e-volo multicopter being flown by Thomas Senkel

The R/C world of multi-rotor helicopters meets the world of personal avionics. e-Volo has announced the first manned flight of an electric multicopter. Powered by 16 custom 3.75kw brushless electric motors, the 80 Kg multicopter, was manned and flown by inventor Thomas Senkel on October 21, 2011. Watch the video for a look at this historic flight.

While R/C hobbyists have been making small-scale multicopters based on brushless motors, Senkel’s flight is reported to be the first manned flight of a multi-rotor ultralight. Senkel, a physicist and engineer, has been developing custom brushless motors for 20 years. His custom motor windings have led to advances in power and efficiency making this scale of device possible.

The e-volo measures approximately five by five meters, has four jibs (with 4 propellers each), a basic weight of about 80 kg (including batteries). So it is an ultra light aircraft, which already as a prototype allows for a payload of about 80 kg. 16 propellers provide it with the necessary uplift and at the same time guarantee the required security, because beside the impressively easy construction without a complex mechanism the aircraft can be landed safely even with a malfunction of up to four engines.

from the e-volo Press Release

e-Volo plans to develop and sell multicopter ultralights commerically by improving the design and safety characteristics of their device.

e-volo multicopter design concept

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• Akismet – prevents comment spam (installed by default)
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Ray Kurzweil has attracted a lot of attention in the technological community for his viewpoint on the acceleration of knowledge. His widely-read books on the matter are well-reasoned and detailed. They explain the “law of accelerating returns”, which states that the advances in technology has been increasing exponentially since the beginning of time. Yet, Kurzweil’s predictions point to a future in which the very meaning of what it is to be human is challenged. These predictions, regarding artificial intelligence and a global singularity of consciousness make Kurzweil the target of critical attacks and even mockery. Check out this trailer from the movie, Transcendant Man, that illustrates just what the fuss is all about. See also, CNN on Transcendant Man.

Microformats help people and machines understand what your content is “about”. This metadata helps search engines and humans to better understand your message in the context of related information.

Emily Lewis explains the importance of microformats and demonstrates how easy it is to implement them. Web designers, bloggers, and entrepreneuers can benefit from understanding and implementing microformats in their web apps and content management systems. Buy Emily’s book: Microformats Made Simple

History suggests the mobile Internet has potential to create / destroy more wealth than prior computing cycles based on 10x user multiplier effect (from cycle to cycle, the number of users / units increases tenfold). Regarding pace of change, more users will likely connect to the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs within 5 years.

Here’s a Powerpoint of the 92-slide presentation from Slideshare.net

View more documents from Subrahmanyam KVJ.

Download the full 2009 Mobile Internet Report directly from the Morgan Stanley web site.

We need to study the principles that keep good companies from turning into sucky ones. Here’s an internal NetFlix document that goes a long way to identifying key elements of successful organizations. Every college student should read this before entering the workforce.

View more presentations from Reed Hastings

View more documents from Tony Cecala.

Mastering the “three Rs” was essential for knowledge workers in the twentieth century. Today, knowledge workers need to master the “three Cs” in order to succeed in our connected economy. Learn about the “three Cs”, and learn how your blog, the search engines, and social networking sites cooperate to create and enhance your professional reputation. Discover the limitations of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter as publishing platforms, and learn the critical features of WordPress that make it the premier platform for sharing your talents with the world.

Selective group creation, competitive intelligence, business development, sentiment tracking and data mining horizons are just starting to open up on Twitter. It’s a big, dynamic, public, programmatically accessible database of real-time conversation. Would I pay the same monthly fee to access that as I do for telephone service? Hell yeah, I would.

Like Marshall, I believe that competitive intelligence, business development, data mining, and other research-oriented activities can be effectively carried out on Twitter. So much so that forward-thinking companies will pay big bucks for enhanced accounts that peek into this global datastream.

Twitter is a modern-day Bloomberg terminal for conversations and market intelligence.

Marshall is a visionary pioneer who “gets it”. Follow him: @marshallk