Perfect for those tight parking spaces: A £10k miniature replica E-Type Jaguar and Porsche Speedster... with top speeds of 46mph

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Miniature replicas of a Jaguar E-Type and a Porsche Speedster, with top speeds of 46 miles per hour. The tiny cars, which are half the size of the original, took over 450 hours to make and come with a 110cc petrol engine or an electric motor


These £10,000 miniature replicas of a Jaguar E-Type and a Porsche Speedster are perfect for squeezing into the tightest of parking spaces - and can still reach pretty impressive top speeds of 46 miles per hour.

The tiny cars, which are half the size of the original, took over 450 hours to make and come with a 110cc petrol engine or an electric motor.

Engineering firm Pocket Classics also makes 'tribute' versions of the Mercedes 300SL, Willys Jeep and Bugatti Type-35.

A full size Bugatti would cost up to £1.5 million and the others could set you back £200,000 each but these handmade miniatures are priced between £6,995 and £9,995.

Their makers claim they are designed to be the 'best toy in the world' and, at 7ft 6ins long and 3ft wide, they are just big enough for an adult to drive.

The replicas are fully serviceable and most come with working lights, horn, indicators, adjustable seats and disc brakes.


The handmade miniature cars by engineering firm Pocket Classics - some of which can be driven by children as young as four - are priced between £6,995 pounds and £9,995


The petrol models deliver a staggering 250 miles per gallon and have a semi-automatic gear box with three gears, plus reverse.

The electric motors, which have a top speed of 14mph, will do up to two hours on a single one-hour charge.

They all have eight- or ten-inch tyres and weigh up to 200kg.
Some can be driven by children as young as four and others by children as young as six.


The car makers claim their vehicles are designed to be the 'best toy in the world' and, at 7ft 6ins long and 3ft wide, they are just big enough for an adult to drive


Ben Hedley, of Pocket Classics, said: 'Our cars offer luxury motoring at a fraction of the price and size of the original models.

'We like to think of them as the best toy in the world for grown-ups - they are designed to be big enough for an adult to drive.

'When you get an adult behind the wheel they immediately revert to being a big kid - their eyes light up, they have a huge smile on their face and you can see they are having a lot of fun.

'The vehicles handle very well and are great to race

'We are not associated with any of the original manufacturers so can't say they are exact replicas but if you put them side by side they are a very good match.
'They are a tribute to the original.

'Many of our customers already own the real thing and want a smaller version for their children to drive or to put on display in their home.

'They often add their own manufacturer's badge too.'

The models are not road legal but can be driven on private property.
Cars can be built to a buyer's exact specification with any combination of interior and exterior colour.

source: dailymail

Blind dog can 'see' again thanks to a set of extra-long plastic whiskers

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Innovative: Blind Dolly wears plastic 'whiskers' on her collar so she can feel her way around without walking into objects


A blind dog can 'see' again after being fitted with a set of extra whiskers.

Dolly, a Staffordshire bull terrier, lost her sight after developing cataracts brought on by diabetes.

She was left completely blind and would regularly walk into things.

That was until her vet Joanne McCelland pioneered an innovative idea to fit extra long cable ties to the ten-year-old dog’s collar.

The plastic ties help Dolly feel her way around without walking into objects, in much the same way that her natural whiskers do.

Owner Brian Chadwick, from Arnold, Nottinghamshire, claimed the plastic whiskers have helped Dolly recapture her life.

He said: 'We could deal with her diabetes, but when she went blind I felt really helpless.

'The effect of the whiskers was almost immediate. Within a few hours she had learnt how to feel her way around the house with her new plastic whiskers.'

Dolly has lived with Mr Chadwick since she was a puppy.

Over time she has become less dependent on the collar - although she still wears it when she is out and about.


Proud: Owner Brian Chadwick claims the plastic whiskers have helped Dolly recapture her life


Mr Chadwick added: 'The special collar has become quite a talking point in our local park.

'I still can’t believe something so simple has helped Dolly so much.'

Vet Ms McCelland has praised the progress Dolly has made.

She said: 'She wore them a lot at first but doesn’t wear them quite as much now. She has developed a better understanding of the layout of her home.'

Dolly was treated at the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals Pet Aid Hospital in Nottingham where her treatment has turned her into a celebrity.

