"Harvard’s Teeny-Tiny Robotic Insect Take Flight" Topic

Incredible.

"It's about the size of a quarter. Its translucent wings flap a frantic 120 times per second. Its buzz involuntarily makes you aware of the hairs on the back of your neck. It's a robot.

The video above shows the RoboBee. It's another step forward along two important tracks in robotics, as engineers try to miniaturize their flying machines and model them on living creatures.

Harvard scientists have been working for a decade on the design, inspired by the biology of a fly (never mind the name). Last summer, researchers got it aloft in a laboratory, and today, Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences unveiled a video, shown above, of the RoboBee's first controlled flight.

Shrinking a flying robot is harder than it might seem. Conventional robotic designs that rely on electromagnetic motors can't really work with sub-millimeter-scale anatomy. To get the RoboBee in the air, Harvard scientists had to work with things called piezoelectric actuators — strips of ceramic that expand and contract when in contact with an electric field. Voila: flapping wings…"
Full article and youtube here.
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A new Tiny Air Force? (smile).

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting developments, but……

It's only a matter of time until there are one, or more drones INSIDE every household. Mosquito-sized drones will eventually be fielded, is my guess, so they can be truly undetectable.

That, coupled with recordings of all phone and e-mail messages, and probably the tracking of all cell phone movements sure ups the ante in the death of the right to privacy.

All of this 1984, Brave New World stuff sure makes the East German Stasi look like rank amateurs, by comparison.

I'm with you on that Mako. However, what scares me more is how many people not only don't fear 1984, but openly embrace it.

As someone who was in High School in 1984, I'm shocked that the generations since seem to openly rush toward Big Brother. They tweet, or facebook or txt about every moment of their waking day to the point where rather than any Big Brother having to track them, they volunteer the info.

It's a Brave New World.

Totally agree with you my friends.

Amicalement
Armand

Could not agree more.

Add to that things like the Utah Data Center the NSA is building (assuming any of the info is accurate):

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And even I, who has never been a tinfoil hat conspiracy guy, is cringing. We are giving them our privacy faster than they can take it, and thanking them for it.