A counselor from Cumbria, a coastal county in North West England, has suggested that drones be used to help control seagulls, which have become a nuisance for the seaside residents. Graham Roberts proposed that UAVs be used to destroy seagull eggs. Roberts is reportedly set to voice the proposal at a council meeting next week. “Anybody…
Proto Labs Launches Rapid Magnesium Injection Molding Service
Proto Labs has introduced magnesium injection molding into its current rapid manufacturing services. This advanced injection molding process enables product designers and engineers to prototype using the same materials and processes used for the final part production. In addition to prototypes, Proto Labs will offer production parts in quantities of up to 5,000+ with a…
Samsung Shows Off World’s Largest Hard Drive
Samsung revealed the world’s largest hard drive at the Flash Memory Summit on Aug. 11. The PM1633, available in 480GB, 960GB, 1.92 terabyte (TB) and 3.84 TB versions, is enabled by Samsung’s third generation of 3-dimentional Vertical NAND technology based on 48 layers of 3-bit multi-level-cell arrays. The PM1633 is designed for use by OEMs,…
World’s First Caster Models App Launched
CASTER CAD 3D is the world’s first app for iOS devices which enables users to configure, preview and download digital caster models. Providing Colson Group USA’s customers with a mobile digital 3D catalog delivers more freedom and flexibility for where and when they configure and specify casters. Additionally, this powerful tool will help Colson Group…
Macrofab Announced $2M in Seed Funding
MacroFab has announced a $2 million seed round of funding led by Techstars Ventures. The company will use the funds to grow its team and expand the software and manufacturing capabilities of the platform, including turnaround on turnkey prototypes in as little as 24 hours. “The traditional manufacturing process is broken,” said Chris Church, founder…
How Will Satellites Help Us Achieve Future Cities?
Industry experts discuss how we achieve future cities; watch as they talk about the benefits of satellites within the context of future cities. View more: Why Don’t We Have a Mars Colony Yet? Blame Nixon The IET Satellite Systems and Applications Network are holding a colloquium which will tackle the challenges of satellites and future…
Orbital ATK & Lockheed Join SpaceCom as Founding Sponsors
SpaceCom, the Space Commerce Conference and Exposition, has announced Lockheed Martin and Orbital ATK as founding sponsors for the November 17-19 event at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. They join other founding sponsors — including Boeing, CASIS, MEI Technologies, Satellite Applications Catapult and Wyle — in the growing list of organizations focused on the application of…
Onshape for Android: CAD for Wherever & Whenever Inspiration Strikes
Today’s engineers and designers carry their lives – their contacts, calendars, texts and emails – in their pockets and now they’ll be able to bring their CAD system wherever they go, too. Onshape for Android is the first professional 3D CAD system to run on Android phones and tablets. The new mobile release comes just…
Artist Grows Living Ear on His Arm
Stelarc, an artist and lead of the Alternate Anatomies Lab at Curtin University in Australia, has implanted an internet-connected ear on his arm. He has been working on the idea since 1996, but was only recently able to find a medical team willing to work on the extreme body modification. He envisions a future in…
Orion Begins Critical Design Review Milestone
NASA’s Orion Program kicked off its critical design review at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston the week of Aug. 3, a major program milestone that will ensure the spacecraft’s design is ready for its deep space missions atop NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. Orion, which successfully flew about 3,600 miles into space…
Fuel Economy for Ford C-Max Energi Most Apparent in City
Ford’s first dedicated hybrid for North American consumers, the C-Max gasoline-electric hybrid hatchback, is turning out to be an acquired taste. Sales are declining for the second straight year, lower gas prices have led the C-Max and other hybrids to lose their luster and Consumer Reports predicts the plug-in C-Max Energi’s reliability to be worse…
Deadly China Blast Disrupts World’s 10th Largest Port
Explosions that sent huge fireballs through China’s Tianjin port have disrupted the flow of cars, oil, iron ore and other items through the world’s 10th largest port. View more: Photos of the Day: Fiery Explosion at Chemical Warehouse; 50 Dead The blast sent shipping containers tumbling into one another, leaving them in bent, charred piles.…
Rescuers Pull 2 Bodies from Lagoon in Nigeria Chopper Crash