PDSA spokeswoman Emily Malcolm said: 'Dolly has become an icon for the PDSA and has featured in our magazine and leaflets.'

But Mr Chadwick is just relieved that his companion has retained all her personality thanks to the treatment.

He said: 'Dolly is a wonderful and loyal companion and rarely leaves my side.
'Even though she’s blind, she lives life to the full and is as fun-loving and as lively as ever.'


source: dailymail

Dogs have feelings too: How your pooch can be divided into an optimist or pessimist

By DAVID DERBYSHIRE


Half full or half empty? Scientific research has discovered that some dogs have a pessimistic attitude, while others are optimists


If your dog gets upset when you walk out of the door, it's probably a pessimist.

For scientists have shown that for every pooch who believes its water bowl is half full, another is convinced that the bowl is half empty.

While the discovery that dogs have all-too-human personalities won't surprise pet lovers, the researchers say it sheds light on why some animals are happy to be left on their own, while others suffer from separation anxiety.

Dogs who are naturally optimistic are convinced their owners will return, while the pessimists assume they have been abandoned, they say.

Professor Mike Mendl, head of the animal welfare and behaviour research group at Bristol University who led the study, said: 'We all have a tendency to think that our pets and other animals experience emotions similar to our own, but we have no way of knowing directly because emotions are essentially private.

'However, we can use findings from human psychology research to develop new ways of measuring animal emotion.

'We know that people's emotional states affect their judgements and that happy people are more likely to judge an ambiguous situation positively.

'What our study has shown is that this applies similarly to dogs – that a 'glass-half-full' dog is less likely to be anxious when left alone than one with a more 'pessimistic' nature.'

The findings emerged from a study into the personalities of 24 dogs at two animal shelters in the UK.

Each of the dogs was first assessed to see whether it suffered from separation anxiety - behaviour such as barking, jumping on furniture or scratching at the door when it was left alone.

Each dog was then trained to expect that when a bowl was placed at one specific location in a room it would contain food, but when it was placed in another it would be empty.

Once the dogs had learned that only some bowls contained a meal, the researchers placed bowls in 'neutral' locations in the room.

Dogs that bounded up to the bowls expecting food were classified as optimists. But those who didn't bother approaching the bowls were deemed to be pessimists.

Animals who suffered from separation anxiety were far more likely to be pessimists, the researchers report in the journal Current Biology.

'Around half of dogs in the UK may at some point perform separation-related behaviours - toileting, barking and destroying objects around the home - when they're apart from their owners,' said Prof Mendl.

'Our study suggests that dogs showing these types of behaviour also appear to make more pessimistic judgements generally.'

Dr Samantha Gaines, from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said: 'Many dogs are relinquished each year because they show separation-related behaviour.

'Some owners think that dogs showing anxious behaviour in response to separation are fine, and do not seek treatment for their pets.

'This research suggests that at least some of these dogs may have underlying negative emotional states, and owners are encouraged to seek treatment to enhance the welfare of their dogs and minimise the need to relinquish their pet.

'Some dogs may also be more prone to develop these behaviours, and should be re-homed with appropriate owners'


source :dailymail

My quest to find all 59 British butterflies (and how I made my girlfriend take flight)

By PATRICK BARKHAM

Abundant: There are 59 types of British butterfly including this Swallowtail variety


Small brown jobs. That’s what my mum called them. The common plodders of the butterfly world that would scarcely divert your gaze as they bimbled past: Meadow Browns or Hedge Browns or Wall Browns. Mostly brown, and fairly dull.

This particular brown job was different: the Brown Argus. When I was eight years old, on our annual summer holiday at Holme Dunes Nature Reserve in North Norfolk, this small brown job twitched some obsessive passionate cell in my brain that has shaped my life ever since.

My Dad and I had set out one hot afternoon on our first butterfly mission. He’d had a hunch that this would be the perfect habitat for the rarely seen Brown Argus.

After several false alarms, we suddenly saw a silver shape flying over a thorny patch of brambles before dropping onto a tiny flower of thyme. There, in the sunshine, it opened its wings. A deep chocolate colour spread from the orange studs bordering the wings right into the soft brown hairs of its delicate body.

Brilliant brown, with one little black dot in the middle of each upper wing. Here, unmistakably, was a Brown Argus. It was thrilling.

