It may not be as glamorous as the construction of vehicles that run faster, fly higher or shoot more beautiful images, but still drones for someone difficult piece of iron and nearly a pet. So when they hit a wall or even people’s faces, it is fraught with troubles both for themselves and for the owner of the flying object.

Many minds are broken on the problem of providing a quality system to avoid such unpleasant moments. One of the companies working on this problem, the team is called Panoptes, which has just started collecting capital for the production of its development – eBumper4. This is the latest system to prevent the obstacles which can be as long as that “attach” to two of the most popular consumer drones to prevent them from colliding with trees, walls, cars, other drones in the end.

From the Titans in the development of the hardware to the “vigorous and ambitious” new companies such Panoptes, researchers in the field of robotics are working on systems avoiding obstacles. During the CES 2015 the company Intel, for example, has demonstrated its technology RealSense, which, when installed on the drone made it capable of autonomous navigation on the entire course of repetition, but this product is not expected to be available to consumers until the middle of this year. Manufacturers drones Airdog and Zano also claim that they were prototypes that include a complete set of technology to prevent the raid on the obstacles, but it is not ready to enter the market version.

The principle of operation is quite simple at first glance: scanning the environment allows you to set the position of the obstacle. If it is on the one hand, the system will immediately give the order to fly off in the opposite direction, as if the objects will be on both sides, as, say, the house of the street, it will help to keep exactly in the middle between them.

Source: Gizmag

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Apple officially became a manufacturer of automobiles and vehicles of other types, as well as electronics and accessories. This follows from the updated legal documents of the Swiss branch of the company.

In documents describing the scope of activities of the Swiss branch of Apple, officially included the production of cars and other vehicles, said local technology ApfelBlog. The application for the addition of new categories of products was performed at the request of Apple Legal Agency Baker & McKenzie. Documents were issued by the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property, which regulates not only patent rights, but also trademarks (link).

According to documents in the economic activities of the Swiss branch of Apple (by analogy with the NACE in Russian) include the production of automobiles; cars, traveling by land, air and water; electronic components for motor vehicles; railcars and locomotives; anti-theft devices; car alarms; bicycles; golf carts; wheelchairs; compressors; motorcycles; parts and components to these goods.

Foreign media almost unanimously said that this fact – another confirmation of Apple desire to reach a new market of itself, the market vehicles.

“Apple officially wants to be a car manufacturer,” – writes Cult of Mac.

In early February, 2015 edition of Business Insider reported that Apple is working about 50 former engineers Tesla, engaged in the development and production of electric vehicles. Later, Bloomberg reported that Apple about 200 such people.

A few days before the publication Business Insider appeared on the Internet photos recorded on Apple unknown vehicle. Seen in the vicinity of San Francisco (California, USA), he drew attention to the reason that was equipped with cameras and specialized equipment used to determine the distance to objects. The same equipment, for example, installed on cars with Google autonomous control.

In February against Apple, lawsuit was filed by Massachusetts A123 Systems, which was charged with luring employees. A123 Systems specializes in the development of batteries for electric vehicles. According to the lawsuit documents, Apple lured five employees. The company is also trying to involve the project staff of the companies LG Chem, Samsung Electronics, Panasonic, Toshiba, and Johnson Controls, told the plaintiff.

Talking about the number of employees at Apple engineers former Tesla, the agency Bloomberg, citing informed sources, reported that Apple is going to release an electric approximately in 2020. This target is ambitious, given that the company is not much time.

But Apple may release the car and not your own. According to the American entrepreneur Jason Calacanis (Jason Calacanis), the company can simply buy a Tesla. The expert believes that an appropriate announcement will be followed for 18 months, and the transaction amount will be $ 75 billion.

Source: Apfelblog

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