We all know Iran just because of its Nuclear Program but above all that Iran has been accelerating its pace in all aspects of Science and Technology primarily Robotics. Recently Students from University of Tehran have developed a fully functional bipedal walking robot Suria II with 22 degrees of freedom and it can also stand on one leg. The  robot looks quite impressive though it looks quite similar to the one designed by Honda  known as “Asimo”.

The Robot was presented in front of the President of Iran Mahmood Ahmadinejad on the national day of Industry and Mining.

Here the most important thing that should be noted is that Iran has developed this robot in conditions where its facing economic sanctions, restricted trade and extreme international pressure but still they have developed fully functional robot which is quite amazing.

Researches and Engineers at the University of Iran must be praised for this and i am really looking forward to what they’ll come up next time for us.

Enjoy the videos of Suria II after the break.

Via Singularity Hub

A exoskeleton is a term which primarily used for the external skeleton of an animal that supports or protect the inner skeleton(also known as endoskeleton). In this technology world Human beings have been working hard  in this area and have created many excellent useful exoskeletons which helping mankind in their daily life.

Here I am going to explain some of the best,  famous and useful exoskeletons of the world.

1. Cyberdyne Hal-5

Cyberdyne Robot HAL-5 is a cyborg robot which has the capability to expand and improve itself.

It has a Voluntary Control System which means that Nerves signals are recieved by muscles through motoneutron from the brain which as a result moves the musculoskeletal system.

A very weak signal are to be detected on the surface of the skin by ‘HAL’ which is the Hybrid Assistive Limb. The power units controls the muscles movements on the basis of the signal recieved.

It is a wearable robot and has a height of 1600 mm with weight of full body is 23 Kg. It is operated on Charged battery drive (AC 100V) and has an operating time of approximately 2 hours 40 minutes.

It can perform the operation of Standing, Walking, Climbing up and down, Holding, lifting, almost all the daily activities. It is a Hybrid Control System and can be used indoor as well as for outdoor activities.

2. T 52 Enryu Rescue

It is a very large almost 5 ton and 3 meters (Approx 10 ft) powerful robot which main work is to clear the path ways through debris for Rescue workers in any sort of disaster like earthquake.

It is hydraulically operated and also known as Hyper Rescue Robot. It has the ability to lift almost 1 ton weight and its arms can perform all the motions.

It was designed by Japanese Company Tmsuk in March 1994 in Japan. Later on it was tested Nagaoka University of Technology where it lifted a car from the snow.

3. Panasonic Inflatable Exoskeleton

It is designed for patients suffering from paralysis. It has sensors at elbow and wrist which allows the arm to control the eight artificial muscles which are designed such that they have compressed air on their paralyzed side.

4. Berkeley Bleek Exoskeleton

Berkeley Bleek exoskeleton was designed by The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) funded by Bleex Project which helps the soldiers, relief workers, wildfire fighters and all other emergency personnels to carry heavy loads with them easily.

5.  Mecha Exoskeleton

This exoskeleton is an 18 ft replica of Science Fiction Mecha invented by Carlos Owens of Alaska. Mecha in Science is actually said to the walking vehicles controlled by some pilot inside it.

It is actually like the shape of the body and has the ability to make martial arts movements and swordsmanship in Science Fiction.

6. Stelarc Exoskeleton

It is a Muscle machine and its shape resemble with Spider Man as it has six legs and is five meters in diameters. It is a hybrid human machine which contracts and expands when inflated and exhausted respectively which provides a more flexible mechanism.

The human stands in between it and the machine walks in the direction of the face of the body.  It is powered by fluidic muscle actuators and contains many sensors.

7. Brain Control Exoskeletal System

This exoskeleton provides interaction of bone, muscles with the nervous system. It is created such that all the bones and muscles are controlled directly through the brain.

It is designed by Human Neuromechanics Lab at University of Michigan.

8. Exoskeleton Springwalker

The Springwalker exoskeleton has the capabilities of running and leaping of all animals. It actually allows the wearer to run up to 35 mph and leap up to 5 feet into the air.

9. Murdered Professor Walking Aid

This Walking aid was developed in order to recover from disease Sarcophenia which causes the loss of skeletal muscle.

This exoskeleton is said as Murdered Professor Walking aid because it was developed by Kevin Granata in Virgina Tech who was shot dead a long time ago. However his work on this walking aid exoskeleton is still helping many patients.

10. Gravity Balancing Leg Orthosis

GBO Gravity Balancing Leg Orthosis was designed to help persons to walk without the effects of gravity which means that it actually eliminates the effect of gravity which assist persons who are having hemiparesis to walk easily.

With this device hemiparesis patients can regain their strength and control. It balances the gravity with the motion of the human leg as well as it is tunable to get the desired gravity balancing.

This exoskeleton system was developed at the University of Delaware.

I have no Idea weather it will be useful or not but a Research Group at Tokyo Institute of Technology has come with an Idea of making a virtual reality hair cutting simulator known as Air-Hair.

