Drone for Good

Drone, technically known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or Unmanned Aircraft and in other words as a “Flying Robot” is an aircraft remotely controlled through software working in combination with on-board sensors and GPS. Used initially for intelligence gathering and as a weapons platforms by the military in situations where manned flight is considered too risky or difficult.

But today drones are also used in wide range of civilian rules. Started by the Amazon in 2013 for delivering items drones are getting in more and more business activities including customer service, maintenance and even capture the news. 

Widely in use for capturing photographs, drones are now also getting their part in food delivery and in coming days the delivery time of Pizza will be reduced from 30 minutes to 15 minutes and without the hassle of traffic jams. Using drone for delivering cargo or food will also result in less traffic on the roads and generating zero pollution.

By using drones the regular inspection of wind turbines, power lines, and pipelines can be done and save on high inspection cost and timely identification of a fault. Not limited to this, drones can also be used to supply medicines, blood and other equipment between hospitals, within the city or to a far and remote locations. These drones can also be used in providing civil security and protecting the public from threats such as terrorist attacks as well as in successfully identifying crimes. With its low noise level, these drones can be used for discrete and almost silent surveillance and keep watch over everything from high in the sky. This will allow police to monitor illegal money hand-overs, protests, public events, etc. without being seen or heard.

The most important task in which these drones can be used is in the search and rescue operations. As in a case of fire, these drones can help firefighting team in providing an overview of the situation and know the exact locations of the persons stuck in the building, forest or a field. Not only that by installing gas measurement device, the smoke composition of a fire can be known so a strategy can be made to the rescue. In situations where manned flight is considered too risky or difficult these drones, if made more powerful, can be used to lift injured person from snow covered mountains, floods, from a sinking ship or from the polar zone.

This positive change in drone usage will place a great impact on this earth and help to make life more secure and easy.

Voice Assisted Automation………"Let there be light"; and there was light.

After the generation of electricity in the 19th century, the evolution of technology started and with this started the inventions and development of different electric and electronic devices. These inventions like the mobile phones, smart television, coffee makers, refrigerators and much more started to become part of our daily life and change our lifestyle on this earth.

Until recently, all these devices are either controlled by remote control to turn a device ON/OFF, increase the volume of a multimedia player or change the channel of the television with the push of a button. Motion detectors and light sensing devices are also playing an important role in controlling lights for saving energy, and turn them ON and OFF only when needed. But all of these devices are either timed controlled, sensor controlled or by the touch of a button this means that control is completely based on the physical involvement of the human. 

The life’s going to change again, and now there is no need to schedule that lamp to turn on at the sunset or using your smartphone to turn it off after you’ve climbed into bed, simply tell your smart home to turn the lights off. It might sounds like some fiction from “Star Trek” or “The Jetsons”, but this has now become a reality with the introduction of Voice Assisted Automation.

Voice Assisted Automation enables you to control all electrical equipment and peripheral devices by means of just voice commands. You just require to connect your devices like lights, television, air conditioners with a “digital assistant device” and say the magic words and your command. For example, if you have to turn on the lights of your room you just have to say the magic words “Let there be light”, No, No not these magic words, the magic word for your digital assistant will depend on the brand you have purchased. For example, if you have purchased “Amazon Echo” you have to say the magic word of “Alexa” and then the command. So to turn on the lights you have to say “Alexa, turn on the light” and there will be light.

There are many digital assistant devices now available in the market like Amazon Echo, Athom Homey, CastleHub, Insteon, Ubi, Jibo and more coming up. Running there dedicated software these devices can respond to the user’s voice commands and intelligently activates, deactivates and changes the state of the appliances via an RF-signal, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. You can change the thermostat setting of your air conditioner while sitting on your couch, turn on your coffee maker while in bed, and open the garage door while still sitting in your car and many other tasks with just a voice command. With the fast development of the Internet of Things (IoT), which seeks to connect everyday devices and appliances with each other and with their users, the “digital assistant device” will play an important role, by allowing you to control all your devices with just a voice command.

These digital assistants not only control lights, switches, and thermostats but can answer questions, reads Audiobooks and the news, reports traffic and weather, gives info on local businesses, provides sports scores and schedules, set timers and alarms, stream music and much more using internet connection.

With an already considerable list of benefits that is only going to grow with the advancement of technology, this is just a beginning. And with the availability of the “digital assistant device” and the compatible electrical equipment in the market, this field promises to get only more interesting in the future.