Kahn Design unleashes Aston Martin Vengeance and Land Rover Defender fury

The 105 Defender Pick Up starts just under £59,000 (Credit: Kahn Design)

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It's been a big year for Kahn Design. The British tuning shop has been making headlines regularly, thanks to projects like the Land Rover Defender 6x6. Its latest two designs aren't quite as extreme as that Geneva-debuted six-wheeler, but they're quite interesting in their own right. The Aston Martin Vengeance and Flying Huntsman 105 Defender Pick Up exist at opposite ends of the automotive spectrum, but they both share a level of visual "wow."

Kahn revealed the 105 Defender Pick Up Prototype at the Great British Land Rover Show last month. The latest member of its Flying Huntsman family, this new prototype is based on a Defender 90 pickup, gaining an extra 15 inches (381 mm) of wheelbase length to meet its "105" designation. A set of burly fenders adds 6 in (150 mm) of width.

In addition to its increased dimensions, Kahn's Defender wears a new body kit, starting with a new front bumper, X-Lander grille and shadow chrome headlamps. A set of matte black 18-in Defend 1945 Retro wheels roll below extended wheel arches, and a hood release cable and side steps add simple convenience.

Kahn doesn't mention any tuning for the Defender 90's 2.2-liter diesel four, but it has added a six-speed automatic transmission. It has also overhauled the brakes and suspension and redesigned the interior with leather trim, refashioned instruments, a Churchill clock, a three-spoke billet steering wheel and vented machined aluminum foot pedals.

Kahn will offer the 105 Defender Pick Up package with a variety of color, trim and finish options, starting at £58,875 (approx. US$90,350).

Moving away from rugged 4x4 utility vehicles, Kahn has also recently teased an upcoming Aston Martin DB9 package it calls "Vengeance." The car earns that moniker by flashing its teeth angrily in a large, aggressive grille, a few extra big teeth over the prowling saber-toothed cat Kahn took inspiration from.

Moving backward, Kahn has removed any hint of angularity and transformed the DB9 with a series of flowing curves and surface volumes, best exemplified by the bulging rear fenders. The car rides on roulette-inspired two-tone wheels, 20 in/16 spoke up front and 21 in/18 spoke out back.

"Launching the Vengeance is the realization of a dream I’ve had since childhood, to design and produce my own car," Kahn CEO Afzal Kahn explains. "The design has gone through several iterations over the years and I’ve taken my time in selecting the right partners to prototype and manufacture the car, ensuring it represents the pinnacle of quality and perfection. I’ve kept every aspect of the underlying car from the crash structures to airbags – mechanically it’s unaltered – why change perfection? This is coachbuilding in its traditional sense – taking a tried and tested product and working solely on the aesthetic."

Kahn plans to begin hand-building a limited number of Vengeance models later this year, but has not yet announced pricing.

Source: Kahn Design

Mr. Everything wireless speaker can jump start a car

If the car's dead battery needs a jolt, Mr. Everything has a 16 V/2 A DC out port

In a very crowded marketplace, what can a newcomer to the Bluetooth speaker arena do to stand out from the crowd? Well, in the case of Mr. Everything, it's pack as much functionality and usefulness into a portable audio throwing box as possible. The water-resistant speaker comes with integrated emergency lighting, a wireless charging pad and enough stored juice to charge up a MacBook's battery twice or, as mentioned above, jump start a car. It's even got built-in storage. Not the flash memory kind, but somewhere to stow away essentials like protein bars or first aid supplies.
Described as an all-in-one charging station and speaker, Mr. Everything's built-in 14.8 V/6,700 mAh Li-Pol battery is reported capable of charging an iPhone 6 up to 15 times. The portable power bank is also being promoted as a source of emergency backup power should an earthquake, tornado or other natural disaster knock out the mains supply.

