Autonomous Drones

Published on Apr 19, 2013

We chat with Kyle Moore, a member of the Stanford Robotics Club, about his project that converts cheap remote-controlled toy helicopters into autonomous drones that can map and navigate around environments.



Published on Apr 13, 2013

Check out some Home security Drone Available In the Market you can buy

http://www.dailysmartstuff.com/2013/0…

Tens of thousands of domestic drones already in use nationwide, with more to come
Increase of use in drones by law enforcement, movie studios, environmental organizations and the news media, comes as the U.S. government prepares to issue commercial drone permits in 2015. Many of those already flying do so without the proper permits.

This video Uploaded for educational purposes only;

The Black Hornet Nano

Published on Oct 6, 2013

The PD-100 Black Hornet is a nano UAV developed by Prox Dynamics. The Black Hornet offers intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to armed forces in mission critical operations. The UAV gives access to remote locations and provides situational awareness on the battle field.The Black Hornet has been deployed in Afghanistan to meet the surveillance requirements of the UK Armed Forces. The UAV is also in service with the security forces of several other countries.

BRITISH ARMY $195,000 SPY DRONE That Fits in the PALM of Your HAND – Intro to the Black Hornet Nano

The Black Hornet Nano is a military micro unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by Prox Dynamics AS of Norway, and in use by the British Army.

The unit measures around 10 cm x 2.5 cm and provides troops on the ground with local situational awareness. They are small enough to fit in one hand and weigh just over half an ounce (including batteries). The UAV is equipped with a camera which gives the operator full-motion video and still images and were developed as part of a £20 million contract for 160 units with Marlborough Communications Ltd.

The aircraft are being used by soldiers from the UK’s Brigade Reconnaissance Force at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.[4] Operation Herrick personnel in Afghanistan deploy the Black Hornet from the front line to fly into enemy territory to take video and still images before returning to the operator.

Designed to blend in with the muddy grey walls in Afghanistan, it has been used to look around corners or over walls and other obstacles to identify any hidden dangers and enemy positions. The images are displayed on a small handheld terminal which can be used by the operator to control the UAV.

Sergeant Carl James Boyd of the 1st Royal Regiment of Fusiliers demonstrates how the Norwegian-designed Black Hornet Nano will be used by troops on the front line in Afghanistan.

The tiny handheld surveillance helicopters contains a camera that beams back video and still images to a handheld control terminal, allowing soldiers to see past obstacles to identify potential hidden dangers.

The remote-controlled drone measures about 4in by 1in and weighs 0.6oz

Black Hornet: British Army unveil latest weapon against the Taliban
Sergeant Carl Boyd shows off a remote controlled miniature helicopter with three cameras on-board.

British troops in Afghanistan are now using 10-centimeter-long 16-gram spy helicopters to survey Taliban firing spots. The UK Defense Ministry plans to buy 160 of the drones under a contract worth more than $31 million.

­The remote-controlled PD-100 PRS aircraft, dubbed the Black Hornet, is produced by Norwegian designer Prox Dynamics. The drone is a traditional single-rotor helicopter, scaled down to the size of a toy. British troops use the drones for reconnaissance missions, sending them ahead to inspect enemy positions.

Each drone is equipped with a tiny tillable camera, a GPS coordinate receiver and an onboard autopilot system complete with gyros, accelerometers and pressure sensors, which keeps it stable in flight against winds as strong as 10 knots, according to reviews. The tiny aircraft is agile enough to fly inside compounds, and is quiet enough not to attract unwanted attention. If detected, the drones are cheap enough to be considered expendable.

The auto-pilot either follows a preprogrammed flight plan or receives commands from a manual control station, which is about the size of a large smartphone. The drone’s camera can feed compressed video or still images to an operator up to a kilometer away, and its rechargeable battery provides power for about 30 minutes of flight.
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In addition to the drone and the controller, each system comes with a ground base station, which houses the operating system, main electronics, internal batteries and chargers. It also protects the drone while being transported. The weight of the entire kit is about a kilogram, easily portable in the field.

