which is more than enough for using the smartphone app and developing some simple programs. For those who really want to maximize power, the company is offering a special Developer, or Power, Edition reward that comes with a quad-core computer and 1 GB of RAM.
As of writing, all of the early bird Kickstarter perks have been snapped up. The lowest available pledges start at €799 (around US$875) for the Standard Edition, representing 30 percent off the expected retail price. If all goes to plan, shipping is expected to start in September 2016.
More information can be found in the pitch video below.
Sources: Fleye, Kickstarter
Source: http://www.gizmag.com/fleye-autonomous-personal-robot-drone/40765/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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