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Manned Drone to be tested in Nevada

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A human-carrying drone has been given approval for test flights in Nevada, the first of its kind in the United States.

The autonomous drone – dubbed 184 – can carry one passenger and was developed by Chinese company EHang.

A prototype was shown off at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, with the company hoping to sell the drones later this year.

Experts were divided over whether such a system would have mass appeal.

Officials from the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems granted permission for the drone to be tested and offered to help EHang submit the results to the Federal Aviation Administration in a bid to win further approval.

It is not clear whether the drone will carry a passenger during tests.

“I personally look forward to the day when drone taxis are part of Nevada’s transportation system,” the institute’s business development director, Mark Barker,told local the Las Vegas Review Journal.

The prototype drone is over 4ft (1.2m) tall, weighs 440lb (200kg) and has eight propellers.

It can carry a single passenger for 23 minutes at 60mph (96km/h).

Passengers enter their destination on a 12in (30cm) touchscreen in front of their seat, and the drone’s on-board computer works out the best route.

There is no passenger over-ride function, meaning the user cannot take control in an emergency.

In the event of a malfunction, the drone would land in the nearest available area.

It is likely to sell for between £140,000 ($200,000) and £200,000.

Big leap

Regulation of commercial drones has proved tricky in both the US and Europe, and some doubt passenger drones will ever get off the ground.

“It feels like it is a long way off,” said Douglas McNeill, a senior analyst at consultancy Macquarie.

“Drones will first have to prove their worth in less people-facing roles such as deliveries of small cargo.

“The other question is whether people will be willing to fly in a pilotless aircraft, and that seems like a big leap.

“People are sensitive to reduced journey times, and if drones could do that it would be a big plus – but I’m not sure that they can.

“Consumers are led by what regulators say are safe. And if they say these drones are safe, people might be more willing.”

Dr Mirko Kovac, director of the Aerial Robotics Lab at Imperial College London, said: “Passenger drones have huge potential.

“They can decrease congestion, offer flights in challenging environments and in developing countries where the road infrastructure is not as developed.

“We don’t even think about large aircraft flying over large cities on autopilot.

“Yet people are afraid of drones, some of which may use similar robotic technology.

“I think society will overcome this once the technology is more proven.”

– BBC News

Fujitsu Signs Deal to Integrate Box Cloud Storage into Enterprise Software

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Fujitsu have just signed a deal to integrate Box cloud storage into their enterprise software

Box just inked one of its biggest deals in Asia so far as it focuses on international growth. Fujitsu, one of Japan’s largest IT services providers, announced today that it has struck a strategic partnership with the cloud-storage company and will integrate Box into its enterprise software.

Fujitsu will first start using Box to store and manage files sent on communication tools used by its 160,000 employees around the world. The company says the internal use of Box’s services will help it develop new enterprise software, including customer-relationship and enterprise-content management solutions, that it plans to release by March 2017 and market throughout Asia.

Fujitsu will also integrate Box into MetaArc, its new cloud platform, next year. MetaArc includes third-party services (like Box storage), as well as infrastructure and application hosting services. Customer data uploaded to Box will be stored at Fujitsu data centres in Japan. This will help Box appeal to businesses that don’t want to store their data overseas and complements the company’s new plan to offer cloud data centres, called Box Zones, in Ireland, Germany, Singapore, and Japan.

Box founder and CEO Aaron Levie has said that expanding in Europe and Asia is a priority for the company, which went public in January 2015 but has traded below its IPO price since then despite posting solid earnings.

Other partnerships Box has struck to expand internationally include an agreement with IBM that will let Box store data in IBM’s cloud data centres, which are located in 16 countries.

– Catherine Shu

If Enterprise and Infrastructure interest you, be sure to check out some of our latest jobs here.

360° Camera Video of Stig on Top Gear Test Track

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360° Camera allows you to take a ride around Top Gear’s test track with the Stig

Ever wondered what it’s like to be sat in a high performance car whilst being raced around one of Britain’s most famous race circuits?

Thanks to 360° Technology, you can now take a seat in the new Ariel Nomad whilst Top Gear’s Stig races around Dunsfold Circuit at high speed. Check out the video below.

Bone Conducting Headset Creates 360 Degree Sound

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Prototype headset sends sound directly through the skull, converting experiences that we usually see into something we can hear.

A team of inventors have created a prototype headset that they claim could give us an extra sense.

Sonna uses bone conduction to transmit sound directly through the skull – and because it bypasses the ear canal, you do not need headphones.

“We have these little vibrating pieces that send sound vibrations into your skull and those then travel to your ears,” said Allison Rowe, Sonna’s co-creator.

“Then your brain does a whole lot of the work to sort of trick you into thinking that those sounds are coming from some location out in space around you.

“So you can actually sense as if these are in some 360 degree radius around you.”

Bone conduction is not a new idea but those behind Sonna think they have come up with an original use for it – helping cyclists to navigate their way through cities.

They hope to be able to turn their prototype into a device which sends audio instructions directly into riders’ skulls.

These sounds would then be targeted at specific areas of the head, so all the users would need to do is follow where the audio is coming from.

The technology that Sonna uses could also benefit people with visual impairments, by sending them audio cues which might usually come from apps that you need to be able to see.

However, Sonna is not the only device using sound in an innovative way. Grammy-winning music producer Timbaland has teamed up with Android co-creator Andy Rubin to create Subpac.

This transmits low frequency sound through the body so you can ‘feel’ what you are listening to. It is already used for gaming, virtual reality and music but it could also benefit people with hearing loss.

“As we focus on the low end and the physicality of the music, it allows people who are on the hard of hearing spectrum to really engage with music in a whole new way,” said James Williams from Subpac.