Jump on to the video after the Break to get the full insight but i must say that it is totally weird, What do you have to say about that….

Via Buzzfeed

We have seen some of the most technologically advanced products in the last 10 years and some of them are a part of our daily life, they have penetrated so much into our lives thats we have started depending on then as a part of our basic need.

Companies behind these famous products have also done tremendous blunders in the past decade by launching products that were either defective or have insignificant features and consumers have totally rejected them which resulted in the colossal damage to the credibility and market share of those companies.

Today we have compiled a list of those products that happened to be huge fail and most of these products are from the Gurus of their department, our list begins with..

Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft launched windows Vista on January 30, 2007 mainly in order to improve security issues threatening PC user but happened to be a huge fail because of the following main reasons..

• Vista was not compatible with most of the older PCs ultimately limiting the number of users to upgrade their Operating system from an earlier version of Windows at that time, Knows as XP
• Vista boots too slowly than its predecessor operating systems.
• Vista failed to support older software applications.

Gateway

Gateway was the most successful PC company during the early 1990s. It was founded in 1985 and become the top PC company of that time and in a short period of 5 years its sales quadrupled, by 2004 Gateway was at number 3 in US market share after HP and DELL. But in 2007 Gateway became so helpless and that Acer bought it for $710 million.

Some of the main reasons behind Gateway’s failure were

• Gateway didn’t entered into the Laptop business.
• Gateway didn’t  shifted to portable computers when their competitors were manufacturing those computers in bulk.
• Gateway hadn’t entered into business with popular enterprises like other PC manufacturing companies.
• Gateway instead of concentrating into one major product, entered into consumer electronics business which proved to be a huge fail.

HD DVD

HD DVD was first launched as a consumer product in 2006 but the debate of having it as the only format to play in High definition was started in 2002 and Toshiba and NEC were the first ones to fund and market the new technology.

As a competitor of Blu-ray format,  HD DVD launch was not that successful and Toshiba lost almost $1 Billion when it finally abandoned it in 2008. HD DVD format failed because of the following main reasons..

• The first and the main reason of the failure of HD DVD was poor marketing as compared to Sony who supported Blu-ray and convinced major film studios to release their films in Blu-ray instead of HD DVD.
• Second most important reason Toshiba claimed was that Digital Download business gave a major setback to the sales of HD DVDs.

Sirius XM

Sirius XM,  satellite radio happened to be the most popular consumer electronics devices of all time. Once you have subscribed you can listen to more than 100 stations coast-to-coast while traveling or relaxing in your backyard.

Sirius merged with its rival XM on February 17, 2007 only because of high operational cost and debts. Subscribers began to leave the company as more innovative products like iPod multimedia cellular handsets have launched which gave more freedom to the consumers. So in the first quarter of 2009, the total number of subscribers decreased by 400,000 from the previous quarter to 18.6 million.

Microsoft Zune

Microsoft launched Zune in 2006 and they thought it will rival Apple’s iPod which had been in market since 2001 but Microsoft’s attempt to divert consumers mind failed tremendously. After 2 years of its launch in 2008, Microsoft claimed that they have sold 2 million units that made a total of  $270 million in terms of revenue which was quite low as compare to Apple’s iPod who made $3.37 Billion during the last quarter of 2008 only.

Zune failed mainly because Microsoft lacked hardware expertise as any other good company in the world and also because of poor marketing which Zune as a completely new product deserved.

YouTube

I don’t think YouTube needs any introduction as it is the most visited video sharing site in the world. Millions of people around the world watch Billions of videos every month and after Google, YouTube’s search engine is at the second place to be used for searching videos.

Most of the people wont believe it but in fact YouTube is a huge fail as Google bought it for $1.65 Billion but due tremendous  operational cost it is a chance that Google will never get a return for its investment.

Palm

Palm, as we all know are the pioneers of the smartphone market during 2005-6 but in 2007 Palm market share began to fall primarily because Palm failed to come up with the demands of modern world and ultimately competitors like Blackberry, Apple and Nokia captured the whole market.

Iridium

The Global Satellite Phone service provider, Iridium faced bankruptcy in 1999 when it spent $5 Billion to build the whole infrastructure to provide worldwide wireless phone service. Iridium despite of  investing such an enormous amount  failed because of the following main reasons..

• Iridium’s first handset faced critical technical issues  giving a major setback to the company.
• The handset and calling rates were  so much hight that very few people could be able afford it.
• The technology was difficult to use which made it unpopular.
• Cellular services were not broadly available but they were far more cheaper than the Satellite phone service.
• Operational cost was much higher.

Segway Scooter

It was thought that Segway the two-wheel personal transportation service will revolutionize the world when it was launched in 2002 but unfortunately the product whose development cost was about $100 million failed because..

• Segway as a product was too pricey about $3,000 for most models.
• As a road vehicle it requires licencing in some countries.
• Some countries banned Segway to be used as a road vehicle.

