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Japanese Military Invents Tumbling, Flying Sphere
thebchuckster writes "A Japanese developer has released a cool, new sphere that is billed as being able to go where humans can't. The sphere is 17-inches, features eight movable rudders, and can hover in the air for at least eight minutes. While reaching speeds of up to 37 miles per hour, the sphere deftly moves through the air without much effort. It doesn't take much to get it up in the air and moving, and it will be adept at going into tight areas."
And if you stick a really nasty looking syringe on it, it makes a great Deathstar interrogation system.
When will the US make one and attach a missile to it?
Reminds of Half Life 2's scanners (http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/City_Scanner). I suspect prices of crowbars in Japan will go up pretty soon.
At last, Metroid for real!
Soon, I hope they'll do a real-world implementation of the BFG-9000...
TFA sounds like this is one guy working with consumer parts. I wonder what an American military subcontractor would want to develop this.
Do you realize the psychic trauma you have just caused by posting something that unearths memories of dodgeball in a discussion group full of nerds?
... of the copseyes from Niven's "Cloak of Anarchy". Add some of these to incapacitate and you've got a menacing little bot.
a helicopter in a cage.
Now we just need flying broomsticks.
It just has to be miniaturized a bit.
Phantasm IRL finally.
Aren't these the legendary Foo Fighters?
The best defense is a good crowbar.
I got a trojan warning from my AV on the linked site.
Perhaps they should touch base with these guys - http://techtransfer.universityofcalifornia.edu/NCD/19914.html
Wait a minute, I've seen these movies already!
do you know any africans with $1,390 (legally)? When they rob a bank they don't spend the money on building flying robots!
I for one , am not a number .I am a FREE MAN
Oh FFS, so he's supposed to mine for rare earths and smelt his own exotic materials in order to say he INVENTED something?
Look, he DESIGNED and ASSEMBLED something that did not exist before. If you don't consider that inventing, you're just a dumb-ass.
BTW: what have you invented?
I got good money that says fuck all.
Just about every single thing you will ever do, touch, see, think of, or make in your life will be a reconfiguration of existing tech. Think about this for a minute.
Invent just means you found a novel way to do something with existing tech.
Just imagine what inventions would be like if you had to make everything in it from scratch, and didn't already start by knowing how to make fire, dig up minerals and metals (let alone smelt them).
So's a micro processor.
It's what you can do, not what it's made of.
Indeed! Your reply contains no intellectual content as it merely consists of existing words.
Can anybody tell me? I was so surprised to find out that Africans haven't actually done anything at all for humanity since they came into existence. Anybody care to prove me wrong, without shouting "Heretic"? (Sorry - "racist"...)
Fine. Invented the calendar and stone buildings: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sumer_anunnaki/esp_sumer_annunaki35.htm
I'd find some more, but I think it'll do you good to do so yourself.
This was on Sankaku more than a month ago: JSDF Spherical Drone “We Bought Most of the Parts in Akiba”
Does it have flappy ears and say `haro' a lot?
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. - Carl Sagan
Anarchy parks, where there is almost no law, are patrolled by floating spheres... I guess I'm too old, who still reads Niven these days? OK, how about Bit from the first Tron? Yes! No! YESYESYESYESYES!
Mostly random stuff.
Only some of the parts were off the shelf.
And even if it was 100% off the shelf components, are you actually suggesting that unless you obtain all the raw materials yourself, (smelt the ore into usable metal, form your own plastic, create your own propeller motor from scratch) you haven't invented anything yourself? That's preposterous.
Add an extremely advanced AI and you end up with something close to what's in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels.
This looks like a remote control helicopter in a roll cage. Instead of tilting the rotor for control, it uses a far more complex system of rudders. Is there something else, or is this a slow news day? If there were design docs & instructions, this would make a cute Hack-A-Day article.
...will be returned to the Village forthwith!