 

There's a lid up top which opens to a utility box for storing charging cables, earphones, thumb drives, house keys or all manner of modern life's necessities. The lid is also home to a Qi charging pad for wireless top ups of compatible smartphones. Each of the four USB ports provides 2.1 amps at 5 V, and if the car's dead battery needs a jolt then there's a 16 V/2 A DC out port, too. A similar Mr. Everything+ model also includes a universal AC outlet.
On the upper face, there's a groove for slotting in a tablet or smartphone for hands-free viewing and a line of playback and volume control buttons. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of information available on what to expect from the speakers, other than the very vague assurance of "high quality Bluetooth-enabled audio" and that they'll be "comparable to expensive brand name speakers." This is because the final configuration has not yet been determined.
The Los Angeles-based development team (which includes a former senior engineer/researcher at Samsung) is currently considering three different units, with the lowest setup comprising two 6 W speakers rated at 8 ohms impedance.
Elsewhere, there's NFC connectivity (1 amp at 5 V), an aux-in jack to cater for non-Bluetooth devices and two LED lighting modules – a bright white one for use as a flashlight and some color-changing RGB mood lighting.

 

Mr. Everything and Mr. Everything+ are currently at the working prototype stage, each measuring 10.6 x 7.1 x 5.1 inches (269 x 180 x 129.5 mm) – though there is talk of reducing that bulk by about 30 percent for increased portability in the final products. Before consumers can actually get their hands on them however, the developers have launched on Kickstarter.
Early bird pledge levels of US$199 for the standard model and $299 for the Plus version have recently been extended, with backers potentially saving up to $150 off the expected retail price of each. The campaign runs until June 15 and, if all goes to plan, delivery to anywhere in the world is set to start in November/December.

Sources: Mr. Everything, Kickstarter

Uma mansão dentro de um Boeing 747.

