'iPhone 4S' and iPad 3 Coming in Late October?

Macotakara reports that it has received information indicating that Apple will be introducing the iPad 3 and "iPhone 4S" sometime early next month, with availability set for "late October". The source offered no information, however, on plans for the iPhone 5, although rumors have suggested that Apple will introduce both a revamped iPhone 5 and tweaked iPhone 4 next month.


According to sources, iPhone 4S which is based on iPhone 4(CDMA) and new iPad will be started produce since 1st week in September and will be shipped in late October.

The "iPhone 4S" name is an unofficial one that has been used in a variety of reports to refer to a new iPhone based largely on and appearing nearly identical to the current iPhone 4, but offering upgraded internal components. What has come to be known as the iPhone 5 is a more thorough redesign which has surfaced in case designs reportedly based on leaked design specs. 

There had been some confusion about whether Apple would be releasing an "iPhone 4S" or "iPhone 5" this year, with some suggesting that the confusion stemmed from Apple testing iPhone 5 components within iPhone 4 enclosures for secrecy. But others have claimed that Apple will indeed be introducing both the iPhone 5 and a tweaked iPhone 4 as rumors of a low-cost iPhone have continued to swirl.

 Apple has of course traditionally kept its older models around as entry-level options, as evidenced Apple's continued sale of an 8 GB iPhone 3GS model, but the volume of rumors suggest that Apple may be doing a bit more tweaking to its low-end offerings this time around. Such low-cost models are said to be key for penetrating the prepaid markets prevalent in a number of large countries around the world.

Macotakara has offered some accurate information in the past, and notably was the first source to pinpoint some of the features of the iPad 2 as case designs began leaking out. A number of potential dates for a media event introducing the iPhone 5 and perhaps the iPad 3 have been suggested, with early reports of a September timeframe being countered early last week with a report from All Things Digital claiming that the device won't be available until October. The latest rumor has, however, claimed a September 7th media event, although an iPhone 5 introduction at that time to be followed with a launch as far off as late October would be outside Apple's usual gap between introduction and availability.

PS Vita Release: Sony Playstation Vita Release Date, Price and Games

Sony has finally announced Sony Playstation Vita Release, the successor for the Sony PSP. PS Vita, the new portable gaming device from Sony is designed to provide users with a whole new level of gaming experience along with some great connectivity features to stay connected on your social network.

Sony, at E3 2011 had announced the much awaited Sony PS Vita Release, revealing the Sony PlayStation Vita (codename NGP) Features, Specs, Price and Release Date.

The new multi-touch screen and a rear multi-touch pad will be a great addition, helping with the users game handling capabilities. The WiFi and 3G connectivity features also allows gamers to connect, share and play with all their friends on the go. With the microphone feature, users can actually communicate on real time, providing an ultimate gaming experience. Sony also introduces a new feature called ‘LiveArea’, where users can access all the latest information of their favorite games on the PlayStation Network.

Still, the announcement will bring disappointment to many gamers, who were expecting Sony Playstation Vita Release earlier in US and Europe for holiday sales, with an OLED touchscreen up front and a clever touchpad controller surface on the rear. Since the new PS Vita was spotted passing through the FCC, a day ago, speculating a PS Vita Release this fall in US.

PS Vita Release: Sony Playstation Vita Release Date

Sony PlayStation Vita, the new portable game console will go on sale in early 2012. PS Vita Release is set in early 2012 for U.S. and Europe, following a Sony Playstation Vita Release in Japan during this Christmas by the end of 2011.

Sony Vice President, Kazuo Hirai termed it a 'phased global rollout' in 2012 rather than a delay. He said the scheduling was intended to give Sony time to prepare 'solid' game offerings.

PS Vita Release: Sony Playstation Price

Despite of recent price cuts for Nintendo 3DS, a popular competitor handheld game console released earlier this year, the PS Vita will cost $249 in the US for the WiFi-only model, and $299 for the 3G-equipped version. In Japan it will start from 24,980 yen.

Mac Os X Lion The Major NEW Features you need to know

The world has changed greatly for Apple in the past few years. As of their earnings statement released Monday, three quarters of all income comes from the iPhone and iPad and the number of users of iOS is already at least four times that of Mac users. After the under-the-hood tweaks and rationalizations of previous operating system update Snow Leopard, the mission for Mac OS X Lion was clear - make the Mac OS comfortable and familiar to the new Apple mobile user audience without putting off established Mac veterans. Can they pull it off?