But despite the potential benefits that devices such as Sonna and Subpac offer, they might struggle to achieve mass appeal.

“I think it’s a very difficult sell to have things like bone conduction technology, because it is quite scary, but it depends on the audio experience,” said technology journalist Gareth Beavis.

“It could catch on. Maybe not mass market…but definitely there will be a niche for people that want to buy this stuff.”

– The Swipe Team

Cisco and IBM Collaborate on Internet of things Analytics

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Cisco and IBM combine edge analytics with Watson to enable a deeper understanding of data generated on the Internet of things

Cisco and IBM have begun a global collaboration to generate instant internet of things (IoT) insight at the network edge using Cisco’s edge analytics tools and IBM’s Watson IoT and business analytics technology.

Although billions of IoT devices and sensors are already generating huge amounts of data in real time, those businesses without easy access to high bandwidth connectivity to support access to the cloud have struggled to realise insight from this data, the two firms said.

Cisco and IBM believe that by joining forces, they can offer a new way of producing immediate and actionable insight at the point of data collection and can help enterprises operating on the network edge, such as manufacturing, shipping, mining and energy production, gain a deeper understanding of relevant data generated by the IoT.

“The way we experience and interact with the physical world is being transformed by the power of cloud computing and the Internet of things,” saidHarriet Green, general manager of IBM Watson IoT, commerce and education.

“For an oil rig in a remote location or a factory where critical decisions have to be taken immediately, uploading all data to the cloud is not always the best option. IBM and Cisco are taking these powerful IoT technologies the last mile, extending Watson IoT from the cloud to the edge of computer networks, helping to make these strong analytics capabilities available virtually everywhere, always.”

Mala Anaud, senior vice-president of Cisco’s data and analytics platforms group, said the collaboration would also help enterprises make better decisions based on critical data that may previously have been overlooked, or completely undetected.

“With the vast amount of data being created at the edge of the network, using existing Cisco infrastructure to perform streaming analytics is the perfect way to cost-effectively obtain real-time insights,” she said. “Our powerful technology provides customers with the flexibility to combine this edge processing with the cognitive computing power of the IBM Watson IoT platform.”

As an example, workers in underground mines may be able to monitor the health and behaviour of critical machinery and plan better for maintenance and upgrades. Cisco claimed that if they were able to adopt new approaches to condition-based maintenance, they could halve maintenance costs and increase productivity by up to 25%.

A number of tests of the collaboration have already begun in the field. In Canada, comms company Bell Canada has been using a 4G network to deliver Watson IoT and Cisco edge analytics to allow enterprise customers to collect real-time data and maximise their performance.

And in Colombia, the port of Cartagena has tapped into analytics on the edge to improve its efficiency by getting ahead of equipment degradation.

“As a container terminal trans-shipment hub, our port ships goods to almost 600 ports in 136 countries around the world,” said Eduardo Bustamante, director of operations at the port.

“The opening of the new Panama Canal has created new challenges for all ports in the region and has made service reliability a key factor of success.

“With these new capabilities from IBM and Cisco, we gain immediate insight into the health and operations of our more than 47 rubber tyre gantries and 180 trucks. As a result, we expect to be more productive in our maintenance processes to help ensure our fleet runs even more efficiently and vessels and cargo are moving smoothly in and out of the port.”

– Alex Scroxton

If you are interested in Enterprise, Infrastructure or IoT, check out some of our latest jobs here.

Xiaomi buys Microsoft Smartphone Patents

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Smartphone maker Xiaomi has bought the rights to hundreds of Microsoft’s smartphone inventions.

Experts say the patent deal paves the way for the Chinese firm to sell its handsets in Western markets.

Microsoft will benefit from the fact that some of its Android apps – including Office and Skype – will now be pre-installed on Xiaomi devices.

The announcement comes at a time when Xiaomi has been struggling to meet sales targets.

The Beijing-based company originally set itself a target of selling 100 million smartphones in 2015.

But it managed to sell only 71 million, partly because of increased competition from domestic rivals.

Oppo and Vivo overtook Xiaomi in phone shipments in the first three months of 2016, while Huawei extended its lead, according to research firm IDC.

That pushed Xiaomi down to seventh place in global market share. It had been ranked third in 2014.

Biggest challenge

“The patent deal comes at a pretty important time for Xiaomi, which has topped out in the Chinese market,” said Ben Wood from consultancy CCS Insight.

“Intellectual property had been the biggest challenge it faced in breaking out of its active markets in Asia and Brazil. Having a patent portfolio lets it defend itself against rivals who would otherwise have sued.”

Xiaomi gains nearly 1,500 patents as part of the deal, including rights to communications, video and cloud technologies.

The company has previously faced accusations of patent infringement from Blue Spike, a US-based rightsholder and Swedish telecoms equipment maker Ericsson.

Microsoft has recently made moves to scale back its handset operations, cutting jobs in its smartphone division and selling its Nokia-branded feature phone business.

However, under chief executive Satya Nadella’s leadership it has tried to encourage use of its products on non-Windows handsets.

Xiaomi already used Microsoft’s Azure platform to power its MiCloud service.

From September, it will also pre-load Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Skype onto several of its devices including the Mi 5 and Redmi Note 3.

“Microsoft doesn’t have much interest in being a mass market smartphone manufacturer,” said Mr Wood.

“In doing the patent deal with Xiaomi, it gets an opportunity to get more users engaged with its apps, and can attempt to turn them into an ongoing revenue stream via subscriptions and other fees.

“There are an awful lot of people using Microsoft products in China already, but typically the software is pirated and has made the firm no money.”

  • BBC News

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