What is ubiquitous computing/pervasive computing

Ubiquitous computing (or "ubicomp") could be a conception in package engineering and engineering wherever computing is created to look anytime and all over. In distinction to desktop computing, present computing will occur victimization any device, in any location, and in any format. A user interacts with the pc, which might exist in many various forms, as well as portable computer computers, tablets and terminals in everyday objects like a electric refrigerator or a combine of glasses. The underlying technologies to support present computing embrace web, advanced middle ware, software system, mobile code, sensors, microprocessors, new I/O and user interfaces, networks, mobile protocols, location and positioning and new materials.

This paradigm is additionally represented as pervasive computing close intelligence, or "every ware". every term emphasizes slightly totally different aspects. once primarily regarding the objects concerned, it's conjointly called physical computing, the net of Things, perception computing, and "things that think". instead of propose one definition for present computing and for these connected terms, a taxonomy of properties for present computing has been planned, from that totally different types or flavors of present systems and applications is represented

History of ubiquitous

History of ubiquitous/pervasive computing

Ubiquitous computing was initial pioneered at the Olivetti research lab in Cambridge England, wherever the Active Badge, a "clip-on computer" the scale of Associate in Nursing worker ID card, was created, sanctionative the corporate to trace the situation of individuals during a building, additionally because the objects to that they were connected.

Pervasive computing

Largely thought of the daddy of present computing, Mark Wiser and colleagues at Xerox PARC presently thenceforth began building early incarnations of present computing devices within the type of "tabs," "pads" and "boards."

Wiser represented present computing:

Inspired by the social scientists, philosophers and anthropologists at PARC, we've been attempting to require a radical verify what computing and networking have to be compelled to be like. we tend to believe that individuals pass though their practices and in explicit data, so the foremost powerful things square measure people who square measure effectively invisible in use. this is often a challenge that affects all of applied science. Our preliminary approach: Activate the planet. give many wireless computing devices per person per workplace of all scales (from 1" displays to wall-sized). This has needed new add operative systems, user interfaces, networks, wireless, displays and lots of alternative areas. we tend to decision our work "ubiquitous computing." this is often totally different from PDAs [personal digital assistants], Dynabooks or info at your fingertips. it's invisible, all over computing that doesn't carry on a private device of any kind, however is within the woodwork all over.

Solar-powered plane lands in California after Pacific crossing

MOUNTAIN VIEW (AFP) - Solar Impulse 2, an experimental plane flying around the world without consuming a drop of fuel, has landed in California, one leg closer to completing its trailblazing trip.

"The Pacific is done, my friend. I love it, but it s done," said clearly relieved Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, who piloted the craft from Hawaii to California, just before landing.

"It s great to be in California, the land of pioneers," he said once on the ground, with Google co-founder and alternative energy enthusiast Sergey Brin on hand.

"Innovation and pioneering must continue. The clean tech revolution has to keep moving forward."

Piccard, a 58-year-old doctor by training, said that enduring the 62-hour stretch between Hawaii and the Silicon Valley town of Mountain View was one of the "most amazing" experiences of his life.

"I bet that in 10 years, electric airplanes will be transporting up to 50 people. This will happen," he added.

"This is not science fiction. It is real," Piccard said.

The arrival at Moffett Airfield southeast of San Francisco, marked the completion of the ninth of 13 legs in a journey that began last year in the United Arab Emirates.

Piccard, who has been alternating the long solo flights with teammate Andre Borschberg, will now hand over to his teammate who will pilot Solar Impulse across the United States and to New York.

The mission aims to promote the use of renewable energy, with an aircraft powered by 17,000 solar cells.

The plane s wingspan is wider than that of a jumbo jet but its weight is roughly the same as a car s.

Solar Impulse 2 was grounded in July last year when its batteries suffered problems halfway through its 21,700-mile (35,000-kilometer) circumnavigation.

The crew took several months to repair the damage from high tropical temperatures during the first Pacific stage, a 4,000-mile flight between Japan and Hawaii.

The aircraft was flown on that leg by Borschberg, whose 118-hour journey smashed the previous record of 76 hours and 45 minutes set by US adventurer Steve Fossett in 2006.

Born in Zurich, Borschberg is no stranger to adventure -- 15 years ago he narrowly escaped an avalanche, and then in 2013 he was involved in a helicopter crash that left him with minor injuries.