That was the first of our annual expeditions, and over the years my father and I travelled the country attempting to see all 58 species of British butterfly (it’s 59 since the discovery of Réal’s Wood White, in Northern Ireland in 2001).

But we ran out of summers, or steam, and my personal tally got stuck at 54. I had never seen the Duke of Burgundy, the Chequered Skipper, the Glanville Fritillary, the Mountain Ringlet or Réal’s Wood White.

But last year, despite having a full-time job and a girlfriend, I had decided I must see all 59 in the course of one summer.

As the countryside has shrunk, species have become confined to isolated fragments of land. The Swallowtail, our largest and most spectacular butterfly, lives in glorious isolation in the Norfolk Broads, and the Duke of Burgundy and the Wood White are on the brink of extinction. One of my species could slip away before I saw them.

The year started well thanks to Matthew Oates, the National Trust’s butterfly expert. He took me to see ‘His Grace’, as he puts it, the Duke of Burgundy, which Oates believed was now Britain’s most vulnerable butterfly.

In 2000, there were thought to be 200 colonies; by 2009, this number had shrunk to just 80. And all except five of these were tiny, and therefore fragile, so that one or two bad summers could destroy them altogether.

Seeing the Duke of Burgundy in a cowslip-filled combe in the Cotswolds on a perfect April morning, I felt a buzz of pleasure I had not felt since a child.

The next on my never-seen list was the Glanville Fritillary, a spring butterfly found only on the Isle of Wight. It’s the only British butterfly named after a real person.

Eleanor Glanville was a wealthy widow who had the misfortune to marry a cheating second husband called Richard. When he took a mistress, Eleanor took refuge in entomology. She became the first person to describe the early life stages of the High Brown Fritillary, winning the respect of fellow (all-male) entomologists.

On her death, her husband contested her decision to leave her estate in trust for her children, rather than giving it to him, arguing — successfully — that her passion for butterflies was a sign of insanity.

The last weekend of May brought a heatwave, so at 6am on the Sunday, promising my girlfriend Lisa a day by the seaside, we set off. I was anxious — I had little knowledge of the fritillary’s habits. Was it an early riser, did it fly in the wind, could it could be seen at rest?

Arriving on the island, I, the alleged expert, decided we should search along the clifftop. But just ten paces from the car park, Lisa asked: ‘Is that one?’
Thinking how unlikely this would be, I followed her pointed finger and there, on the scrubby grass between the footpath and the old military road, was a faded, windblown Glanville Fritillary — one of the most geographically restricted, rare butterflies in Britain, next to hundreds of oblivious day-trippers.

It was so simple and lovely, and a bit of an anticlimax. While its top side was a characteristic fritillary chequerboard of golden brown and black, its beauty lay in its striking and unique underside of white and orange bands decorated with black and brown dots and borders.

After all my anxiety, it turned out I could have ticked off the Glanville Fritillary simply by going sunbathing.

Where once there were swarms of butterflies in our skies — Victorian collectors would rave about clouds of them in the New Forest or South Downs — those days have changed. Certainly, I had never seen a swarm of butterflies.


Butterfly varieties: The left of each images shows the upper wings, the right the underside, visible when the wings are closed. Scroll down for more...


But one sultry day in late June, in a small clearing in the heart of Blean Woods in Kent, a swarm began to build. I learned about it when I got a call from Nigel Bourn, one of the Butterfly Conservation charity’s scientists.

He whispered that he was witnessing ‘the event of the century’ — a mass gathering of another rare butterfly, called the Heath Fritillary.

I drove as fast as I could to Blean Woods, and two miles into the forest there was a small clearing where, at first, I saw only one or two.

Then I saw another pair, then dozens, then scores, then hundreds. It was a dizzying, disorientating spectacle: like a music festival for insects.

There were at least 1,300 of them. Half the entire British population of one of our rarest butterflies was in this quarter of a hectare. Every blade of grass, every bramble leaf and flower was taken.

Two-thirds of this swarm were estimated to be male. The females looked tired and harassed, subject to constant gropings and probings. One female had a broken wing from fending off so many advances.



Witnessing such an extraordinary gathering of rare butterflies was a stunning event, but it did not fill me with rapture. I found it stressful to watch their urge to mate and lay eggs in such a competitive environment. I found one fresh-looking couple dead together, as if they had undertaken a gruesome pact to escape this world.

After this experience, I continued with my summer mission, ticking off butterflies on schedule. One butterfly, in particular, held me in its power.

