technology

Boeing making DARPA VTOL X-Plane with all electric drive that power ducted fans and it looks like Terminator movie Hunter Killers and Marvel Quinjets

by

DARPA will have conceptual design reviews for four vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) X-Plane contenders in the coming weeks. The VTOL X-Plane programme is geared at demonstrating efficient hover and high-speed flight. The specific requirements are that the aircraft achieve a top sustained flight speed of 300 kt to 400 kt; raise aircraft hover efficiency …

Read more

Production HondaJet is flying and will have breakthroughs like 2 to 3 times more fuel efficient when commercial in 2015

by

The first production HondaJet achieved its initial flight, marking another milestone toward aircraft certification and entry into service in 2015. The event took place at the company’s world headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina. “With this first flight, the HondaJet program has entered the next exciting phase as we prepare for delivery,” said Honda Aircraft Company …

Read more

Transhuman – it is not the individual that needs to be immortal it is the civilization that needs to be immortal

by

Ramez Naam makes the point that futurists need to follow what real human nature is and the economics of technology. Ramez provides useful perspective in the video below. * prosaic current actions for improvement are ignored and underestimated (exercise, learning a new skill are choices that can be made that improve more than any drug …

Read more

After being wrong for over a decade there are renewed predictions that India’s GDP growth will pass China

by

India’s GDP growth is expected to rebound with improved prospects for reforms, real gross domestic product (GDP) growth should increase from 4.7% in 2013-14 to around 6% in 2014-15 and 7% in 2015-16. China is GDP Growth is expected to fall to around 7.3% this year and 7% next year. While a housing crunch could …

Read more

HP Labs unveils the machine, promises Memristor DIMM in 2016 and the Machine as a product in 2019

by

HP will start delivering memristor-based RAM DIMMs in 2016, and the Machine itself is expected to be available as a product by 2019. But within the next year, HP will release an open-source Machine OS software developer’s kit and start producing prototypes for collaboration with software vendors. Some enterprise systems already use nonvolatile RAM based …

Read more

Carnival of Space 359

by

1. Saturn’s tiny moon Prometheus teases the F-Ring, clearing a channel and dragging material into fringing spurs. 2. vega00.com – A team of astronomers of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan have studied the environment of two GRBs (Gamma Ray Bursters). These GRBs are known as dark GRBs. In their study they give a possible …

Read more

Bureaucracy and hurdles for attempting to reduce excess carbon or feed the people

by

Iron Fertilization sequesters carbon An international research team has published the results of an ocean iron fertilization experiment (EIFEX) carried out in 2004 in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature. Unlike the LOHAFEX experiment carried out in 2009, EIFEX has shown that a substantial proportion of carbon from the induced algal bloom sank …

Read more

Massive boost in salmon after Iron Fertilization of the Ocean in 2012

by

About 20 months ago, an American businessman conducted a massive ocean fertilisation test, fertilizing around 100 tonnes of iron sulphate off Canada’s coast, it has emerged the Canadian government may have known about the geoengineering scheme and not stopped it. Satellite images confirmed the claim by Californian Russ George that the iron has spawned an …

Read more

Spacex reusable rocket video shows newly added steerable fins for hypersonic direction control

by

A new video from SpaceX shows the Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R) rocket during a 1,000 meter test flight at the SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas. This was the first flight test of a set of steerable fins that provide control of the rocket during the fly-back portion of the return flight. The fins deploy approximately …

Read more

Spacex Dragon lander could land on Mars with a mission under the NASA Discovery Program cost cap

by

One of Ames’ long standing science interests has been to robotically drill deeply into Mars’ subsurface environment (2 meters, or more) to investigate the habitability of that zone for past or extant life. Large, capable Mars landers would ease the problem of landing and operating deep robotic drills. In 2010, an Ames scientist realized that …

Read more