Prox Dynamics started working on the nano-drone in 2008, and released a video of the first prototype in flight a year later. The manufacturer initially planned for it to be put to civilian use, to scout sites of natural or man-made disasters for survivors and provide intel to rescue teams. A marketable version of the Black Hornet was first presented at the Counter Terrorist Expo in London in April 2012.

Google Privacy Policy

We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.
We believe this stuff matters, so please take a few minutes to read our updated Privacy Policy and Terms of Service at http://www.google.com/policies. These changes will take effect on March 1, 2012.
Got questions?
We’ve got answers.
Visit our FAQ at http://www.google.com/policies/faq to read more about the changes. (We figured our users might have a question or twenty-two.)

States Move on Privacy Law

Over two dozen privacy laws have passed this year in more than 10 states, in places as different as Oklahoma and California.
For Internet companies, the patchwork of rules across the country means keeping a close eye on evolving laws to avoid overstepping.

Continue reading “Google Privacy Policy”

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business skills

The IT Talent Problem

Business-savvy IT executives can be hard to come by, and that’s a big problem if your company relies on technology to exist (it does). Maybe it’s time to start growing your own.

Two weeks ago, I asked the IT executive readership of my weekly newsletter, The Heller Report, to answer the question: If you had a magic wand, what one talent problem would you solve? Responses poured in and addressed challenges around recruiting, developing leaders, and retaining the talent that they currently have. But more than 70 percent of readers would use their magic wand to do only one thing: give business skills to their technologists. Their people, they worry, are so narrowly focused on the technology that they fail to see the forest through the trees. They do not understand the business context of their technology work, nor can they have a meaningful discussion with the leaders of the business areas their technology supports.

This lack of business-savvy technology talent is a serious problem for every company that relies on technology to exist (which is, of course, every company). Those beautifully “blended executives,” who can talk technology in one meeting and can talk business in another, are rare birds. Yet with technology moving directly into the revenue stream of your company, you need them, and your need is only going to increase.

Chop-Shop Electronics

The Hidden Dangers of Chop-Shop Electronics

Do you really know what’s inside the electronic devices you use? Neither the U.S. military nor an increasing number of large corporations knows what’s in theirs. Between 2005 and 2008, the number of companies reporting incidents involving counterfeit chips—including recycled parts passed off as new, those that fail testing and are sold anyway, and some that are phony from the beginning and were never intended to work at all—more than doubled. Some of these supply-chain catastrophes have found their way into aircraft such as military jets and helicopters—and into an untold number of commercial systems that don’t face the level of scrutiny the military brings to bear.

The global trade in recycled electronics parts is enormous and growing rapidly, driven by a confluence of cost pressures, increasingly complex supply chains, and the huge growth in the amount of electronic waste sent for disposal around the world. Recycled parts, relabeled and sold as new, threaten not only military systems but also commercial transportation systems, medical devices and systems, and the computers and networks that run today’s financial markets and communications systems.

3 biggest mistakes people make in RAID recovery

1. Doing RAID recovery where there is no need to recover RAID

Some people do not know at all whether they use RAID or not. This often happens when a user heard somewhere about RAID technique and arrays, and now he or she thinks that there is a RAID on his or her system. And then, if something fails, these users start recovering their “RAID” even consisting of only one drive. Some may find it hard to believe, but in our statistics it is one of the most common mistakes users made in RAID recovery.

People also often can’t tell a RAID failure from a filesystem failure and apply RAID recovery to the cases where filesystem recovery is needed. In such situations, RAID is working properly while data corruption is caused by something else, for example a filesystem driver problem. Data recovery in these cases is no different from restoring data off a single drive and typically is solved by any data recovery software.

Start with file system recovery if:

  • you have deleted a file on your RAID system and then cannot find it in the Recycle Bin;
  • Windows reports RAW file system for the volume managed by RAID;
  • Windows doesn’t start. It makes sense to add one more disk to the system, put a temporary Windows installation on it not touching the RAID, and then proceed to investigate the condition of the array data using this temporary installation.