I get short clips that jump ahead after a few seconds. I tried to grab one using Download Helper but you have to be fast to grab the right one. Anybody here understand how this works well enough to suggest a solution?
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
What im suggesting is that anyone practiced in the arts of this could build a working facsimile in a few days. Its not novel or unique in any real or compelling way. Its the inevitable result of shrinking electronics and light/powerful batteries.
Good-bye
Agreed. This is just a tricked up hobby helicopter.If you put pink sparkly streamers on the handlebars of a Harley, it doesn't mean you "invented" a motorcycle.
so there are lots of quad-copters around that have roughly similar specs. this one is a uni-copter with 8 thrust-vectoring flaps, which is, I guess somewhat novel. not sure why 8 is the right number, and seems like a fairly large number, given that each requires a servo and fairly big piece of material. but since the flaps are independent, they can provide both direction and rotational control (which is why a quad-copter needs 4 fans - and why a helicopter needs a tail fan.) the spherical cage (and uni-fan) makes it seem compact and tidy, but I'm not sure the layout is actually better than a quad-copter.
Obi-wan: This time, let go your conscious self- and act on instinct.
Luke: But with the blast shield down, I can't even see- how am I supposed to fight?
Obi-wan: Your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them. Stretch out with your feelings.
When will researchers stop picking premature goals for their projects like search and rescue? I know, because I did exactly the same thing as an undergrad. Just admit it's an technological exploration and that you need funding to continue working on it.
http://twitter.com/#!/Scalarr
Beats hell out of knocking down the front door and just hoping your reflexes are fast enough. I'd put this in the "extremely clever" category, since it does seem obvious once you've seen it...but then why isn't everybody doing it?
expandfairuse.org
Just from the description, I was thinking of the large, white ball that bounds along the beach, catching anyone who tries to escape.
This doesn't look that difficult to copy. The rudder system is pretty rudimentary. The RC and UAV groups open source arduino board, firmware and sensors, from the ongoing quad projects can already handle most of it's functions. Hmmm. I'd sure like one.
The little quadrotors have been around for about 15 years now. The first time I saw one, it was made mostly of Styrofoam and could barely get off the ground. Now they go zooming around, due to better motors and much better batteries. But they still can't carry much load.
This thing looks like a nice tradeoff. There's more structure to carry around, and you only get 8 minutes of flight time, but it's not as fragile as most quadrotors. Those things are going to be popular with soldiers and cops.
The inventor is pitching it as a remote vehicle for searching in cases of disaster areas, and for military operations. For disaster areas, no arguments, but for military operations it would be of very limited usage. From the video, it is VERY loud, seems like it sounds like a leaf blower.
it would be a ball to be the operator :P
It needs a proper name. I nominate Kino.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
"Japan's constitution forbids a traditional military, allowing only a narrowly defined Self Defense Force, or SDF."
--www.cfr.org Japan
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. - Carl Sagan
Dollars to donuts Sagan didn't eat many apple pies, then.
I think what you "invented" in that example is a new way of meeting people at biker bars.
Too late, I've already patented it!
The average IQ of an African is 70. Hence all they can do is destroy everything they touch.
Exhibit A: Detroit.
Exhibit B: Every other previously all white area, which blacks moved into.
Make a few thousand of these, have them WIFI or maybe bluetooth capable, add solar cells, and network them all together to quickly work together. Imagine random swarms of these things flying all around a desert-like location with different swarm configurations like a line or sphere.
Add a single LED laser and imagine all the fun a remote army station could have harassing some terrorist they find--all those laser guided missiles would love to join in the fun!
Give it a couple more versions. 3 hour flight time. A camera. And stick a silenced .22 - .38 on it.
Cheap and effective.
Or a railgun that shoots small needles.....
Oh FFS, so he's supposed to mine for rare earths and smelt his own exotic materials in order to say he INVENTED something?
