World's first pedal-powered ornithopter takes flight in Canada • The Register

World's first pedal-powered ornithopter takes flight in Canada • The Register

Canadian enthusiasts have finally achieved a feat that has eluded humanity's finest engineers since the time of Leonardo da Vinci - to build a machine, powered by a human pilot's muscles, which flies by flapping its wings: an ornithopter.

The ornithopter is the culmination of decades of effort at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) which has long studied flapping-wing flight and encouraged many of its students to work towards a human-powered example. The Institute's Professor James DeLaurier won an FAI “Diplôme d’Honneur” as long ago as 1991 for developing the world's first remotely-piloted, engined ornithopter.

Links: http://hpo.ornithopter.net/

New Supercomputer 'Sees' Well Enough to Drive a Car Someday

Navigating our way down the street is something most of us take for granted; we seem to recognize cars, other people, trees and lampposts instantaneously and without much thought. In fact, visually interpreting our environment as quickly as we do is an astonishing feat requiring an enormous number of computations -- which is just one reason that coming up with a computer-driven system that can mimic the human brain in visually recognizing objects has proven so difficult.

Link: Eugenio Culurciello's e-Lab
Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100915171544.htm

Cisco wil realtime-vertaling tijdens videobellen mogelijk maken | Electronics | Tweakers.net Nieuws

Cisco werkt aan technologie die het mogelijk moet maken om gesproken woord tijdens een videoconferentie in realtime te vertalen. In het lab zijn de eerste proeven geslaagd. De fabrikant probeert nu het achterliggende systeem te verfijnen.

Cisco wil realtime-vertaling tijdens videobellen mogelijk maken | Electronics | Tweakers.net Nieuws