Installation

So how do you install? You hop on a bus to the Apple Store, buy the Lion upgrade box, get home, take out the enclosed discs and... No you don't. Never again. You log in to the Mac App Store, pay your US$29 and start downloading. Some hours later (it's a 3.74 GB download) you have an 'Install Mac OSX Lion' application in your Applications folder and on the Dock. Apple is pretty laid back about what you do with that installer and you can copy it to any qualifying machines in your household. As per usual there is no serial number or DRM of any kind.

There are some interesting processes going when you double-click on the installer - Apple is creating an invisible partition on your main disk on the fly, installing a clean backup copy of Lion in that partition and then installing your new system Lion from there. It will migrate over all your applications and settings as in previous upgrades but will leave behind any applications that aren't compatible - which basically means apps that rely on Rosetta, Apple's PowerPC translator. From our experience and the reports coming in, the process seems to be robust and free from problems at this time.

The usual warnings apply however. This is the 'point-oh' release and there are bound to be glitches somewhere. Do not install on a 'mission critical' machine for the moment and in particular do not install on your music studio machine because, as seems to be the case with every single upgrade, third-party audio workstation plug-ins are breaking under Lion. Adobe has also reported that there are some issues with pretty well all of their applications including, surprise, surprise, Flash.

Scrolling/Gestures

The iOS influence from the iPhone/iPad family hits you in the face, or at least in the fingers, from the get-go. Lion scrolls the other way. That's right - if you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, a touch pad or indeed the Apple touch-sensitive Magic Mouse, pages on your screen will now scroll in the opposite direction. How you feel about this depends very much on how used to using the iPhone or iPad you are. Like those devices, you are now grabbing the page itself and moving it up and down, rather than the window on the page. Shock two - no scrollbars - or rather scroll bars that only pop into existence when active or when you roll over the edge of the page. When a new window is opened that has hidden scrollable content the bars pop into existence just to let you know and then fade away into the background.

Apple insists that within a few days you will be fully comfortable with this new behavior and won't want to go back. We tend to agree with them. However in the Lion System Preferences you have great control over these aspects of the interface plus the host of new tapping and swiping gestures that are now available and its possible to revert completely to the behavior of the good-old-days (two days ago).

Launchpad

Many inexperienced Mac users apparently have problems finding their applications and if they are not permanently in the Dock will forget where they are. Launchpad is an attempt to mitigate this and is a straight copy of the home screen from iOS. Launched from the Dock or via a hot-key Launchpad displays on screen every launchable app in the applications folder. Just like on iOS you can arrange your apps and pull them together to create folders that can be named. You can also delete apps that you bought in the App Store.

Just like on iOS it actually becomes quite a chore re-arranging your apps into a logical system if you have built up a reasonable collection. If you are a Mac veteran it becomes impossible since your applications folder will be full of all sorts of big apps, little apps, Applescript droplets and various bit and bobs that you just know you will use one day. Launchpad is one of those Apple things that works great for a new user for a couple of months and then is never seen again.

Full Screen

One of the surprising pleasures of the iPad is the fact that applications are always fullscreen. The device becomes the software and vice versa. Lion now brings this capability to the Mac for developers who wish to use the appropriate programming hooks. Most of the Apple apps now have this capability (check your updates) and it works great in apps like iPhoto, Garageband and the new Mail program - i.e. apps that already use a single multi-paned window. It makes little sense for apps that use multiple windows or where the content simply doesn't need the full width of the screen (looking at you Safari). On multiple monitors it only uses one screen and the others are left blank (or at least just showing the new ubiquitous grey linen background texture). It would be nice to see this developed a bit to allow an app per screen for example. The mode is invoked simply by clicking an icon on the top right of the window. In full screen mode mousing to the top of the screen will roll down the menu bar and it can exited from there.

Auto Save/Versions/Resume

Have you ever lost work on your computer? Of course you have. Everybody has. After years and years of being told to keep backups and to keep hitting save while we work, stuff still gets lost or written over by a file we didn't mean to save, or by logging out and not saving open documents. Apple aims to make this a thing of the past by autosaving the changes to every document and then allowing you to browse back in time the different versions of that document, very much in the manner of the now-familiar Time Machine interface.