I'd settle for designing (the assembling part wouldn't even be necessary) something that nobody else would know how to make. It's fair to say he designed the thing, and I'm not sure why that's not enough. It's an impressive task, not sure why we need to go we need to say "invent." Incredibly talented people design new microprocessors at intel, but we don't say they invented a microprocessor.
BTW: what have you invented?
I don't go around rating people's awesomeness by using me as a reference. I'm not conceited enough to believe that I'm anything above average, and I don't think being average is enough to be awesome. I think I can recognize a great symphony when I hear it, without needing to be capable of composing it. I can also say that a movie sucks, even though if they put me as a writer and director, my movie would be far worse.
In fact, if you do force me to rate people's awesomeness using myself as a reference, it's a definite requirement that they do something I'm incapable of doing. Otherwise, I call it unimpressive.
What was the name of that game? :)
I wonder if this could work on mars? If so, then we could send a number of these on a mission (say via a falcon heavy), and then send these all over the planet. If built well enough, send several to venus, perhaps titan, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's what everyone says about inventions.
"I could have done that"
But you DIDN'T. Therein lies the difference.
This sig intentionally left blank.
Toclafane
Yeah, sure, which is why it took this guy a year of working on CAD and prototyping.
This may come as a shock to those poor souls who've never actually created something entirely novel, but doing or deriving something new is actually a remarkably difficult process. It only looks easy because we don't show you the prototype or publish the paper until we're done, and then we handhold you through all the hard parts. No shit it would be fairly easy to build more now, the original inventors have already done all the hard work for you. They've gone down all the wrong alleyways, made the dumb mistakes, ironed out most of the bugs, proven the control software is possible, and more. Here, try it yourself - prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions to the linear IVP, or the Bell Inequality, or the Optical Theorem, or derive the heat capacity of a classical ideal gas, without looking any part of the answer up.
It never ceases to amaze me that, even on supposedly technically-oriented message boards, we still have this group that looks at a new creation which took man-years of work or more to make, and says "Oh, pfft, that was easy, anyone could do that."
it was already covered...a bit over a month ago on engadget and wired
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/10/japanese-ball-drone-knows-how-to-make-an-entrance-video/
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-06/10/japan-drone
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2011/06/09/jsdf-spherical-drone-we-bought-most-of-the-parts-in-akiba/
Although the original video that Wired and Engadget used is gone...there are others on youtube such as:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQa4K-tstTg
or just use this search:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%E7%90%83%E5%BD%A2%E9%A3%9B%E8%A1%8C%E4%BD%93&aq=f
either way...reminds me of those hovering/flying razor blades from Half-life 2
With the various problems Japan and its government has, the time and money it's spending developing this thing is a waste that it cannot afford. Japan has the US to cover its military risks, so it can spend its time and money on other things Japanese people actually need.
Sure, Japan's security is largely a source of wasteful US military spending, and the US is in even more trouble in these ways than Japan is. But that doesn't justify Japan digging its hole in a race with the US.
--
make install -not war
Flying silver sphere scene
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Boy!
Exhibit C: Your fucking prejudice.
Yes, make it bigger and coat it in white plastic and you're well on your way to make Rover. Be seeing you.
Now all I need is a light saber and a blindfold, and I can complete my Jedi training.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Hope nobody attaches a spinning blade to one of these. I'm low on pistol ammo.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
jigglypuff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigglypuff)
Given that our species *came* from Africa, the challenge should be limited to folk who stayed there or left in recent times.
Percy Julian. When you hopped goal posts to "do anything for humanity", you opened the flood gates for all the entertainers, war veterans, and cooks. Happy now?
Have you seen the controls of this thing ? Throwing is probably easier and more accurate. It has no camera and no sensors, so you'll need eyes on the target and eyes on the ball for the duration of the throw.
Good luck staying alive while you guide that thing in.