The 63-year-old took catnaps of only 20 minutes at a time to maintain control of the pioneering plane during his arduous flight from Japan, in what his team described as "difficult" conditions.

The Pacific crossing is the most dangerous due to a lack of landing sites in the event of an emergency.

Traveling at altitudes of more than 9,000 meters (29,500 feet), Borschberg at times had to use oxygen tanks to breathe and experienced huge swings in temperature throughout.

Alone throughout and utterly self-reliant in the unpressurized cockpit, he was equipped with a parachute and life raft in case he needed to ditch in the Pacific

Piccard said Saturday that he could not sleep more than 20 minutes at a time "because after 20 minutes you have to wake up and control everything and if everything goes well then you can go back to sleep."

The solar-powered plane, which stores energy in batteries for when the sun is not shining, will stop in New York before a transatlantic flight to Europe. From there the pilots plan to make their way back to the point of departure in Abu Dhabi

British astronaut runs marathon in space

London (AFP) - British astronaut Tim Peake ran a marathon in space in record time on Sunday, strapped into a treadmill on the International Space Station as thousands ran the London Marathon below.

Peake opened the race by counting down in a video message as runners waited at the start line in the British capital.
He then joined them 400 kilometres above earth on a simultaneous feat on board the space station, wearing weights on his body to counter the zero gravity conditions.

"Hello ! Fancy a run?" Peake wrote on Twitter before the race, accompanied by a photograph of London from above.
He followed up with a message sent after he completed the marathon, in which he noted that while he had run the 42 kilometres the International Space Station had travelled almost 100,000 kilometres.

"Congratulations to everyone in & ," he wrote. "Gonna sleep well tonight!"

Peake is the second person to complete a marathon in space, after US astronaut Sunita Williams ran the Boston Marathon on the ISS in 2007 in a time of four hours, 23 minutes and 10 seconds.

But Peake managed to achieve the fastest ever marathon in space by making a time of three hours, 35 minutes and 21 seconds, according to estimated times posted on the website of the European Space Agency.

The Guinness World Records announced that it was a new record.

"Guinness World Records can confirm that ESA Astronaut Tim Peake has achieved a brand new Guinness World Records title for the Fastest marathon in orbit," the records body wrote on its website.

Peake had been helped by a training regime onboard the space station and an iPad showing a moving image of the run.
Back on earth in the British capital, more than 39,000 people completed the London Marathon, the biggest number ever as the event marked its 36th edition.

The men’s race winner was Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge, who finished in two hours, three minutes and five seconds -- the second fastest time ever recorded.

The women’s title was taken by fellow Kenyan Jemima Sumgong, who finished in two hours, 22 minutes and 58 seconds despite earlier hitting her head in a heavy fall.

Peake, 44, is the first Briton to travel to the International Space Station. He blasted off in December for a six-month mission that has generated considerable excitement in Britain.

"It was an unforgettable experience," he said of the marathon in a statement issued by the race organisers.

Robots set to aid postal workers with deliveries in Germany

  Last Updated On 11 April,2016 07:32 am

The robots would follow delivery workers, helping them to transport and carry heavy parcels.

BONN (Reuters) - Germany s Deutsche Post is testing robots that could help postal workers cope with increasing numbers of parcels on their delivery rounds, a company manager said on Thursday.

The volume of parcels being delivered by Deutsche Post in Germany is rising steadily as more and more Germans buy goods online from retailers such as Amazon.com and Zalando. That is making up for declining letter volumes, but posing problems due to the larger size of items involved.

"Robots could be used in deliveries in three to five years  time," Clemens Beckmann, head of innovation at the group s parcel and letter division, said in an interview with Reuters. "The technology is there."

The robots, which look like a table on wheels on which goods can be placed, would follow delivery workers, helping them to transport and carry heavy parcels. If the postie stops walking, the robot stops too, and it only starts again when they move on.

Deutsche Post is already conducting trials of the robots at its depots. It is also considering the idea of using robots as mobile pick-up points that would go and collect parcels from customers.

However, that is a long way off because that would require rules on autonomous driving.

Still, Deutsche Post is already testing robotics elsewhere, such as move able shelves in warehouses, and is considering drones to help monitor inventory levels in large depots in China and watch over valuable goods.

Around 80 percent of the processes in logistics sites are still done manually, Deutsche Post said.