Terrifying bridges and big dogs

Advance in Quantum error correction

Tue, 05/26/2015 - 7:25am Larry Hardesty, MIT News Office A new quantum error correcting code requires measurements of only a few quantum bits at a time, to ensure consistency between one stage of a computation and the next. A new quantum error correcting code requires measurements of only a few quantum bits at a time, to ensure consistency between one stage of a computation and the next. Image: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT Quantum computers are largely theoretical devices that could perform some computations exponentially faster than conventional computers can. Crucial to most designs for quantum computers is quantum error correction, which helps preserve the fragile quantum states on which quantum computation depends. The ideal quantum error correction code would correct any errors in quantum data, and it would require measurement of only a few quantum bits, or qubits, at a time. But until now, codes that could make do with limited measurements could correct only a limited number of errors—one roughly equal to the square root of the total number of qubits. So they could correct eight errors in a 64-qubit quantum computer, for instance, but not 10. In a paper they’re presenting at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Symposium on Theory of Computing in June, researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Google, the Univ. of Sydney and Cornell Univ. present a new code that can correct errors afflicting a specified fraction of a computer’s qubits, not just the square root of their number. And that fraction can be arbitrarily large, although the larger it is, the more qubits the computer requires. “There were many, many different proposals, all of which seemed to get stuck at this square-root point,” says Aram Harrow, an assistant professor of physics at MIT, who led the research. “So going above that is one of the reasons we’re excited about this work.” Like a bit in a conventional computer, a qubit can represent 1 or 0, but it can also inhabit a state known as “quantum superposition,” where it represents 1 and 0 simultaneously. This is the reason for quantum computers’ potential advantages: A string of qubits in superposition could, in some sense, perform a huge number of computations in parallel. Once you perform a measurement on the qubits, however, the superposition collapses, and the qubits take on definite values. The key to quantum algorithm design is manipulating the quantum state of the qubits so that when the superposition collapses, the result is (with high probability) the solution to a problem. Baby, bathwater But the need to preserve superposition makes error correction difficult. “People thought that error correction was impossible in the ’90s,” Harrow explains. “It seemed that to figure out what the error was you had to measure, and measurement destroys your quantum information.” The first quantum error correction code was invented in 1994 by Peter Shor, now the Morss Professor of Applied Mathematics at MIT, with an office just down the hall from Harrow’s. Shor is also responsible for the theoretical result that put quantum computing on the map, an algorithm that would enable a quantum computer to factor large numbers exponentially faster than a conventional computer can. In fact, his error-correction code was a response to skepticism about the feasibility of implementing his factoring algorithm. Shor’s insight was that it’s possible to measure relationships between qubits without measuring the values stored by the qubits themselves. A simple error-correcting code could, for instance, instantiate a single qubit of data as three physical qubits. It’s possible to determine whether the first and second qubit have the same value, and whether the second and third qubit have the same value, without determining what that value is. If one of the qubits turns out to disagree with the other two, it can be reset to their value. In quantum error correction, Harrow explains, “These measurement always have the form ‘Does A disagree with B?’ Except it might be, instead of A and B, A B C D E F G, a whole block of things. Those types of measurements, in a real system, can be very hard to do. That’s why it’s really desirable to reduce the number of qubits you have to measure at once.” Time embodied A quantum computation is a succession of states of quantum bits. The bits are in some state; then they’re modified, so that they assume another state; then they’re modified again; and so on. The final state represents the result of the computation. In their paper, Harrow and his colleagues assign each state of the computation its own bank of qubits; it’s like turning the time dimension of the computation into a spatial dimension. Suppose that the state of qubit eight at time five has implications for the states of both qubit 8 and qubit 11 at time six. The researchers’ protocol performs one of those agreement measurements on all three qubits, modifying the state of any qubit that’s out of alignment with the other two. Since the measurement doesn’t reveal the state of any of the qubits, modification of a misaligned qubit could actually introduce an error where none existed previously. But that’s by design: The purpose of the protocol is to ensure that errors spread through the qubits in a lawful way. That way, measurements made on the final state of the qubits are guaranteed to reveal relationships between qubits without revealing their values. If an error is detected, the protocol can trace it back to its origin and correct it. It may be possible to implement the researchers’ scheme without actually duplicating banks of qubits. But, Harrow says, some redundancy in the hardware will probably be necessary to make the scheme efficient. How much redundancy remains to be seen: Certainly, if each state of a computation required its own bank of qubits, the computer might become so complex as to offset the advantages of good error correction. But, Harrow says, “Almost all of the sparse schemes started out with not very many logical qubits, and then people figured out how to get a lot more. Usually, it’s been easier to increase the number of logical qubits than to increase the distance—the number of errors you can correct. So we’re hoping that will be the case for ours, too.”

The Sikorsky S-97 Raider prototype takes to the air for the first time

The Sikorsky S-97 Raider prototype takes to the air for the first time   Sikorsky's S-97 Raider prototype helicopter, which was revealed to the world last year, has taken to the air for the first time. Based on the design of the X2 Technology Demonstrator, the S-97 Raider features coaxial counter-rotating main rotors and a pusher propeller and is intended as a multi-mission aircraft to replace the US Army’s OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter and the Special Forces’ MH-6 Little Bird. While Sikorsky anticipates it will be capable of cruise speeds of up to 240 knots (276 mph, 444 km/h), and the X2 demonstrator achieved a speed of 250 knots (288 mph, 463 km/h) in 2010, the S-97 Raider's first flight was limited to a series of maneuvers intended to test its hover and low-speed capabilities. With pilot Bill Fell and co-pilot Kevin Bredenbeck at the controls, the maiden flight at Sikorsky's Development Flight Center (DFC) in Florida lasted around an hour. Having successfully completed its first flight, the S-97 Raider prototype will now move onto more progressive flight testing intended to demonstrate capabilities critical to a variety of potential combat missions, including armed reconnaissance, light assault, light attack and special operations. Sikorsky has a demonstration tour planned for the S-97 Raider in 2016. A second prototype is also currently under construction, and is set to be completed by the end of this year. Source: Sikorsky

Vaccines developed for H5N1, H7N9 avian influenza strains

 

