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iCandy: Remote Control

Gadgets that reach where we can’t go, help the imperiled, and spot problems both physical and cognitive

29 Aug 2012

The SmartCopter ZN-2 unmanned remote-controlled helicopter, developed by the Shandong Electric Power Research Institute, is being used to inspect a 220-kilovolt electric power transmission line in Shouguang, in China’s Shandong province. One worker who helps maintain the line says the tool has cut inspection time by more than 90 percent.
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Photo: Rex Features/AP Photo

Visitors to Jane Barnes’s dairy farm in Somerby, England, will see Lady Shamrock, the cow with a QR code spray-painted on her side. When scanned by a visitor’s smartphone, the code brings up a blog that details the cow’s daily routine and information on the hard work required to bring dairy products to market.
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Photo: Fabio Muzzi/AFP/Getty Images

A researcher at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa, in Italy, demonstrates an exoskeleton designed to allow a single rescue worker to lift a wall that has fallen and trapped earthquake survivors. The prototype is one of several machines—including a brain-controlled bionic hand and a garbage-recycling robot—that the group has produced.
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From almost the instant that it landed on Mars early on the morning of 6 August, NASA’s Curiosity rover began sending back pictures of the surface of the Red Planet. This low-res image, which was taken through a wide-angle fish-eye lens on one of the rover’s hazard-avoidance cameras, was the first. Photo NASA/Rex Features/AP Photo
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Photo: Steward Cook/Barcroft Media/Landov

The orange object patrolling the surf is E.M.I.L.Y. the lifeguard robot. The floating cylinder, which can speed through the water at up to 40 kilometers per hour to reach drowning swimmers and can tug as many as four people to shore, is operated by remote control.
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Photo: Silver Dollar City/AP Photo

Wooden roller coasters are elegant, but they couldn’t be made to do all the terror-inducing things that are hallmarks of the newest steel coasters—that is, until now. The Outlaw Run, scheduled to open in 2013 at the Silver Dollar City amusement park in Branson, Mo., will be the first wooden coaster to turn riders upside down.
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Photo: Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp./AP Photo

Each of these shiny metal pods will transport one of 18 sections of the James Webb Space Telescope’s light-gathering primary mirror. The telescope will take up its role as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope when it is launched in 2018.
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Photo: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

The space shuttle Enterprise has been on public display at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, in New York City, since 19 July. Though named after the fictional USS Enterprise from the TV show “Star Trek,” it has never flown in space. The craft was used to test the design’s gliding and landing ability before the introduction of its successor shuttles.
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Photo: Matt Alexner/Press Association/AP Photo

A runner crosses the finish line on an indoor track at the Science Museum of London on 14 August, the first day of the three-day Super Speedy Sprint. The event showed off a technology developed by researchers at Loughborough University, in England, that allows for rapid prototyping of running shoes tailored to a given athlete’s biomechanics.
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Photo: Max Faulkner/MCT/Landov

Anthony Arceri, a 7-year-old autistic boy, interacts with a virtual reality video-game system while wearing a motion capture suit. The exercise is one of several activities that researchers from the Texas Medical Research Collaborative hope will help them gather data that will improve their ability to diagnose and treat autism.<
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[clickimagelink_new]https://spectrum.ieee.org/slideshow/geek-life/tools-toys/icandy-tech-for-the-hands-eyes-and-body[/clickimagelink_new]

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type:slideshow Shandong Electric Power Research Institute NASA’s Curiosity rover UAVs Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa tools and toys

Willie Jones is an associate editor at IEEE Spectrum. In addition to editing and planning daily coverage, he manages several of Spectrum's newsletters and contributes regularly to the monthly Big Picture section that appears in the print edition.

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