inventor and former Swiss Air Force fighter pilot, Yves Rossy, jumped from a plane over Calais, France and flew 200 mph crossing the English Channel in 13 minutes before landing in Dover, England.
Earlier this year he unfolded the wings on his back and flew 186 mph (300 kilometers) above the Swiss Alps.
new-invention Using four small jet engines attached to his carbon wings, he climbed at 200 ft per minute before executing a series of stunts for a crowd of reporters watching from a mountain top.
The spectacular demonstration was the first public revelation of his latest invention, which he spent five years developing.
airplane-invention"It is absolute freedom" says Rossy.
The inventor says his 120 lb Jetman suit will eventually be available to the public but it's still a few years away.
The flight over the English Channel was his second public demonstration. He is planning his next flight through the Grand Canyon.
Nestled among the towering tree tops of Canada's west coast rain forest, you will find these innovative homes created by inventor Tom Chudleigh.
house-invention Using a combination of sail-rigging, boat construction and biomimicry technology, the pod-shaped spheres are suspended among the trees using strands.
Spiral stairways suspend to the ground providing access to the spheres. Built from cedar or fiber glass, the spheres are insulated and designed to withstand structural impacts.
Inventors, Jung Won Seo, Jae-Woo Park, Keong Su Lim, Ji-Hwan Yang and Sang Jung Kang, who are scientists at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, have created the world's first transparent computer chip.
The chip, known as (TRRAM) or transparent resistive random access memory, is similar to existing chips known as (CMOS) or metal-oxide semiconductor memory, which we use in our electronic devices. The difference is that TRRAM is completely clear and transparent. What is the benefit of having transparency?
"It is a new milestone of transparent electronic systems," says Jung Won Seo. "By integrating TRRAM with other transparent electronic components, we can create a total see-through embedded electronic systems."
The technology could enable the windows or mirrors in your home to be used as computer monitors and television screens.
This technology is expected to be available within 3 to 4 years.
The Draganflyer X6 is a cool new gadget which although misspelled, perhaps intentionally, offers a lot.
The Draganflyer X6 is a remotely operated, unmanned, miniature helicopter designed to carry wireless video cameras and still cameras. Operate the Draganflyer X6 helicopter with the easy to use handheld controller while viewing what the helicopter sees through video glasses. The Draganflyer X6 helicopter uses a unique 6-rotor design refined from an original concept that has been under development since early 2006. The Draganflyer X6 helicopter uses 11 sensors and thousands of lines of code to self-stabilize during flight. This means the Draganflyer X6 is easier to fly than any other helicopter in its class. The Draganflyer X6 on-board software is the result of extensive testing and development. The Draganflyer X6 helicopter is a revolutionary reconnaissance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV); it can be transported in a 5.5 diameter tube slung over the users back while always being ready to launch immediately. Fly it over hills to get a safe view of what is on the other side. The DraganFlyer is ideal for spying on the enemy in a safe and reliable manner.
Dubbed the Solar Impluse HB-SIA, the airplane is designed to fly both day and night without the need for fuel and will begin test flights by year's end.
Despite a wingspan equal to that of a Boeing 747, the Solar Impulse weighs only around 1.7 tons, about the same as an average car. More than 12,000 solar cells mounted on the wing supply renewable solar energy to the four 10-horsepower electric motors. During the day, the solar panels charge the plane's lithium polymer batteries, allowing it to fly at night. The Solar Impulse HB-SIA
The Solar Impulse HB-SIA (Credit: Solar Impulse)
At a press conference at the plane's Duebendorf airfield near Zurich, Piccard made clear the goal of the aircraft is to prove the business viability and profitability of renewable energy.
"If an aircraft is able to fly day and night without fuel, propelled solely by solar energy, let no one come and claim that is impossible to do the same thing for motor vehicles, heating and air conditioning systems ,and computers," Piccard said.
After this year's initial test flight, a night flight is scheduled for 2010 to see if the plane can stay in the air for 36 hours.
On the horizon in 2012, Piccard and Borschberg plan to fly the next generation of the Solar Impulse, the HB-SIB, around the world in five legs over the course of four to six days. That will make another global trip for adventurer Piccard, who in 1990 piloted the first round-the-world hot-air balloon flight with his Orbiter 3.