Wenjun Ma, assistant professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology at Kansas State University, left, and Jürgen Richt, Regents distinguished professor of veterinary medicine and director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases, have developed vaccines for H5N1 and H7N9, two emerging strains of avian influenza. The strains are zoonotic and can be transmitted from chickens to pigs and humans. Credit: Image courtesy of Kansas State University A recent study with Kansas State University researchers details vaccine development for two new strains of avian influenza that can be transmitted from poultry to humans. The strains have led to the culling of millions of commercial chickens and turkeys as well as the death of hundreds of people. The new vaccine development method is expected to help researchers make vaccines for emerging strains of avian influenza more quickly. This could reduce the number and intensity of large-scale outbreaks at poultry farms as well as curb human transmission. It also may lead to new influenza vaccines for pigs, and novel vaccines for sheep and other livestock, said Jürgen Richt, Regents distinguished professor of veterinary medicine and director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases. Richt and his colleagues focused on the avian influenza virus subtype H5N1, a new strain most active in Indonesia, Egypt and other Southeast Asian and North African countries. H5N1 also has been documented in wild birds in the U.S., though in fewer numbers. "H5N1 is a zoonotic pathogen, which means that it is transmitted from chickens to humans," Richt said. "So far it has infected more than 700 people worldwide and has killed about 60 percent of them. Unfortunately, it has a pretty high mortality rate." Researchers developed a vaccine for H5N1 by combining two viruses. A vaccine strain of the Newcastle disease virus, a virus that naturally affects poultry, was cloned and a small section of the H5N1 virus was transplanted into the Newcastle disease virus vaccine, creating a recombinant virus. Tests showed that the new recombinant virus vaccinated chickens against both Newcastle disease virus and H5N1. Researchers also looked at the avian flu subtype H7N9, an emerging zoonotic strain that has been circulating in China since 2013. China has reported about 650 cases in humans and Canada has reported two cases in people returning from China. About 230 people have died from H7N9. "In Southeast Asia there are a lot of markets that sell live birds that people can buy and prepare at home," Richt said. "In contrast to the H5N1 virus that kills the majority of chickens in three to five days, chickens infected with the H7N9 virus do not show clinical signs of sickness. That means you could buy a bird that looks perfectly healthy but could be infected. If an infected bird is prepared for consumption, there is a high chance you could get sick, and about 1 in 3 infected people die." Using the same method for developing the H5N1 vaccine, researchers inserted a small section of the H7N9 virus into the Newcastle disease virus vaccine. Chickens given this recombinant vaccine were protected against the Newcastle disease virus and H7N9. "We believe this Newcastle disease virus concept works very well for poultry because you kill two birds with one stone, metaphorically speaking," Richt said. "You use only one vector to vaccinate and protect against a selected virus strain of avian influenza." Using the Newcastle disease virus for vaccine development may extend beyond poultry to pigs, cattle and sheep, Richt said. Researchers found they were able to protect pigs against an H3 influenza strain by using the Newcastle disease virus to develop a recombinant virus vaccine. Wenjun Ma, Kansas State University assistant professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology, is building on this finding and using the Newcastle disease virus to make a vaccine for porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, a disease that has killed an estimated 6 million pigs. Richt conducted the avian influenza study with Ma, Adolfo Garcia-Sastre at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and several other colleagues. They published their findings in the Journal of Virology study, "Newcastle disease virus-vectored H7 and H5 live vaccines protect chickens from challenge with H7N9 or H5N1 avian influenza viruses." It is the first study to look at an H7N9 vaccine in chickens, the animals the disease originates in. Story Source: The above story is based on materials provided by Kansas State University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference: Qinfang Liu, Ignacio Mena, Jingjiao Ma, Bhupinder Bawa, Florian Krammer, Young S Lyoo, Yuekun Lang, Igor Morozov, Gusti Ngurah Mahardika, Wenjun Ma, Adolfo García-Sastre, Juergen A. Richt. Newcastle disease virus-vectored H7 and H5 live vaccines protect chickens from challenge with H7N9 or H5N1 avian influenza viruses. Journal of Virology, 2015; JVI.00031-15 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.00031-15