If the software developer decides to use Apple's updated document model (and they would be crazy not to) the user will never again have to think about saving a document. In addition, when you quit an application the placement and content of all open windows is stored (including where the cursor was and any selections) and then re-stored when the app is launched the next time. In fact, after shutting down, the computer will restart with all open documents and applications as they were before. Very cool.

If this whole idea make you nervous you can still manually save a new version, create a duplicate or chose to lock a document. One suspects however that this new facility will be seen as a significant turning point in document management - once every developer has embraced it of course.

Mission Control

Mission Control is one of the few new headline features in Lion that doesn't seem directly influenced by its mobile iOS brother. Its purpose is to simplify and bring together Exposé, Spaces and Dashboard functionality since many people are apparently still not using these useful screen management functions.

Invoking Mission Control (via the Dock, a Hot Key or touch panel gesture) makes the present desktop recede a little and get overlaid by a row of virtual Spaces desktops - including any full-screen apps and a separate Dashboard Widgets desktop - plus representations of all document windows in use together with icons of their parent application. From here you can quickly get to any window or virtual desktop. You can also drag windows into different desktops and create new ones. It's quicker and more easily understood than the previous arrangements so hopefully more users will be using it to zip between their open documents.

Mail

One application that most people spend a great deal of time in is Mail and it's received a lot of love from Apple in this update with a brand new layout. Messages are at long last to the right of the message list and not below. This makes so much more sense on widescreen monitors. The message list can show a preview of the message (up to five lines) and you can optionally show a sender's thumbnail image if they are in your Address Book file. The default viewing of messages is in a 'conversation' mode where every related message is shown and numbered making it very easy to follow an email thread. This mode also automatically hides all the redundant quoting though you can reveal it if really necessary (with a fun animation).

The familiar mailbox and folder sidebar is available but you can drag any of the item therein to a toolbar above the message window and close the sidebar to increase real-estate. There are a number of often-used commands in that toolbar plus text formatting controls when in email composing mode. Search has been greatly improved using Spotlight's new functionality with search items being quickly auto-suggested. Plus, after one search term has been defined, auto-suggestions for a second term come up making it much quicker to drill down to the message you are searching for. It's easier to use than describe and feels really slick. Fun feature - email flags can now be one of seven colors, not just red. The new Mail is a great improvement.

iCal/Address Book

The iCal and Address Book applications have also received attention in Lion but unfortunately this is one area where the iOS influence is unwelcome. Apple has maintained a deeply skeuomorphic design for both that is perfectly logical in the context of the iPhone/iPad but makes no sense at all on the non-touch vastness of a desktop monitor. They both work as expected with some additional features but the leather, cloth and torn paper appearance is taken to silly levels.

It would be nice if one day Apple provided us with the more powerful general purpose database and time-management tools that Address Book and iCal could become. Unfortunately it seems we are stuck with them as 'apps'. Address Book now has fields for Twitter and 'Profiles' (Facebook, LinkedIn etc.) and iCal does have the nice new feature of a yearly view where your busiest days are represented as red or amber 'hot spots' and your free days in white. Nice touch.

AirDrop

AirDrop is potentially a very useful little feature in a busy office environment. Click on the AirDrop folder in the Finder sidebar and every nearby Mac with Wi-Fi on will pop up. They don't even need to be on the same network. You drag a file onto the Mac you want to send it to and a dialogue asking for permission to receive it pops up on their desktop. Genius.

Security

Something that won't get a lot of press but has clearly been a priority for Apple is the greatly improved security of the operating system to protect against crashing and the malicious hacking of data. the 'sandboxing' (separation of the privileges of each process so that it cannot not be coerced into something else and crash the app) of the System itself has been going on since Leopard. Now it is available for use by developers and will in the future be mandatory for applications to be sold in the Mac App Store. FileVault now encrypts at high speed at the disc level rather than file level and can encrypt whole Time Machine back-ups which is a great improvement. Don't lose that password.

Every Mac OS upgrade has its quirks and caveats but Lion 10.7 feels like it has moved the game along significantly. As always, it will take the developers time to fully embrace the new technologies available to them (er, Adobe?) but Apple has made great efforts with its own apps to show what is possible. It's only US$29 and a million people have already downloaded it in its one day since release. Now bring on iOS5 and iCloud so we can close this circle.