Although, technically, I had seen a Purple Emperor years before, it was a two-second glance, and I would do anything to see one again.

Which is why I found myself in a glade of the ancient royal hunting forest of Rockingham, looking at five tables laid for breakfast, a different dollop of food on each of 20 paper plates.

On one, two king prawns sweated in the sunshine. On another sprawled dozens of tiny pickled mudfish. There were crushed grapes, a rotten banana, honey water, horse manure, fox scat and plenty of servings of stinking shrimp: shrimp curry, sautéed shrimp fry, and shrimp paste.

This elegantly presented but utterly rancid repast, organised by Matthew Oates, was for the Purple Emperor.

No other butterfly in Britain can compete with the charisma of His Imperial Majesty. The Purple Emperor has bewitched butterfly lovers for centuries. It is a muscular, swooping, soaring, gliding black beauty.

Despite its size and power, it is rarely seen because it lives in the tops of trees, haughtily refusing to descend from its kingdom to feed, like an ordinary butterfly, on mere flowers.

But it turns out that Purple Emperors have a taste for the exotic, and enjoy nothing more than dipping their proboscis into shrimpy Far Eastern dishes — which explained the fetid feast.

After a few minutes’ waiting, a Purple Emperor swooped high overhead and sailed back into the oak and ash. I could not believe how easy it had been to see one.
A second male flew in, lower this time, and looped around the broad crown of a squat sallow bush. Others soon followed; lightning forays and lordly retreats.

They were, explained Matthew, searching for a mate. ‘They behave like testosterone-laden young men let out for an evening to go clubbing,’ he told me. ‘If they flush a girl out, all hell breaks loose.

‘They are looking for freshly emerged, virgin females. Female virginity doesn’t last too long in the Purple Emperor world.’


One roared down low and confronted me, dancing around me. Its wings made an audible clicking as it batted around me. It was my first real encounter with an Emperor. And, like every object of unrequited love, it treated the lovelorn with something like contempt.

Over the next couple of days, I would come to realise that it wasn’t just the Emperor who would treat my passion with disdain. Butterflies are traditionally symbols of freedom and happiness, sunshine and summer days; tokens of romance, not heartache. But could a butterfly stand for love and loss?

I had my answer sooner than I thought. After getting drunk on Purple Emperors, I drove north to the Lake District, hunting the butterfly that was the most difficult of all 59 species to see.

The Mountain Ringlet is very dark and very small. It is a smudge of an insect which inhabits mountainsides and boggy gullies in the harsh climate of Scotland and parts of the Lake District. People often spend weeks looking, yet never find one.

I woke up uneasy. It was PST (pre-sighting tension), and it welled up strongly when I was on my own, at the mercy of the weather, in a place where I had never seen this species before.

There was something else, too. Lisa had seemed distant when I departed for this latest two-week stretch away. Perhaps I needed to spend more time with her? She’d gone away that weekend with friends.

When I arrived in the Lake District, I found one very flat text message in my inbox, in reply to my two enthusiastic ones. She was tired, she was going to bed. She did not call for a chat.



The next morning was grey, and I drove impatiently up Honister Pass. The isolation suited my mood. I walked onto Fleetwith saddle, where there was said to be a Mountain Ringlet colony.

Grass and rocks; bleak and cold. I phoned Lisa. She was on a train home, exhausted, and did not want to talk. She didn’t want to have this conversation now, she said. The signal disappeared.

I sat on Grey Knotts and looked out blankly over a sheltered boggy spot between two crags for another hour. There was no sign of the Mountain Ringlet. I did not really care any more.


Then the sun poked out from behind a barrage of grey cloud. Was that another bee I could see? I was hallucinating butterflies now. It was tiny and brown. Much smaller than I imagined. It had to be. Was it? I hurtled down the slope.

Silky brown and busying around very close to the tufty ground, with a curious crab-like flight, sidling left and then right, tacking against the breeze, was a Mountain Ringlet. And there was another. Their wings were faded, more beige than brown, and frayed at the edges.

I had, on my own, on the first day of looking, found the Mountain Ringlet — the final one of the species I had never seen before.

I knew that my relationship with Lisa was over, but I could take heart from my modest achievement. Butterflies, said the French naturalist Marcel Roland, give us ‘solace for the pain of living’.

