Top TechTop Tech #63: Printed Jets, spying robots, better drones
Promising products and interesting innovations
By Paul Worthington
Today’s Top Tech:
• Miniature Jet engine made in a printer
• Robot teddy may spy on you; Barbie already does
• Two new drone designs: gas and “Tornado” powered
Miniature Jet engine made in a printer
Engineers at GE Aviation’s Additive Development Center 3D-printed a mini jet engine.
The lab focuses on “developing additive manufacturing, a next-generation technique that can make complex 3D structures by melting metal powder layer upon layer.”
However, they found they could not 3D-pring “the complexity of a whole commercial aircraft engine into their working model.”
The plans came from “a simple engine developed for remote control model planes” and were customized for the 3D printing machines.
The final product measures around a foot long by about eight inches tall. It “roared at 33,000 rotations per minute” the company says here.
Author Peter Diamandis writes about the importance of such innovations here.
Robot teddy may spy on you; Barbie already does
A cuddly teddy bear may soon be a robot spy in disguise: Google filed a patent for smart robot toys that watch and listen to you, reportedly to act as remote controls.
(Remote controls for your entertainment gadgets, that is, not you.)
Google’s “anthropomorphic device” with hidden cameras for eyes and microphones for ears could automatically translate simple voice commands into actions that activate smart TVs, DVRs, DVD players and other devices, Discover magazine reports here.
“Some users, especially young children, might find these forms to be attractive user interfaces,” according to the Google patent application. “However, individuals of all ages may find interacting with these anthropomorphic devices to be more natural than interacting with traditional types of user interfaces.”
Meanwhile, the latest Barbie doll is listening to young girls talk, ostensibly to better
Hello Barbie has WiFi and speech recognition “to have real conversations with kids,” Fast Company reports. But the speech developer ToyTalk insists Barbie is not recording unless the child holds down the Talk button.
Mattel says kids’ number-one request for decades has been to be able to talk to Barbie, the article adds.
Two new drone designs: gas and “Tornado” powered
There’s no shortage of new drone designs these days, with plenty of innovation aimed at smaller sizes, longer flight times, or easier control. But almost all the quadcopters covered here recently have at their core battery-powered propellers…
These two do not.
Gasoline has higher power density than electric batteries
— and so a proposed gas-powered drone can fly faster and farther: 60 miles
per hour, for an hour.
The team behind the Yeair Kickstarter project says they’ve developed “an elaborate system with an electrically powered alternate/hub shaft directly coupled to the combustor to relate accelerations and delay values, effectively empowering the quadcopter to fly as stable as electronic-only flight, but with more power for a longer period of time.”
The Nano Tornado is battery powered — but it
doesn’t have standard propellers. Instead it flies via four ducted fans.
The Pasadena, California-based developers say it provides “the coolest, safest camera drone in the world. Take it out. Throw it. Your Nano Tornado makes flying ridiculously easy and fun. No other drone lets you get right up to stuff - and even hit it. A flying bumper car, it can go anywhere.”
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