Rescuers pulled two more bodies from the water Thursday, bringing to six the number of people killed when a helicopter flying from an offshore oil rig plunged into a lagoon in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos. Marine police and fishermen calling for body bags raced to a dock on Thursday and delivered the bodies of one…
Student Competition Yields Prize-Winning Mars Plans
The 20th Annual International Space Settlement Design Competition challenged teams to design human habitats on Mars in just 24 hours. The team from the Amity International School in India came up with the idea for a city of 24,000 people located inside a crater, made mostly of transparent aluminium oxinitride. The facility as planned would…
Schumer: New Agency Should Plan, Finance Hudson Rail Tunnels
In a bid to create momentum for a massive overhaul of the crumbling passenger rail corridor between New Jersey and New York City, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer on Tuesday proposed the creation of a new nonprofit development corporation to plan and finance the project. He said none of the existing transportation entities operating in the…
Japan to buy $1.5Bn weapons package for two Aegis Destroyers
The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to Japan for DDG 7 and 8 AEGIS Combat System, Underwater Weapon System, Cooperative Engagement Capability and associated equipment, parts and logistical support for an estimated cost of $1.5 billion. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of…
This is what happens when your drone is annoying someone
We’ve established that flying a drone over an active fire is not cool (and sometimes illegal), and that shooting down a drone (maybe) flying over your property is also not okay (and sometimes illegal). But what about drones being used in other public spaces? For example, what about flying over a group of people enjoying…
Product Safety & Product Liability Prevention Seminar
Every year there are over 80,000 product liability lawsuits filed against manufacturing corporations of all sizes throughout the United States, and there are thousands of product recalls. The costs of these product liability lawsuits and recalls can bankrupt a company or have a long term crippling effect on a corporation’s profitability, as well as in…
New Hydrogel Stretches & Contracts Like a Heat-Driven Muscle
In research published in Nature Materials, a team led by scientists from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science in Japan has developed a new hydrogel that works like an artificial muscle–quickly stretching and contracting in response to changing temperature. They have also managed to use the polymer to build an L-shaped object that slowly…
This is what the Earth looks like from 1 million miles away
Have you ever wondered what the “dark side of the moon” looks like? Well, wonder no more. Ta-da! This image was taken back on July 16 by the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), which is a four mega pixel CCD camera and telescope about the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite, located about 1 million…
What It Takes to Build a New Power Grid in 6 Weeks
Last December, Egypt decided to move aggressively to avoid power cuts and brownouts during its sweltering desert summer, when the average high temperature hovers above 90 degrees Fahrenheit for months. It had little time to spare. The heat starts rising early in the spring and country’s existing power plants were already operating at peak capacity…
Drones Getting in the Way of Emergency Responders
As Jason Thrasher lowered his helicopter to a park with seven firefighters aboard, he saw what he thought was another firefighting chopper battling a blaze that was threatening homes. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection pilot suddenly identified the object as a four-rotor drone only 10 feet from his windshield, forcing him to…
Future Drones Could Be 3D-Printed at Sea
Engineers from the University of Southampton in England recently launched a 3D printed drone from a British military ship and returned the UAV to shore, proving that military drones could someday be produced at sea. After flying off of the Royal Navy warship, the drone flew 1,640 feet to a beach in Dorset, England. The…
Product Safety & Product Liability Prevention Seminar
Every year there are over 80,000 product liability lawsuits filed against manufacturing corporations of all sizes throughout the United States, and there are thousands of product recalls. The costs of these product liability lawsuits and recalls can bankrupt a company or have a long term crippling effect on a corporation’s profitability, as well as in…
Internet of Things On the Rise in Real Estate
Realtors and marketers are leveraging the Internet of Things in particularly useful ways. Smart sensors can make building management easier, for example, telling managers whether a device such as a fan is working. On the marketing side of things, nearly six out of 10 information technology companies in the United States are using machine data…