Lifeboat Foundation

You know that creepy black sphere used as a floating interrogation droid in Star Wars? It seems like scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) pretty much designed the complete opposite of that, and we want one for our very own.

Called Int-Ball, this adorable little camera drone resembles something Pixar might have come up with, but it’s totally real, and is now a floating companion to astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) – where it helps out by taking photos and recording video, freeing up valuable astronaut time.

Continue reading “Japan’s Ridiculously Cute Floating Camera Bot Is Now Operational on The ISS” »

Japan’s space agency has released photos and videos taken on board the International Space Station (ISS) by its grapefruit-sized robot drone. The drone, called Internal Ball Camera (or Int-Ball), can be maneuvered by controllers and researchers from Earth, according a press release from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

X-Ray Eyes in the Sky — drones are able to complete 3D map renderings of objects behind walls.

(This is a followup post to three earlier posts on forecasting. The first in May 2015 forecast both blimp-based and dedicated building-based drone deployments (later patented by Amazon); The second in October 2015 largely predicted Elon Musk’s Tesla Masterplan Part Deux by 9 months, the third in July 2016 among other things correctly hypothesised the use of Model X falcon wings for future possible Tesla bus designs. I try to get it right but I mainly enjoy the idle speculation).

I was recently in San Francisco and had a very random number of drinks with two very friendly employees of US telco AT&T. As is often the case I turned the conversation towards autonomous vehicles, and more specifically two of Elon Musk’s companies, Tesla and SpaceX.

I was curious about how cars, such as a Model S, have much greater data connectivity needs than ever before. Right now, Teslas connect to AT&T’s network and it seems clear that data needs will only increase for data hungry vehicles that drive themselves. Already Tesla cars consume quite a few gigabytes of data per month.

Continue reading “Will SpaceX become the world’s biggest telecoms provider? Probably” »

Self-driving cars are pretty cool. Really, who wouldn’t want to spend their daily commute surfing social media, chatting with friends or finishing the Netflix series they were watching at 4 am the night before? It all sounds virtually utopian. But what if there is a dark side to self-driving cars? What if self-driving cars kill the jobs? ALL the jobs?

In this video series, the Galactic Public Archives takes bite-sized looks at a variety of terms, technologies, and ideas that are likely to be prominent in the future. Terms are regularly changing and being redefined with the passing of time. With constant breakthroughs and the development of new technology and other resources, we seek to define what these things are and how they will impact our future.

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DARPA tests drones to operate without human, GPS assistance.

DARPA’s FLA program recently finished its first phase, showing promising results.

Amazon’s drone delivery ‘beehive’ towers could be built vertically to blend in with high rises in big cities.

We’re about to enter the age of flying drone taxis.

Drones. Drone is a word you see pretty often in today’s pop culture. But drones seem to be an extremely diverse species. Even flightless vehicles are occasionally referred to as drones. So what exactly is a drone?

In this video series, the Galactic Public Archives takes bite-sized looks at a variety of terms, technologies, and ideas that are likely to be prominent in the future. Terms are regularly changing and being redefined with the passing of time. With constant breakthroughs and the development of new technology and other resources, we seek to define what these things are and how they will impact our future.

Follow us on social media:
Twitter / Facebook / Instagram