"Through this project we are proclaiming our conviction that a pioneering spirit and political vision can together change society and put an end to fossil fuel dependency," said Piccard.
Technology may reduce cost, time needed for biopsies and other
A robotic surgeon at Duke University has successfully found and guided a needle to a sliver of steel shrapnel, completely without human help. The technology could reduce the cost and time necessary to complete a biopsy and other surgical operations.
"Eventually you could have a ten-dollar biopsy done inside in a supermarket," said Steve Smith, a doctor at Duke University and co-author of a paper describing the work in the journal IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control.
"Today that same biopsy would cost about $1,000," said Smith।
Locating a piece of shrapnel is only the latest demonstration of the autonomous robotic surgeon. Over the last two years, the team at Duke, including recent graduate A.J. Rogers, successfully performed two other tasks.
The first was locating a needle with 3-D ultrasound, and then touching that needle with another needle.
The second successful task for the robot surgeon was to locate, and then biopsy, a tumor inside a turkey breast.
About six months ago, the scientists upgraded their robot. The new robot, with six articulating joints and about the size of a suitcase, was tasked with finding a piece of steel shrapnel two millimeters by less than one millimeter submerged inside a water bath.
The new robot made it easier to find the shrapnel. The size of the shrapnel made it more difficult than the first two tasks; it was so small that it didn't appear on the ultrasound. To make it larger, the Duke scientists used a high-powered magnetic field to vibrate the sliver. All that was left was for the needle to reach out and touch the tiny metal piece.
"We keep giving the robot more and more complex tasks," said Smith. "So far the robot has been able to accomplish these tasks automatically."
Each task took an average of three minutes for the ultrasound to image, the computer to map and the needle to touch the object. Using a modern ultrasound machine (the Duke researchers use one more than ten years old) and a more powerful laptop would speed the process up to about a minute. That's roughly the same amount of time that it would take a human surgeon to complete the same procedure.
Where the time and money savings would come is taking out the human middle man. For example, human operators would have to perform a mammogram and send the results to a radiologist, who reads the image. The patient would then have a biopsy. The entire process can take a week or more. Optimized, robotic biopsies could cut that time down to hours.
Independent robot surgeons could be used for other medical procedures as well, said Smith. Using the needle, the robot could apply local anesthetics. The needle could also be replaced with a number of different tools developed for minimally invasive surgery, clearing the way for a variety of medical procedures.
"There is no limit to the way this technology could be used as long as the artificial intelligence progresses to the point where it would avoid blood vessels or nerves," said Smith. "But right now this is an early stage feasibility study."
Other doctors concur. "The robotics are certainly getting more reliable," said Paul Carson, a professor of radiology at the University of Michigan. "And when you combine that with detailed imaging of the needle and its path, this is an eminently approachable technique."
Both Carson and Smith agree that it will take about ten years for fully automated robotic surgery to become a reality. Like most medical technology, it will likely be more expensive than using a human surgeon, but eventually the cost-saving -- and life-saving -- technology will become widely available.
The number of people visiting Twitter increased 22-fold in the last twelve months, according to an internet monitoring company.
According to Hitwise, the site is now the fifth most viewed social networking site compared with the 84th last year.
Ninety-three per cent of Twitter's growth has happened in 2009.
Director of Research at Hitwise Robin Goad said: "If people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third party applications were included, numbers could be higher."
Another measure of Twitter's popularity is its jump in the overall internet rankings.
Last year it was the 969th most visited site on the web. It's now the 38th most visited website.
Events like the protests in Iran have gone global via Twitter
Twitter is popular with celebrities like Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry.
"If anything, the service is even more popular than our numbers imply," said Robin Goad.
"We are only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website.
"If people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third party applications like Twitterific or Tweetdeck were included, the numbers could be even higher.
"Media coverage of the site has escalated significantly this year and high profile celebrity endorsements likes Ashton Kutcher have come rolling in."
Micro-blogging site Twitter has also had a major impact on so-called 'citizen journalism', when members of the public use the site to break major news stories or updates such as the terror attacks in Mumbai or the recent protests in Iran.
But the social networking website still has some work to do to catch the likes of MySpace, Bebo and Facebook.
The number of people using Facebook has risen above the 20 million mark this year in the UK and 200 million around the world.