National Physical Fitness and Sports Month

 

Most adults with disabilities are able to participate in physical activity, yet nearly half of them get no aerobic physical activity. Learn how everybody can make lifestyle changes and include physical activity in their everyday life.  May is National Fitness and Sports Month. CDC recommends finding and creating opportunities to add more physical activity into your daily routine and encourage family and friends to do the same. All adults, with and without disabilities, need at least 2½ hours a week of aerobic physical activity at a moderate-intensity level to increase heart and lung function; to improve daily living activities and independence; to decrease chances of developing chronic diseases; and to improve mental health. Learn how Jonathan, a man with an intellectual disability, finds time to be physically active and encourages others to do the same. Jonathan's story Before Jonathan Doring, 34, goes to bed every night, he logs his physical activities for the day. He tracks his time at the gym, his time on the tennis court, even his time vacuuming or raking. Jonathan makes sure that he finds time in his busy schedule each day to focus on his fitness. Fitness wasn't always a priority for Jonathan, who has Fragile X syndrome. Jonathan's family says he used to stay in his room as a child, but then began competing in sports at age 5, which changed his life. He joined Special Olympics as an athlete when he was 8 years old and he now competes and trains year-round. All adults, with and without disabilities, need at least 2½ hours a week of aerobic physical activity at a moderate-intensity level. Jonathan has also joined the President's Challenge, and the Presidential Active Lifestyle Award program. The Presidential Active Lifestyle Challenge helps participants add physical activity to their lives and improve eating habits. This Challenge is for anyone, from students to seniors, but it's geared toward people who want to set themselves on the road to a healthier life through positive changes to their physical activity and eating behaviors. Jonathan encouraged his father, Mark, to join him and they haven't stopped since. "As Jonathan's strength has increased, so has his self-confidence," says Kathy, Jonathan's mom. "He has joined a local men's tennis league and is competing in USTA [United States Tennis Association] adult tournaments. So, in addition to his regular Special Olympics activities he is playing tennis three days a week and weight training another three. My husband drives him to these events and rather than just spectate he walks or exercises along with his son." Jonathan is a health ambassador because of both the way he lives his life and his role as a spokesperson for Special Olympics. As a spokesperson, he has shared healthy messages with nearly 1,000 Exceptional Student Education students in schools across Florida, his home state, at Fortune 100 company conferences, and even with the Florida Governor. CDC would like to thank Jonathan, the Doring family and Special Olympics for sharing this personal story. 5 helpful tips for people with disabilities If you or somebody in your family has a disability and wants to add more routine physical activity, here are some helpful tips: Visit your doctor. Talk to your doctor about how much and what kind of physical activity is right for you. Discuss your barriers to physical activity. Ask your doctor to put you in contact with resources and programs to help you begin or maintain your physical activity. Find opportunities to add more physical activity into your everyday life. Decide how much physical activity is right for you and your fitness level. Remember, all adults, whether or not they have a disability, should try to get at least 2½ hours a week of moderate-intensity physical activity. If this is not possible, adults with disabilities should avoid being inactive; some activity is better than none! Be active your way. Decide what kind of physical activity you enjoy. General gardening, doing active chores around the house, wheeling yourself in your wheelchair, walking briskly, dancing, playing wheelchair basketball, tennis or soccer are all examples of physical activity that you can add into your everyday life. Start slowly. Start slowly based on your abilities and fitness level. For example, be active for at least 10 minutes at a time, and then slowly increase activity over several weeks if necessary. Have fun with your family. It's easier to stay active when you have the support of your family and friends. Invite your loved ones to have fun with you. For example, together you can play outside with a ball, dance, or walk or wheel around the neighborhood. What CDC and our National Programs are doing CDC supports and provides funding for four National Public Health Practice and Resource Centers that focus on improving the quality of life for people living with disabilities, including physical activity: CDC also supports 18 state-based programs to promote equity in health, prevent chronic disease, and increase the quality of life for people with disabilities. Learn more about the State's disability and health programs.