Although I saw all 59 British butterflies that summer (plus a rare visitor, the Queen of Spain Fritillary), from now on, for me, the Mountain Ringlet would always be my break-up butterfly.

Adapted from The Butterfly Isles by Patrick Barkham, published by Granta on October 14 at £20. © Patrick Barkham 2010. To order a copy at £18 (p&p free), call 0845 155 0720.


source: dailymail

How new 200mph Eurostar MkII could be too fast for our tracks

By RAY MASSEY

One of the new Eurostar trains, having been brought over from Germany, is placed in front of the Albert Memorial, Kensington, today


New trains will slice 15 minutes off journey time to Paris

But will they be able to run at top speed on our tracks?


A new generation of 200mph Eurostar trains that will whisk passengers from London to Paris in just two hours was unveiled yesterday.

They will link up with high speed bullet trains across Europe – including those planned for Britain – to slash journey times from major cities across the UK to the Continent.

But questions remain over whether the second generation Eurostar trains, which will be able to run across the European high-speed network, will be allowed to run at 200mph when they enter Britain


Pedestrians admire the new Eurostar train. Previously the trains stopped in Brussels and Paris where passengers had to change over to other networks. The new trains' ability to negotiate differing signalling equipment and power supplies now overcomes this


At 3am this morning the Eurostar is brought to its final destination. The company has announced a £700million investment in ten new Channel Tunnel trains


The arrival of the e320 trains, built by German company Siemens, could see London to Paris journey times reduced to just over two hours from the existing 2 hours and 15 minutes.

But the speed limit on the UK stretch of the current line is 186mph – matching the top speed of the existing trains – though for much of the journey between the Channel and London they travel slower.

Eurostar said there was nothing ‘technically’ to stop that limit being raised to 200mph once the new trains come into service.

The company, which operates high-speed services to Paris and Brussels from London’s St Pancras station, is to buy ten of the German-built trains which will carry 900 passengers.

This is a 20 per cent increase in capacity on the existing trains which will also be in service – once they have been overhauled and refurbished.


This map shows the extent of the high-speed network across Europe. The new, faster, trains will mean that journey times to these cities will be reduced


French state-owned rail company SNCF is one of Eurostar’s three shareholders and the decision to opt for German trains will anger the French government.

It had been hoping for the contract to be awarded to French company Alstom.

But the Eurostar announcement was welcomed by UK Transport Secretary Philip Hammond who earlier this week announced details of the UK’s own new bullet trains, with work on the £33billion high-speed project known as High Speed 2 set to start in 2015.


No cars or cyclists to hold thanks to it being maneouvered into position in the dead of night


Eurostar chief executive Nicolas Petrovic (right) and Transport Secretary Philip Hammond (left) stand by the new Eurostar. Mr Petrovic said: 'Our sights are now set on expanding our business across Europe.'


Studies are going on with a view to linking the proposed new British high-speed network to the existing London to Folkestone Channel Tunnel link.

At the Conservative party conference in Birmingham this week Mr Hammond said the linking up of Britain’s existing and proposed new high speed lines would create ‘a truly international service for passengers and business’.


Travel times to current destinations will be even faster and the trains will be able to run across the European high-speed network


The Eurostar was brought over from Germany to Tilbury docks, Essex, earlier this week and taken to the ExCel centre in London (pictured) before being taken to the centre of the capital this morning


source:dailymail

Room with a view...of earth! Russian firm announces plans for space hotel

Moscow-based Orbital Technologies says it hopes to check the first guests into its space hotel by 2016


Tourists could soon be eating food designed by celebrity chefs while orbiting the earth in a space hotel if plans by a Russian firm go ahead.

Moscow-based Orbital Technologies yesterday said it hoped to fill the vacuum in the space tourism market by stationing an orbiting hotel in the cosmos.

The company has sky-high hopes that its planned Commercial Space Station can serve as a tourism hub for well-heeled travellers and offer overspill accommodation for the International Space Station and workspace for science projects.

But it's unlikely to come anytime soon - the company wants to launch a seven-room station by 2016 but may increase or decrease that capacity based on customer demand.


Out of this world views: Guests would sleep on pull-out beds and enjoy a window on the world


It also remained unclear whether the state-controlled RKK Energia company, named as the general contractor for the project, would have enough funds and capacities to carry out the plan. Energia builds Soyuz crew capsules and Progress cargo ships to deliver space crew and supplies to the International Space Station that would be the only link to space after planned retirement of the U.S. shuttle fleet next year.