Start to recover RAID if:

  • RAID-controller displays the error message and refuses to bring the array online;
  • NAS device doesn’t turn on;
  • RAID array in question is no longer displayed in the list of arrays in a RAID-controller software or in a NAS control panel;
  • failure has occurred immediately after some action with RAID, for example, after disk replacement in a RAID5.

2. Wrong RAID type

Very often even the most advanced users confuse different RAID types. RAID0 and JBOD are most often confused; however, still relatively large number of errors is the share of RAID5 with RAID10. Although RAID recovery software can tell RAID10 from RAID0, it is unable to distinguish a RAID5 with one disk missing from a RAID10.

However, it should be noted that all RAID recovery software is solely read-only which means that if you confuse the array type, nothing bad will happen. Surely, with the wrong RAID type you do not get the correct RAID configuration. But once you specify the correct RAID type, you will have a good chance of getting a solution for the array.

To avoid this mistake first you should exclude impossible types of RAID following the rules like:

  • RAID cannot be created on one disk; therefore, if all you have is a single disk, it is for sure a non-RAID system.
  • JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks, also called Span) cannot be ruled out if you have multiple disks.
  • If all you have is two disks, it can only be RAID0, RAID1, or JBOD.
  • Three disks cannot be used for a RAID 6 or RAID 10.
  • RAID controllers built into common motherboards, like ICH-R series controllers, typically do not support fancy or computationally heavy RAID levels, like RAID 1E or RAID 6. Check the motherboard manual to see what levels are supported.

*Note: Missing disks are not taken into account in all the above considerations.

If you know for sure what the array capacity was, you can estimate what RAID types match to what capacity:

  • capacity of a RAID 0 and JBOD is equal to the sum of member disks capacity;
  • RAID 1 is usually created on two disks and total RAID 1 capacity is equal to the capacity of one disk;
  • in case of a RAID 5 of N disks, the capacity is (N-1) capacities of separate disks; for a RAID 6 is (N-2), where N – the number of disks.

Then, you should go over all the remaining possible types using different modes of data recovery software.

3. Rebuilding a RAID with wrong parameters

If you deal with a fault tolerant array that can survive one or multiple disk failure, then you should be familiar with a rebuild. It is a standard procedure that is typically performed after replacing a failed disk in RAID5, RAID10, or RAID6.

Some people try to force the array online after a problem has occurred, using either default parameters or their best guess about the previous setup. However, there is a catch – some controllers will start a rebuild if the array is forced online without asking you first. This means you have only one chance of doing things right.

If an array was rebuilt using wrong parameters, then in most cases it is impossible to recover data off it. The speed at which an array rebuilds is about 50-100 MB per second. If the data on your array was managed by NTFS which is known to store file metadata (MFT) along the first 2-4 GB of RAID, then after about 30-90 seconds the filesystem records will be significantly damaged. Thus, even if you cancel the synchronization within minutes after the start, you still lose half of the files. Neither data recovery software nor a data recovery lab can help you in such a situation. In case of the fully completed rebuild, the array contains nothing even remotely resembling the previous data.

The only thing that can help to avoid this mistake is to back up all the array member disks before rebuilding the RAID. Alternatively, you can just copy the important data using read-only software.

 

Written by Elena Pakhomova of www.ReclaiMe.com, specializing in data recovery solutions for various NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices.

STEM degrees

Every year U.S. schools grant more STEM degrees than there are available jobs. When you factor in H-1B visa holders, existing STEM degree holders, and the like, it’s hard to make a case that there’s a STEM labor shortage.” Even in the IT industry, which employs the most tech workers and is expected to experience the most growth over the next decade, not everyone who wants a job can find one. Anecdotal evidence, the article points out, is piled high on the side of there being a glut instead of a shortage. “If there was really a STEM labor market crisis, you’d be seeing very different behaviors from companies,” Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, in New York state told IEEE Spectrum. “You wouldn’t see companies cutting their retirement contributions, or hiring new workers and giving them worse benefits packages. Instead you would see signing bonuses, you’d see wage increases. You would see these companies really training their incumbent workers.” In a related opinion piece, “Is a Career in STEM Really for Me?” an 8th grader ponders her options, and finds science and engineering far down on the list.

Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS)

In the United States, Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) is a Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) term defining a non-developmental item (NDI) of supply that is both commercial and sold in substantial quantities in the commercial marketplace, and that can be procured or utilized under government contract in the same precise form as available to the general public. For example, technology related items, such as computer software, hardware systems or free software with commercial support, and construction materials qualify, but bulk cargo, such as agricultural or petroleum products, do not.

COTS purchases are alternatives to in-house developments or one-off government-funded developments. COTS typically requires configuration that is tailored for specific uses. The use of COTS has been mandated across many government and business programs, as such products may offer significant savings in procurement, development, and maintenance.

Contents

Control de versión

Los repositorios administrados de documentos son importantes en el trabajo en equipo cuando varios miembros deben trabajar de manera simultánea o coordinada sobre los mismos documentos, pero también es útil en el caso de lobos solitarios. Control de versión es el arte de administrar cambios. Es una herramienta crítica en el desarrollo de software.

Algunos sistemas de control de versión son administradores de software (Software Configuration Management). Estos sistemas están especí­ficamente diseñados para administrar árboles de código fuente y soportan el ciclo de vida de aplicaciones. Otros sistemas son repositorios generales de documentos.

Un repositorio de información para control de versión guarda un registro de los cambios hechos tanto a los datos como a la estructura misma de archivos. Un cliente puede no solo ver la última versión de los documentos guardados, sino también estados previos del sistema de archivos. Por ejemplo un cliente puede hacer consultas del tipo ¿Qué cambios se hicieron en un documento en la última semana?

El problema fundamental es por un lado ¿Cómo compartir información y coordinar modificaciones concurrentes a un grupo de documentos? Y complementariamente ¿Cómo recuperar estados anteriores de los documentos cuando una serie de cambios resultan inapropiados o se requieren variaciones de base común?

Un enfoque para evitar conflictos es reservar-modificar-cambiar (lock-modify-unlock). Este enfoque no siempre garantiza la integridad o coherencia de un sistema cuando se trabaja con múltiples documentos y serializa el trabajo innecesariamente cuando se pudiera hacer cambios independientes. Otro enfoque es copiar-modificar-integrar (copy-modify-merge). El repositorio puede asistir en el manejo de documentos y sus cambios, pero una persona necesita hacer el análisis de si un conjunto de cambios es valido y los miembros de un equipo deben mantener una buena comunicación.

En el caso particular del software algunas de las áreas que soporta un SCM son:

        • Administración de versiones múltiples, permitiendo a usuarios y desarrolladores reportas defectos y cambios con relación a versiones históricas.

       

    • Administración de equipos de desarrollo, permitiendo que varios programadores trabajen en un mismo archivo e integrando los cambios.
    • Auditorias de cambios.

 

Los sistemas de control de versión trabajan con dos elementos base: áreas de trabajo y repositorios. Las áreas de trabajo es donde se hacen cambios y el repositorio es el lugar donde se guardan los documentos de referencia que sincronizan el trabajo de todos y define el estado de la información. El repositorio guarda metadata que permite rastrear cambios y versiones.
El paradigma central de control de versión es Pedir/Aplicar (check out/commit). Todos los documentos se almacenan en el repositorio. El programador registra una copia en su área de trabajo y procede a aplicar cambios a su copia. Cuando los cambios son estables, se aplican al repositorio de acuerdo a polí­ticas de administración de cambios y resolución de conflictos.

Dos conceptos importantes en la administración de cambios son ramas (branches) y etiquetas (tags). La ramificación del código permite mantener el desarrollo del sistema y liberar versiones de acuerdo a plataformas, características y pruebas; O para pruebas de código experimental. Etiquetas son similares a ramas pero puntos de referencia en la misma línea de desarrollo, no a una variante del mismo.

El abuelito y punto de referencia de los sistemas de control de versión es CVS, referenciado a scripts escritos por Dick Grune y publicados en comp.sources.unix en diciembre de 1986.

Sistemas de control de versión:
CVS
Subversion
Perforce (p4)
BitKeeper
VOODOO Server
ClearCase
RCS (Revision Control System)