Parrot AR drone video: Quadricopter controlled by an iPhone

They’re here and have been for some time. Smaller, commercialised versions of the pilotless drones that US forces and agencies deploy over world hot spots can now be purchased and used by used by consumers for £200 and up.

There are a lot of positives. Deliveries is one potential use of private drones. Equipped with cameras, they may help engineers scope sites, police fight crime, or firefighters save lives. Maybe they could be instrumental in keeping an eye on children or locating those that are lost, or finding lost hikers in the wilderness.

Unfortunately, some people are worried about the privacy and security implications. Celebrities are a prime target using paparazzi drones, but there may be all kinds of issues for the rest of us, privacy and otherwise.

The idea of citizens having their own ‘personal drone’ to ‘keep an eye on things’ may be a worrying sign for some.

The Wall Street Journal’s Siobhan Gorman reports commercial or personal drones will soon be flooding the market. “Several efforts to develop personal drones are scheduled for completion in the next year.” Gorman observes that “an unmanned aircraft that can fly a predetermined route costs a few hundred bucks to build and can be operated by iPhone.”

Consider such offerings as the Parrot AR drone, a quadricopter that can be controlled by an iPhone, iPod or iPad, or the swinglet Cam, a “flying camera” developed and marketed by senseFly in Switzerland.

The swinglet can fly for about 30 minutes up to 12 miles, providing capabilities such as aerial imagery, crop monitoring, land management, environmental monitoring, real estate, traffic monitoring, mapping, archeology, and wildlife monitoring.

When a Parent's Love Comes With Conditions - NYTimes.com

Mind - When a Parent's Love Comes With Conditions - NYTimes.com

Jo Frost of 'Supernanny,' in her book of the same name (Hyperion, 2005), says, 'The best rewards are attention, praise and love,' and these should be held back 'when the child behaves badly until she says she is sorry,' at which point the love is turned back on.

Conditional parenting isn't limited to old-school authoritarians. Some people who wouldn't dream of spanking choose instead to discipline their young children by forcibly isolating them, a tactic we prefer to call 'time out.' Conversely,' positive reinforcement' teaches children that they are loved, and lovable, only when they do whatever we decide is a 'good job.'

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Robot to be controlled by human brain cells

A robot controlled by human brain cells could soon be trundling around a British lab, New Scientist has learned.

Kevin Warwick and Ben Whalley at the University of Reading, UK, have already used rat brain cells to control a simple wheeled robotMovie Camera.

Some 300,000 rat neurons grown in a nutrient broth and producing spikes of electrical activity were connected to the output of the robot's distance sensors. The neurons proved capable of steering the robot around a small enclosure.

Disease insights
The team say that observing how their neuron culture responds to stimulation could improve our understanding of neurological conditions such as epilepsy. For instance, the way large numbers of neurons sometimes spike in unison – a phenomenon known as "bursting" – may be similar to what happens during an epileptic seizure. If that behaviour can be altered by changing the culture chemically, electrically or physically, it might hint at potential therapies.

To make the system a better model of human disease, a culture of human neurons will be connected to the robot once the current work with rat cells is completed. This will be the first instance of human cells being used to control a robot.

One aim is to investigate any differences in the behaviour of robots controlled by rat and human neurons. "We'll be trying to find out if the learning aspects and memory appear to be similar," says Warwick.

Warwick and colleagues can proceed as soon as they are ready, as they won't need specific ethical approval to use a human neuron cell line. That's because the cultures are available to buy and "the ethical side of sourcing is done by the company from whom they are purchased", Whalley says.