Alex Reid

Quadrotor Drones are the hippest machines these days.

French company Parrot has created an augmented reality video game using remote control quadrotor helicopters that you can use your iPhone or iPad to control. They act as mini unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), complete with video camera.

Last month a group of French engineers cum artists got together to illustrate a radically new way of building architecture; using flying robots.

The installation, called “Flight Assembled Architecture”, was conceived and built by teams led by my colleagues Fabio Gramazio & Matthias Kohler as well as Raffaello D’Andrea at the ETH Zurich.

Four remote controlled mini quadrotors landed on ”brick dispensers” (the bricks were actually polystyrene foam) and using “grippers” (three servo-powered pins to puncture and hold the brick), they then plucked one brick up at a time, carried each to the “building site” and began creating a warped tower wall. The software used managed control architecture, collision avoidance and freeway based flight.

The team claims this is the first architectural installation to be built dynamically by flying machines.

Vancouver is asking its citizens to vote on over 100 design proposals to replace its Georgia & Dunsmuir Viaducts, and the look of the surrounding neighbourhoods.

The city launched a proposal competition last month to redesign the aging bridges as well as the Eastern Core area. They received 104 submissions, most of which were designed by Metro residents.

You can view the submissions here. Voting ends November 25, 2011.

The winner of each part will be decided on December 1st and while there’s no commitment that the winning idea will result in construction, the City says the purpose of the competition is to encourage and foster the larger dialogue about the future of the city’s transportation plan.

The project in full is being introduced in three parts:

The first part is “Connecting the Core”, which is seeking “big picture” ideas for the future of the city’s Eastern Core.

The second part is “Visualizing the Viaducts” which includes conceptual designs for the land currently occupied by the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts and the neighbourhoods surrounding the transit ways and view corridor of the mountains. Some ideas call for the removal of the rail yards while others call for greenway parks.

The third part is what the City calls “The Wildcard”, which called on applicants to focus on one element that would “revolutionize” the way people see the Eastern Core.

When the original viaduct was built in 1915, it was meant to bypass the industrial lands and creek waters that were later drained to make room for the rail yards. There were structural problems however and in the late 1960s, the viaducts were rebuilt with aspirations for a larger freeway network connecting downtown to the Trans Canada Highway but popular opposition rejected this plan.

The current viaducts were constructed in 1972.

I applaud Vancouver for holding an innovative contest to foster dialogue of local residents of the future of its last remaining central ‘dead zone’ and hope more cities take notice.

Car accidents are a leading cause of death, especially for younger people.

In 2005, the UN said that the number of road traffic deaths and injuries would exceed the damage wrought by HIV by the year 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) predicted that that road traffic injuries will rise to become the fifth leading cause of death by 2030.

Most of all, it’s human error that often causes accidents.

Nevada became the first jurisdiction in the world to allow autonomus vehicles on public roads last month. For the past few years, DARPA has been driving (no pun intended) towards driverless vehicles (think robot soldiers), and Google was behind the lobbying so that they could test their driverless project, which won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge.

Sebastian Thrun on Google’s driverless car (Youtube).

Google wouldn’t say why they choose Nevada, and while it could be that the Google founders like Burning Man, the state is known for its testing grounds – nuclear weapons and rocket cars.

Google has ben testing a fleet of seven vehicles, consisting of six Toyota Prii and an Audi TT. Their software drives the vehicles at the speed limit it has stored on its maps and maintains its distance from other vehicles using its system of sensors. The system provides an override that allows a human driver to take control of the car by stepping on the brake or turning the wheel, similar to cruise control systems already in cars. (source)

Most auto technology already uses sensors and cameras, but most of the advances available have simply been corrective or assisting technologies like the “Lane Keep Assist” ability of the 2010 Toyota Prius that uses a camera to detect lane markers and automatically steers the car toward the center of the lane.

Google says they’re just playing around with the idea, and no matter the commercial value of such an idea, the social benefits alone in preventing car accidents, by drunk or other human error, is an idea beyond worth merit.  I see this as a positive alternative for drunk drivers, but chauffeurs might be out of work soon.

Safety is the sell here, and it may still be simply an assisting program, but even with the risk of computer error, I see huge potential for this to revolutionise the auto market and save lives.

Somehow I suspect the built in GPS sytem will be Google Earth.

New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been pushing for more public information to be handed over to geeks to achieve three goals; more civic transparency, offering more services for less money and promoting the city as the next tech mecca.

For the second year in a row, the City of New York has embarked on a call to arms to geeks with its own annual data competition, releasing over 350 public data sets and asking tech companies to make apps that are not only useful but may be the basis of the next Google or Facebook.

This year’s $10,000 grand prize went to Roadify, an app that sends alerts to mobile phones about subway, bus, and driving conditions, allowing users to add comments and real-time updates as they commute.

It isn’t just about the money though, it’s about the pride and attention. Some of the competition judges included Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai.

Some of the finalists included DontEat.at, an app that sends a text message when you check in to a restaurant that has a risk of being closed for health code violations; Sportaneous, a geo-map app that helps users find and join pick-up games close to them with other users that match their skill level; and Parking Finder, an app that locates nearby parking garages and their parking rates.