MIT has a new method for producing large quantities of graphene

 

The new technique involves wrapping a substrate around an inner tube and passing gas through an outer tube (Credit: MIT) A team of MIT and University of Michigan researchers has a new method for manufacturing graphene that it believes could take the material out of the laboratory and into commercial products. The method involves forming the strong, conductive material in a chamber consisting of two concentric tubes. Graphene is a material with some serious potential. It's strong, highly conductive and could be used in solar panels, flexible light sources and more. Unfortunately, it's also rather difficult to fabricate, with most existing solutions unable to produce patches of the material large enough for widespread commercial uses. A new technique pioneered by MIT researchers could make things significantly easier. It's similar to the existing chemical vapor deposition method, but makes use of a chamber consisting of two concentric tubes – one placed inside the other. The technique requires the chamber to be heated to around 1,000 °C (1,832 °F). The substrate on which the graphene forms is wound around the inner tube, with gases flowing through the larger tube and out of a set of holes halfway along the inner tube. This allows the process to be split into two stages, with the first part of the chamber used to prepare the substrate, and the second used to grow the graphene upon it. The MIT team built and tested a lab-scale version of the chamber, finding that when the substrate is moved through at a pace of 25 mm (1 in) per minute, a high-quality, uniform layer of graphene is formed. Turning up the speed to 50 cm (20 in) a minute produces a lower-quality coating that would still be useable for certain applications. The researchers claim that the technique is scalable, with the resulting graphene samples only limited by the width of the rolls of foil and the size of the chamber used. This isn't the first time we've seen an innovative technique for making graphene come out of MIT. Back in May 2014, the same collaborative team detailed a method that allows for the formation of the material on both sides of a film, binding it directly to a substrate. As with the new research, it's thought that the technique could be used on a large scale. As for the new tube-chamber method of graphene production, the team is now working to tweak the process to allow for the production of high-quality graphene layers at higher speeds, improving the potential of the technique. The findings of the study were published in the journal Scientific Reports. Source: MIT

Nobot wants to put people to work ... in robot form

 

Nobot is a robot shell controlled by a human operator (Credit: Nobot) We hear plenty of discussion about robots taking over our jobs, so it's a refreshing change to hear about a robot designed to create them instead. Its name is Nobot, and what makes this machine unique is that it's largely controlled remotely by a human being rather than by a set of software algorithms. The Indiegogo campaign describes the concept as being "like a person in a robot suit," which is a helpful way of understanding it – as long as you realize the person is sat behind a computer somewhere else in the world. Nobot owners get a clever robot to help around the house without needing to spend time programming; Nobot operators get to earn money from home. Childcare, healthcare, gardening ... there's conceivably no limit to what Nobot could do. The plan is to set up a marketplace for operators and owners, so if you've bought a shiny new Nobot you can easily find someone with the skills and expertise to work it for you – even if you just want some company in the evening or someone to fold the laundry. The robot unit itself is relatively low-tech, combining a tough plastic exoskeleton with a Raspberry Pi that handles most of the unit's operations. Each Nobot is fitted with a rotating camera, touchscreen, speaker, microphone and wireless connectivity. Of course the real smarts are provided by the human at the other end of the video feed. That human element saves the Nobot team from having to program a sophisticated operating system. It also means Nobot owners don't have to spend an evening with a user manual to work out how to get the robot to do their bidding – they simply speak out the instructions as necessary and let the Nobot do its work. Owners can also operate the Nobot themselves, should they want to keep an eye on their home from afar, for example. The inventors behind the project are currently aiming to raise US$19,000 on Indiegogo to make their product a reality. The early bird price for a Nobot is set at $399, with shipping expected in November if the campaign meets its goals. The video below gives some idea of the inspiration behind the idea. Sources: Nobot, Indiegogo