startup

Advanced Mexican leaf blower powers new Pentagon/Google robot

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(PNS reporting from GUANAJUATO, MX) State-of-the-art leaf blower technology developed in Mexico’s Silicon Barrio is at the heart the Pentagon’s latest robot warrior, PNS has learned.

The PopoPotencia leaf blower engine powers the WildCat, a Boston Dynamics combat robot (video) built for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Mas…Advanced Mexican leaf blower powers new Pentagon/Google robot

Hold on — you mean those taco copters could be for reals?

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It started out as a very well-executed hoax.

A Silly Valley startup was marrying advanced four-rotor light helicopter technology with America’s love of Mexican food to create a breakthrough business: Smart-phone-directed delivery of tacolicious love to your location.

Blogger Dan Shapiro:

The Tacocopters are coming. Sure, the original pitch was a clever troll aimed at credulous and impatient fast-food junkies. But the numbers don’t lie – a typical taco weighs less than a pound, and aircraft that can autonomously fly a few dozen ounces of payload to your doorstep are already available for around a thousand bucks. Amazon Prime is cool, and I can’t wait for self-driving delivery cars – but there’s a reason they call a beeline a beeline. Flying autonomous deliverybots are coming. Fast.

And if these choppers could also deliver cold, refreshing cerveza? The world would beat a mousetrap to their door!

¡Mira! An inspired hardware hacker just built a proof of concept that moves the technology a step closer to reality — the beer copter:

Mas…Hold on — you mean those taco copters could be for reals?