(besides, it's so big and slow that it makes an easy target for shooting. UAV's are so very good because of their stealth. You can't seriously hope to see a 1m plane 20 meters somewhere above your head so any action by that plane comes as a complete surprise)
Have a look at the videos! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5PXUa9itpk
"Oh dear. Containment protocols appear to have been violated."
Who says it isn't? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans#Mitochondrial_DNA
But do they still file that under "H," for "Toy?"
Never understimate the power of human stupidity -Lazarus Long
BTW Reuters video sucks -- it does not work on Ubunutu.
:T:R:A:N:S:
If the reason for it being spherical is to allow it to recover being rolled on the ground, why not build the shell as a gömböc, so it'll always self-right?
You are now aware that not one but two 'inventors' submitted patent applications within hours of each-other to patent the 'invention' of a telephone. One requirement of patentability is that the 'invention' is not obvious other individuals skilled in the art of whatever field the 'inventor' is working in.
Clearly, the mere fact that we already had electrical lines for the purpose of communication (telegraph), and that we new how to recreate sounds by reproducing their vibrations, and that we use sound via our voices to communicate, and the fact that in was obvious to many that electricity could be used to transmit sounds, and the fact that TWO craftsmen created essentially the same technology separately is enough to prove that the invention of a telephone was an iterative and obvious creation -- something not unique in the mind of a single individual.
What grand new concept has the 'inventor' mentioned in the TFA invented? Do not flying drones already exist? I'm sorry, but duct-taping a knife to a fork handle does not an invention make. You are so very much like the uncreative person that thinks, "I wouldn't have thought of that, so no one could have thought of that -- Grant this Genius a patent!", while all the skilled individuals shake their heads and weep over the broken patent system.
I put it to you that necessity is the mother of invention, and given that there are many minds who may take up the task to meet a necessary goal using technology, that none are truly unique enough to warrant the granting of an exclusive monopoly over an idea solely because they met the need first. We harm not only 2nd place, but also all other creators who have spent money on R&D but have not yet completed their project. The net loss is inexcusable.
The fashion industry has no patents or copyrights... How will they ever create a new clothing line without such incentives?! Hint: They will meet the market demand for new products by creating new products, and competitors will compete in terms of nouveau, quality and price giving customers a wide selection. Simply because idea monopolies are extinguished does not mean the markets for new tech will vanish.
R&D will then be money well spent because you will be sure you can at-least produce a device instead of gambling on whether someone else who created something similar first (within the past 20 years) will be able to prevent you from selling the product of your hard work. How is it that you advocate having only one implementation of a solution as a product instead of many? Licensing? AFTER spending your own money to produce a product you pay MORE to be able to use & sell it? For those concerned with secret knowledge being kept, I'm afraid you underestimate the capabilities of the reverse engineers.
The patent system has never worked as intended, the very concept is flawed; Its a burden born by our culture, the weight of which is beginning to exceeding our desire to bear it.
Patents are an expensive and stifling mental restriction system. ESPECIALLY when patents are grated for merely assembling a device that is similar in function to another device. (although the form is different -- I'm sure I can find devices with similar form, yet lacking a few features -- ::sigh:: El Camino patents.)
What great innovation does this newly patented device bring? What important problem is TFA's alleged 'invention' a solution to that none have been capable of achieving for so long, or that no one else could have invented? Did the 'inventor' not say he simply assembled it from readily available components? Would not anyone who wanted a to create a similar device be capable of doing so easily? (before the patent monopoly was granted...)
Do you not see the invalidity of the patent grant due to our patent system's lack of testing for obviousness?
Furthermore, when a truly important enough problem is solved would it not benefit society as a whole more to have free access to use the idea?
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Know any one who has had a heart transplant?
The pratley putty that helped keep part of the Eagle landing ship together?
Ever used an automatic popcorn vending machine?
All that Gold that is mined with processes developed in Africa?
Or does none of the above and a hell of a lot more not count for anything for humanity you racist fuck (And when a South African calls some one a racist, they're fucking racist)