Sci/Tech

South Korea Unveils Giant Robot To Patrol Its Borders

It looks straight out of Avatar!

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Hankook Mirae Technology, a robotics company from South Korea, has just unveiled Method-2, their very own giant robot. The huge machine stands 13 feet tall and weighs 1.5 tons. Many has compared its appearance to the Amplified Mobility Platform suit – a robot from sci-fi blockbuster Avatar.

South Korea’s Method-2 robot looks straight out of a sci-fi movie!

Source: getty

This, of course, shouldn’t be a huge surprise to everyone considering that the robot’s designer is Vitaly Bulgarov, a guy who has worked in different Hollywood movies such as Robocop, Terminator, and Transformers.

Yang Jin-Ho, chairman of Hankook Mirae Technology, said:

“Our robot is the world’s first manned bipedal robot and is built to work in extreme hazardous areas where humans cannot go.”

Human-machine interface and arm motion test! "METHOD-2" large manned robot project for which I had a pleasure to make the design. Very fortunate to be part of the incredible Hankook Mirae Technology team. (previously posted as Korea Future Technology since "Hankook" means "South Korea" in Korean Language and "Mirae" means "Future")team. More info at http://hankookmirae.tech #hankookmiraetechnology #koreafuturetechnology #industrialdesign #robot #mech
A post shared by Vitaly Bulgarov (@vitalybulgarov) on Dec 15, 2016 at 3:12pm PST

The massive mech is only about 12 months in development and rumors tell us that the country intends to use it to send a warning against North Korea.

Source: getty

It is believed that it will be patrolling the borders between the neighboring countries.

Additionally, the machine could be useful for various purposes such as construction and warehouse work, or even military use.

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The creators, however, clarify that a lot of work is still needed to polish the robot’s functions.

Source: getty

Yang shared:

“The robot is one year old so it is taking baby steps. Just like humans, it will be able to move more freely in the next couple of years.”

The company hopes to have Method-2’s final version finished and available to the market by the end of 2017. The mech will be sold for about 10 billion won (around US $8.3 million).

Sci/Tech

DARPA’s New Self-Steering Bullets Turn In Mid-Flight to Hit Moving Targets!

The Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) bullets were created to boost the hit rates for difficult, long-distance shots.

Faye Williams

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — which works under the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) — developed self-steering bullets in a bid to boost the hit rates for difficult, long-distance shots.

Established in 1958, DARPA works closely with the members of DOD's Science and Technology (S&T) network. DARPA's main task is "to accelerate the adoption of new technologies."

Snipers are the target beneficiaries of the self-steering bullet.

Sci/Tech

China Announces Ambitious Plans To Reach Mars By 2020

“Our overall goal is that, by around 2030, China will be among the major space powers of the world.”

Mark Andrews

China is currrently setting its sights at dominating the space race in the next decade. Several news reports have recently confirmed this as the country unveiled its ambitious plans to land on the moon by 2018 and to reach Mars at least by 2020.

Information about these plans were revealed by China’s space agency during a press conference.

Wu Yanhua, deputy chief of the National Space Administration, shared that Beijing is hoping to launch its first Mars probe by 2020 to carry out orbiting and roving exploration.

Sci/Tech

Man Born Without Left Hand Receives “World’s First” Hand Transplantation Surgery

Now, that’s a legit second hand!

Claire

A 32-year-old man who was born without a left hand received one, harvested from a deceased donor, in a surgery claimed to be the world's first hand transplantation of this kind.

The procedure, which was performed at the Wroclaw Medical University Hospital in Poland, lasted for 13 hours. The surgeons successfully attached a left hand to the patient's left arm. This feat is a world's first as previous hand transplantation surgeries were performed on patients who lost the appendage some time in their lives, meaning those patients were originally born with both hands.