The RoboSwift is a remote controlled micro airplane with wings that can reconfigure in flight, mimicking the flight characteristics of swifts. There are four “feathers” on each wing that can fold over one another to increase or decrease lift and speed, and a propellor that can turn off and fold against the fuselage for better gliding performance. Cameras in the nose allow the operator to know what the plane’s doing and where it’s going.
Toyota To Test Plug-In Hybrids
The good news: Toyota’s developing a plug-in Prius hybrid that can run off the battery alone for short trips. The bad news: we’re talking really short trips (8 miles or less). These cars are “not fit for commercialization” because the battery technology hasn’t kept up with the potential usages. Damn that bunny. [slashdot]
Growing clean energy down at the Crowd Farm
Here’s a different sort of crowdsourcing. The “Crowd Farm” is the brainchild of two MIT architecture students, and it’s a system designed to harness the physical movements of large masses of people and turn it into usable electricity – imagine contributing to the metro station’s lighting by climbing the stairs, for example. It’s a great idea – and like a lot of great ideas, a couple of people have thought of it already. Let’s hope any arguments over patents don’t get in the way of something that can reduce our collective carbon footprints, eh? [Image by yeuxrouge]
Wikia – searching with the wisdom of crowds
It’s a brave business that openly announces its intent to beat Google at their main game. But Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, is nothing if not a man of vision – his commercial start-up Wikia is currently assembling the base of a distributed web-search facility which will be enhanced by its users, in the form of human editors who will clarify ambiguous results.
We hear a lot about crowdsourcing from its supporters and detractors alike, and the jury is still out on Wikipedia’s reliability for that very reason. But one thing’s for certain – there’ll be a lot of SEO consultants with a vested interest in this project not doing so well. Ever seen a wiki-war? Now, just imagine the sort of intense conflict that paid shills could produce over search results … and the potential income a bribe-taking editor could make …
The Street Finds Its Own Use for Things (…and so does prison)
The vibration function in the Nintendo 64’s Rumble Pak can be hacked into an improvised tattoo gun. Someone let MAKE Blog know…