Via Time

They say that Robotics is not a child’s play, but students at the Friedrich Schiller University have used the basic Lego parts to construct a bipedal robot that can demonstrate human walk cycle and they named it “Pinocchio” the perfect childish name for the amazing Lego Robot.

For the time being simulations were run by keeping the robot supported with strings but the main purpose of this project was to teach the students different techniques that they may encounter while designing such prototypes in terms of programming and simulation but over all the tests went quite well.

Scientists and hobbyists have been eagerly using Legos for their prototypes because it is both cheap and easy to manufacture. For the same reason engineers throughout the world are using Legos for rapid prototyping and Pinocchio is one such step ahead in this field. Legos are just paving the way for future advancement and a day will come when Pinocchio will take a walk without being hanging with strings.

Via Singularityhub

A very intellegent designer and engineer Adam Lassy from Brooklyn,  NY, has designed a furniture that responds to the actions of the people around it. The furniture can detect the number of people in the room and automatically rearrange its self according to the need of the people for example if somebody is standing in room at a certain corder a robotic chair with wheels automatically moves towards that person so that he can be seated and similarly the table also adjusts its self according to the position of the displaced chair. The same concept will work on the tables in the party to pass snacks and drinks to the guests with out disturbing them.

The concept of Automatic Furniture is amazing but their is a chance that these emerging technologies might not make  people lazy and deprive them from their health as they might forget working from their own hands which is of course the best practice.

Via Design Boom

Samsung is totally obsessed with LCD displays, they have tons of designs and models to amaze you and now they have added another amazing product in their catalog, don’t get amazed too much cause it still an LCD panel that Samsung showed at the SID 2010 where they exhibited an 18.5 inch LCD panel that was both connected and powered by normal PC via USB 2.0 port.

Samsung made this display possible by improving the transmittance and Luminance efficiency of the backlight.

As far as the construcion of this Ultra efficient panel is concerned it is equipped with edge-lit type backlight unit having LEDs as a light source. These LEDs have higher efficiency than the LEDs of the normal LCD panel but their running life is small.

Main Speccifications of the display are as follows

• Pixel Count: 1,366 x 768
• Luminance: 250 cd/m²
• contrast ratio: 1,000:1

Samsung plans to start mass production in 2011

Via Gizmowatch

Highly complicated looking systems have sometimes simple concepts involved in them they are just made compact to freak people out otherwise simple mechanisms have been used to build them. Today we have compiled a flash animation series of such mechanisms sot that you can understand them easily and we start our list with.

Radial Engines

Radial engines are used in aircrafts having propeller connected to the shaft delivering power in order to produce thrust its basic mechanism is as follows

Steam engine Principle

Steam engine once used in locomotives was based on the reciprocating principle as shown below

Sewing Machine

Maltese Cross Mechanism

this type of mechanism is used in clocks to power the second hand movement.

Manual Transmission Mechanism

The mechanism also called as “stick shift” is used in cars to change gears mannually

Constant Velocity Joint

This mechanism is used in the front wheel drive cars

Torpedo-Boat destroyer System

This system is used to destroy fleet in naval military operations.

Rotary Engine

Also called as Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine has a unique design that converts pressure into rotating motion instead of reciprocating pistons

Source

Another breakthrough happened in the world of Aviation this week on Tuesday when US Air-force made a test flight of X-51A Waverider  launched by  B-52 off the coast of southern California. The test remained for only 3 to 5 minutes when chisel-shaped aircraft acclelerated by its scramjet engine to speeds as high as Mach 6 almost six times the speed to sound breaking the previous record of the burning time of the scram jet engine that was 12 seconds.

Scram jet is a modified type of ramjet engine having supersonic combustion burning atmospheric oxygen providing better compression resulting in hypersonic speeds.

The hypersonic aircraft is a joint collaboration of Pratt & Whitney’s Rocketdyne and Boing Inc. for the US Airforce.

The tests went quite successful as said by Mr.Brink

We equate this leap in engine technology as equivalent to the post-World War II jump from propeller-driven aircraft to jet engines

US Airforce likely to made three more test this fall in which they probably try to increase the Endurance and the burning time of Waverider engine to give it more practical missions but till now it is strictly an experimental design.

Via Physorg Cnet

Automotive can be thought of as the biggest industry under constant research for producing both environment friendly and fuel efficient cars. For the past few years we have heard many news about hybrid cars being designed by some of the most famous companies like Toyota, Honda etc. but none of them has yet been produced on the industrial scale for the unknown reason.

In order to support the idea, a designer Flip Tejszerski has given a whole new look to the boring Hybrid cars through is constant hard work of 3 years. The design look pretty stunning with a formula one car look and has already filled my mouth with water. B-7 is still a concept render but it still looks amazingly beautiful as the designers say that the car shall be…

High tech, light weight, extremely fast and agile – this design pushes the boundaries of on-road vehicle performance, and burns the way for HYBRID TECHNOLOGY

Bless your eyes with the high end rendered images of the car

Via Bitrebels, Behance