September 27, 2012
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) might be getting ready for a trip to Rio de Janeiro. In 2016 the South American city will host the next Olympics games, and the agency already has a robot that can outrun the fastest human on the planet. The Cheetah project has created an advanced robot able to navigate difficult terrain in order to perform surveillance missions for the military.
The researchers decided to put their robotic “Cheetah” on a treadmill to test its top speed on relatively easy terrain. The cheetah had previously been clocked at 18 MPH, but the current version topped out at an amazing 28.3 MPH over a 20 meter increment. 20 meters happens to be the sample sized used to calculate the fastest human run. For comparison Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt covered a 20 meter section of track at 27.78 MPH during a record setting 100 meter run in 2009.
While the cheetah is blazing fast on the treadmill, don’t expect to see it challenging Bolt on the track anytime soon. Running on the treadmill gave the Cheetah the equivalent of running with tailwind, boosting performance, and the robot currently isn’t optimized for the quick starts required for competition. But with four years until Rio, DARPA scientists still have a lot of time to work out the kinks.
As the cloud becomes an increasingly attractive option for manufacturers with big needs in IT, scalable options such as outsourced data centers have become a must-have for many companies. But General Motors has taken a step in the opposite direction when its $130 million datacenter went online Monday in the suburb of Warren, Michigan.
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When we talk to manufacturers of any size, one concern across the board has been finding engineers with sufficient education and training to do their job. Taking one step toward alleviating this issue is Siemens, who have launched a U.S. job training initiative for veterans, hoping to round out the training of engineers throughout the country.
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The National Engineering Forum (NEF) has developed a three-pronged approached in keeping the US engineering workforce competitive, for which it hopes to help spread awareness through a series of regional dialogue events held throughout the country.
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May 17, 2013 |
This week, Airbus towed its newest airliner, the A350 XWB, out of its hangar and is poised to roll it into the spotlight of the upcoming Paris Air Show. The A350 XWB has been designed with the goal of surpassing the 787 in fuel efficiency and comfort, and has forgone metal for composite materials to make it happen.
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May 16, 2013 |
Sander Veenhof and Joris van Tubergen, of the Netherlands, joined their skills in media art and design to merge 3D printing with augmented reality. They call the result "UltimARker" and like the 3D printer it works with it's been designed for the open source community to give consumers more detailed information about their 3D printer.
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May 16, 2013 |
A recent survey by Cisco Systems found that 57 percent of consumers worldwide are in favor of using driverless cars, with 60 percent approval in the United States, suggesting that the world might be more ready for autonomous vehicles to hit the road than previously thought.
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May 10, 2013 |
We've known since Obama's State of the Union address this year that 3D printing is a key pillar in the president's plan for America's future in manufacturing, but on Thursday this was made even more clear with the announcement of a competition to create three manufacturing innovation institutes, to be modeled after a government-funded 3D printing center.
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May 09, 2013 |
Finally, we have someone to look to when we have to assemble our IKEA furniture--or at least something. This week, this solution was showcased at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, proving that robots might soon be surpassing humans at yet another task. At least we can gladly hand this one over.
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03/20/2013 | SAS | This white paper examines how an enterprise-wide quality platform can turn existing data into substantial and sustainable revenue growth and cost savings for global manufacturers. The paper is based on the findings of the IW/SAS Enterprise Quality Survey completed by more than 400 manufacturing executives. The objectives of the survey were to determine concerns about quality among manufacturers; investigate the tools used to measure quality; and examine how using enterprise-wide analysis on quality data improves performance.
07/19/2011 | Univa | TATA Steel Automotive Engineering’s concern grew when open source Grid Engine support and development was discontinued by Oracle. Grid Engine is a business critical application in their environment. They recognized the likelihood that product enhancements and innovations would cease. Read how TATA Steel Automotive Engineering moved from a self-support solution to Univa Grid Engine. You can get more out of your environment and your budget with Univa Grid Engine.
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