"Delivery chains in which people and robots work together will soon be normal and will allow for faster and more efficient processing of goods," Beckmann said.

ExoMars sends first pictures home

ExoMars is a two-part collaboration between the ESA and Russia's Roscosmos space agency.

Paris (AFP) - The Euro-Russian spacecraft ExoMars, launched towards the Red Planet last month, has sent home its first pictures from space and is in "excellent health", the European Space Agency said Thursday.

Launched on March 14 on a Russian Proton rocket, the craft is designed to "smell" Mars’ atmosphere for gassy evidence that life once existed on Earth’s neighbour, or may do so still.

The probe’s high-resolution camera was switched on for the first time on April 7, and took its first grainy, black and white snapshots of space.

"These first images are very reassuring. Everything points to us being able to get good data at Mars," said Nicolas Thomas from the University of Bern in Switzerland, camera principal investigator.

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With its suite of high-tech instruments, the probe should arrive at the Red Planet on October 19 after a journey of 496 million kilometres (308 million miles).

"All systems have been activated and checked out, including power, communications, startrackers, guidance and navigation, all payloads and Schiaparelli," ESA spacecraft operations manager Peter Schmitz said.

Its main mission is to photograph the Red Planet and analyse its air. The spacecraft is also piggybacking a lander dubbed Schiaparelli, which it will release onto Mars for a few days in October.

Schiaparelli will test heat shields and parachutes in preparation for a subsequent rover landing on Mars, a feat the ESA said "remains a significant challenge".

ExoMars is a two-part collaboration between the ESA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency.

This first part is dubbed ExoMars 2016.

The second, the Mars rover phase, was originally scheduled for launch in 2018, but the ESA has said it will likely be delayed over money worries.

There are high expectations, though, from the first phase -- basically to determine whether Mars is "alive".

The probe will seek to analyse methane, a gas which on Earth is created in large part by living microbes, and traces of which were observed on previous Mars missions.

Methane is normally destroyed by ultraviolet radiation within a few hundred years, which the ESA has said implies that in Mars’ case "it must still be produced today".

But by what?

The probe will analyse Mars’ methane in more detail than any previous mission, according to the ESA, to try and determine its likely origin.

JF 17 - Pakistan's Pride

A new aircraft programme for Pakistan has brought benefits not only to the air force but to its aerospace industry. Air Commodore Azfar A Khan (retd) describes how and why the aircraft that marks a milestone in the aviation history of Pakistan was developed.

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When the time came to replace its large, obsolete fleet with modern, lightweight, multi-role combat aircraft, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) opted for a low-cost solution and not pricier Western designs. The result was an aircraft that could be manufactured in Pakistan in collaboration with the People's Republic of China - the lightweight fighter bomber JF-17 Thunder

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Developed by the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and Chengdu Aircraft Industry, China, production is being undertaken at Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, Kamra.

The PAF officially inducted its first JF-17 squadron on 18 February this year. Initially, about 10 to12 squadrons are to be produced, but the PAF will ultimately acquire up to 250 pieces. From 2011, 15-16 aircraft will be produced annually, which may eventually be increased to 25 per year.

It is hoped the JF-17 will provide a low-cost replacement for a number of developing countries currently operating ageing MiG-21/F-7 and F-5 aircraft, such as Azerbaijan, Algeria, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Nigeria. Some of these nations have already confirmed orders

Sixth generation fighter aircraft: rise of the F/A-XX

F-35 aircraft are barely out of the wrapper, yet the US is already examining options for a sixth generation of fighter aircraft. Liam Stoker profiles the development to date of sixth generation fighters, including proposals from Lockheed Martin and Boeing’s F-X and F/A-XX programmes Fifth generation fighters, such as the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning, have provided the US with a certain element of aerial superiority.

Even though Russia's PAK FA remains in testing and engine-related concerns continue to plague the development of China's Chengdu J-20 aircraft, external observers still consider the F-35 to be the technically better aircraft.

Despite fifth generation fighters still sitting in the wrapper and without resting on its laurels, the US Air Force and Navy are already looking forward to the future.

The F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning have been revolutionary in terms of their development as fifth generation fighters, yet preliminary work has already commenced on the design and development of their successors.

Early stages of development for generation six

A US Air Force F-35 Joint Strike Fighter undergoing testing at Edwards Air Force Base. Courtesy of the USAF

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Sixth generation fighters, dubbed Next Generation TACAIR, are not scheduled to enter service until 2025-2030.