Costa del space: The orbiting outpost would be open to private citizens as well as professional astronauts and scientists


Sergey Kostenko, Orbital Tehcnologies' chief executive, said in an interview that the planned station would be 'a comfortable hotel in orbit, designed specifically for tourists.'

'But it will be more comfortable than the International Space Station because there won't be any unnecessary scientific equipment,' he said.

Until now, space tourists - a handful of megarich CEOs and philanthropists - have had to suffer the indignity of hitching a ride with astronauts and cosmonauts to the International Space Station and float around the space laboratory trying not to break anything.

Now, or at least soon, they will have a place to gawk at the view in private. The design is still being worked out but some sketches released by Orbital Technologies resemble the International Space Station.


According to early plans, the space hotel could hold up to seven people at a time


Orbital Technologies does not disclose the cost of the project.

All the space tourists who have traveled to the International Space Station were trained in Russia and sent into orbit on Russian Soyuz capsules, although their trips were organized by a Virginia-based company.

Canadian Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, who spent 12 days in space in September 2009, was the last space tourist to travel to the station. Russia halted space tourism this year after the crew size was increased, using the seats in Soyuz that would have been sold to paying travelers.

Food at the new station will be suited for individual preferences, Kostenko said, and the organizers are thinking of employing celebrity chefs to cook the food before it is packaged and sent into space.


source: dailymail

The robotic otter: Underwater robot that swims with flippers and can be controlled with a tablet computer

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

The AQUA robot uses flippers to move and now will no longer need to be tethered


Scientists have developed a remote-controlled robot that can receive and carry out commands while underwater.

AQUA is small and nimble, with flippers rather than propellers, and is designed for intricate data collection from shipwrecks and reefs.

The robot, designed by a team of universities from Canada, can be controlled wirelessly using a waterproof tablet computer.


While underwater, divers can program the tablet to display tags onscreen, similar to barcodes read by smartphones. The robot's on-board camera then scans these two-dimensional tags to receive and carry out commands.

Scroll down to see how the AQUA responds to the new controls.

Cutting the cord on underwater robots has been a longstanding challenge for scientists. Water interferes with radio signals, hindering traditional wireless communication via modem. Tethered communication is cumbersome and can create safety issues for divers.

'Having a robot tethered to a vehicle above water creates a scenario where communication between the diver, robot, and surface operator becomes quite complicated,' says Michael Jenkin, professor at York University’s Faculty of Science & Engineering

'Investigating a shipwreck, for example, is a very delicate operation and the diver and robot need to be able to react quickly to changes in the environment. An error or a lag in communication could be dangerous,' Jenkin says.

Realising there was no device on the market that fit the bill, Jenkin and his team at York's Centre for Vision Research, including the paper's lead author, MSc student Bart Verzijlenberg, set to work constructing a prototype.

The resulting device, fittingly dubbed AQUATablet, is watertight to a depth of 60 feet. Aluminum housing with a clear acrylic cover protects the tablet computer, which can be controlled by a diver using toggle-switches and on-screen prompts.


Until now the robot has receive d instructions using a lead connected to a computer - now it can be controlled wirelessly


'A diver at 60 feet can actually teleoperate AQUA 30-40 feet deeper. Needless to say this is much easier on the diver, physically, and much safer,' Jenkin says.

The tablet also allows divers to command the robot much as if they were using a video game joystick; turn the tablet right and AQUA turns right, too.

In this mode, the robot is connected to the tablet by a slim length of optical cable, circumventing many of the issues of a robot-to-surface tether. The optical cable also allows AQUA to provide video feedback from its camera to the operator.

In wireless mode, the robot acknowledges prompts by flashing its on-board light. Its cameras can be used to build 3-D models of the environment which can then be used to guide the robot to particular tasks.

'This is a huge improvement on [a robot] having to travel to the surface to communicate with its operators,' Jenkin says.

In past, divers have used laminated flashcards to visually communicate with robots while underwater. However, these limit the diver to a pre-set sequence of commands.

'It's impossible to anticipate everything you're going to want the robot to do once you get underwater. We wanted to develop a system where we could create commands on the fly, in response to the environment,' he says.




source: dailymail