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The family of John Ellenby has announced that the engineer and businessman behind the Compass -- the first commercially successful laptop -- has died in San Francisco at the age of 75. We are all too familiar with laptops today. About hundreds of millions of them sell every year. In fact, some laptop models cost much less than most high-end smartphones. Yet, it was a once an unconventional and highly expensive product. In 1982, John Ellenby released Compass – the first ever laptop-like computer. He worked at Grid Systems at the time and his briefcase styled computer revolutionized the computer industry. Ellenby died at the age of 75 on August 17th as first reported by the New York Times. Today, the appearance of Compass will cause you to grin or at least smirk. It was heavy and opened like a briefcase. A protrusion at the back of the machine existed to save the laptop from overheating. The Compass had a screen and its display looked like some billboard wr...

We are all familiar with the fear once we hear about  an  upcoming exam.we keep asking ourselves questions like, Have I prepared enough? Will I remember all this during paper? what will the questions look like? These questions keep bugging us till we exit the exam hall heaving a sigh of relief. While  students  prayed and hope that exams get postponed, a Sri Lankan teen went a step ahead and decided to hack  President Maithripala Sirisena’s official website. Posting under the alias “The Sri Lankan Youth”, the teenager demanded that Sri Lanka’s A level examinations should not be held in April close to Tamil and Sinhala New Year celebrations but be postponed.It was further demanded that the Sri Lankan websites should be made more secure and the President should “stop the prime minister’s irresponsible work and look more into the problems of the university students.” The website was quickly taken offline with a maintenance noti...

Drone industry has thrived rapidly in the last couple of years. However, contrary to the popular belief, drones are nothing new. You will be surprised to know that the unmanned, remote-controlled vehicles have been around far longer than you think. The earliest known drone aircraft was developed during the WorldWar1. Named the Kettering ‘Bug’, the unmanned biplane was a bomb carrier that could drop bombs on its target by flying on a pre-determined route. The Kettering Bug was on its own once the Autopilot was activated. The prototypes of the Bug were successfully developed and tested. But by that time, WorldWar1 had come to an end. Though, Kettering Bug is considered to be a forerunner of the modern cruise missile. In spite of its state-of-the-art design and high-tech autopilot used for the development of the UAV during the late 1920s, the Kettering ‘Bug’ had one major flaw; each operation assigned to the Bug resulted in the loss of a drone and some valuable machinery. Also,...

Black Horned PD-100 is a pocket-sized drone being tested by the U.S. Marine Corps. It streams live videos from its three cameras and its miniature size makes it almost invisible as it flies off. This helicopter drone has a range of 1 mile and can stay in air-borne for about 25 minutes meaning that it would be instrumental in surveillance for the Marines. The cable appearing from its back is not a chord for power but an antenna. The three cameras on the drone can take images and also stream live video. One camera capture footage in the front, another below and the third captures the 45 degrees to the ground. This drone can fit in the pocket and can carry out surveillance missions guided by GPS. The miniature drone is made by Prox Dynamics in Norway and Norwegian Special Forces have already ordered the drone modified to have night-vision cameras as well. Black Hornet was used during a military exercise in California to evaluate its technology...

This Medical Snake Robot Will Enter Your Mouth And Creep Inside You Howie Choset is a professor in the Robotics Institute at the Carnegie Mellon University who has designed a snake-like robot that will glide down your throat, for health reasons.     The Flex Robotic System has been designed for minimally invasive surgeries in the thoracic region. The robotic system can be routed by the surgeons to the site where the laparoscopic surgery is then performed.  Laparoscopic surgeries use small surgical instruments fixed to long, thin sticks and wires, leaving you with only a tiny scar on the outside.  The surgical snake bot designed by Choset will allow the surgeons to perform laparoscopic surgeries in a better way.   Watch the demo of the surgical snake robot in this video.  Would you allow a surgical robot to slither down your throat? Let us know with your comments.