Machine Gun MG3 (MG1A3) Made in PAKISTAN

The MG3 (MG1A3) is an open, fully automatic weapon for sustained firing and firing in bursts. It is a "recoil-operated weapon" in which the recoil forces are used to feed and load the cartridges and to extract and eject the spent cartridge cases.

A blan firing attachment which is screwed onto the muzzle instead of the recoil booster permits the use of blank cartridges for training and exercise purpose.

TECHNICAL DATA
1	Calibre	7.62 mm x 51 NATO
2	Feed device	Disintegrating and non-disintegrating belts (DM-1, DM-6 and M-13 kinks)
3	Type of fire	Fully automatic
4	Operating principle	Recoil operated
5	Rate of fire	Approx 1150 + 150 RPM
6	Sighting device	Open sighting, using front and rear sights from 200 to 1200 meters
7	Safety range in direction of firing	5000 meters
8	Safety range left & right	1000 meters each
10	No. of rifles/twist	4 grooves with right hand twist
11	Muzzle velocity (Vo)	820 meters/sec
12	Muzzle energy (Eo)	3200 NM
13	Length of standard weapon	1225 mm
14	Width of gun	130 mm
15	Height of gun with 'AA' sight raised	270 mm
16	Height of gun with 'AA' sight lowered	205 mm
17	Length of barrel with locking piece	565 mm
18	Height of muzzle with bipod unfolded	300 mm
19	Weight of weapons with bipod & sling	11.5 kg
20	Weight of weapon without bipod & sling	10.5 kg
21	Weight of barrel	1.7 kg
22	Effective Range	800 meter (on bipod) 2200 meter (on tripod

Barrett Reveals M240LW Machine Gun

Barrett has given the U.S. military’s M240 crew-served belt-fed machine gun a makeover for 2015, and the result is the new M240LW.

Introduced at the 2015 SHOT Show, the new Barrett M240LW trims around 6 pounds of weight and just over 5 inches in length from the traditional M240B design, offering a more compact and lightweight version of the proven machine gun. The new M240LW weighs 21 pounds and has an overall length of 44 inches.



Representing Barrett’s first step into crew-served belt-fed machine guns, the 7.62x51mm M240LW features an adjustable stock and a Barrett-designed handguard system that removes the barrel from any contact with the handguard. The lightweight M240 also incorporates a quick-detach (QD) bipod system for dismounted use.

Register Your Drones Online: FAA Site Launches Today

it just got easier to register your recreational drone, as the Federal Aviation Administration's online registry launched.

The Web-based FAA registry is free (after rebate) for the next 30 days, but it will cost $5 for each registration after that. The U.S. government made registration mandatory for small unmanned aircraft systems(UAS), or drones, beginning in October as a safety measure; incidents of errant fliers compromising air safety had soared in the previous months, Live Science reported.

Drones that weigh between 0.55 and 55 lbs. (0.25 to 25 kilograms), including onboard equipment such as cameras, now require a registration number.  [Best Drones for You, from our sister site Tom's Guide]

Unmanned Sub Hunters & Robot Battle Managers On the Horizon, DARPA Says

Space battles, unmanned submarine hunters and artificial intelligent systems that help human commanders make split-second decisions may sound like science fiction fodder, but military researchers are hard at work trying to make them a reality.

The U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has put millions of dollars into projects to develop such technologies, as well as other projects to make cheap, reusable rockets and war technology, officials with the agency said Wednesday (Feb. 10) in a news briefing.

Holy Drones, Batman! Real-Life 'Batplane' Mimics Flexible Wings

When chasing insects for their dinner, bats can perform aerial acrobatics that would shame even the steeliest test pilots. Inspired by the wings that allow bats to pull off such impressive maneuvers, a team of engineers designed new kinds of wing surfaces for drones.

At the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, a group led by engineering professor Bharathram Ganapathisubramani designed a flexible, membrane wing for small drones, otherwise known as micro air vehicles (MAVs).

MAVs are used for a variety of purposes, including reconnaissance and scientific work. The new membrane wings change shape in response to local conditions in the environment, allowing for more efficient flight. "If you compare a flexible wing to [a] rigid wing, you get far better efficiency," Ganapathisubramani told Live Science. [Biomimicry: 7 Clever Technologies Inspired by Nature]