Wednesday 21 March 2012

Of course you don't get f****ing wafers with it!

I hope this is real and not a viral. Wired magazine seems to think it's real and, if you click on the link, Jarno Smeets - the inventor and pilot - tells you all about it. Apparently, it's all based on the wing design of the albatross.



If it is, it opens a whole exciting new world of personal fitness, commuting and thrill-seeking.

I've always been fascinated by technology that borrows from Nature; let's face it, evolution has a 4 billion year head start on us when it comes to good design. For example, if you haven't seen them before, check out Theo Jansen's Strandbeests. I blogged about them here and provided a link to his TED talk. Meanwhile, his website (with lots of videos) is here. Here's just one:



And just recently, DARPA released video of their prototype Cheetah running robot. It's an extraordinary piece of kit:



While I'm always wary of any technology developed primarily for the defence industries, there is some interesting work being done in the area of leg-based transport. Visit DARPA here.

And, hopefully, some of you got the Monty Python reference.

No comments:

Post a Comment