Source: Gizmag

Apple Planning to Introduce White iPod Touch

Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has in the past provided some accurate claims primarily regarding Apple's notebook lines, now reports to AppleInsider that Apple may be planning to introduce a white iPod touch later this year. The forthcoming fifth-generation iPod touch is said to otherwise be nearly identical to the current version.

Looking into the current third calendar quarter, Kuo said checks indicate Apple has placed orders for white iPod touch models that are expected to go into mass production sometime in late August, but he added that the build plans for those models reflect few, if any, distinguishable changes from the existing black models introduced last fall. 

"It means no spec update of iPod touch this year," he said.

Last month, references to a new iOS-based iPod known as "iPod4,2" were discovered in the iOS 5 beta, with Apple's use of that naming convention instead of "iPod5,1" leading to speculation that the next-generation iPod touch will indeed be a minor update. 


Lending credence to the claims of a forthcoming white iPod touch is the discovery of anew white front plate for the iPod touch obtained by parts and repair firm iFixyouri and reported to 9 to 5 Mac. The white part appears essentially identical to the black one used in the current iPod touch, and thus it can not be definitively stated whether the part is intended for a forthcoming model or was for a white version of the current generation that was ultimately scrapped before release.


Source: macrumors via 9to5

Harry Potter partners with Google, snubs Apple and PayPal

Google has joined forces with the most famous wizard in the world, Harry Potter, which could mean a big boost for two of its services while also resulting in a huge missed opportunity for Apple and PayPal. The partnership with the new Pottermore website by Harry Potter author JK Rowling will make the e-book version of the seven Harry Potter books available on Google's eBooks reader. The deal also makes Google's payment service Google Checkout the official third-party form of payment for Pottermore. By partnering with Google eBooks, Rowling has found a way to put her seven highly-in-demand books on smartphones, tablets, e-readers and computers without having to split the sales with companies such as Apple or Amazon, who typically keep about 30% of sales. Rowling's distribution method gives publisher's more leverage when it comes to selling e-books, said Craig Vodnik, chief blogger for BuildingKeystones.com, a blog about digital product e-commerce.

"It could be a really, really big deal if this works out based off the titles she's written and she's just so well-known," he said. "From the publisher's perspective it's a big deal because it could give them some control over how they distribute their products." Vodnik said Google landing Rowling is similar to when Apple finally got the Beatles on their iTunes catalog. In what must have been the tradeoff in the deal, Google's payment service Google Checkout appears to be the only way besides debit or credit cards to purchases the books from Pottermore. The inclusion of Google Checkout is a huge snub for PayPal, the original and most used third-party payment service online.

Instead, Google Checkout will be exposed to millions of Harry Potter fans looking to buy digital versions of the wizard stories. In the last few months, Google has been strengthening its push into the e-commerce and mobile payment fields, announcing recently it had begun testing a service called Google Wallet, which allows consumers to pay using their Android phones using a technology called NFC. The Harry Potter books could become the most purchased e-books upon their release if the franchise's performance at the box office and at book stores are any indication. The final Harry Potter film had the best opening of all time, scoring $168.6 million in the U.S. and Canada in three days. Four years ago, the last Harry Potter book had a similar release, selling 8.3 million copies in its first day, according to Guinness World Records.

Physicists Confirm Existence of New Particle

Physicists working at Fermilab’s particle accelerator have confirmed the observation of an entirely new particle — the the Xi-sub-b baryon.


Baryons are particles formed of three quarks, in different configurations. The proton is a baryon that consists of two up and one down quark, and the neutron is two down and one up. The Xi-sub-b has an up quark, a strange quark (yes, that’s its real name) and a heavy bottom quark (again, real name), meaning that it weighs around six times as much as a proton or neutron.

Its existence has been predicted for some time, but hadn’t previously been observed. It doesn’t stick around long, though — traveling a fraction of a millimeter before decaying into lighter particles.

Happily, Fermilab has smashed together almost 500 trillion sets of particles, so researchers were able to verify the particle’s existence multiple times over. The Xi-sub-b has been spotted 25 times.

Fermilab’s Tevatron, where the Xi-sub-b was discovered, is based in Illinois in the United States, and was the highest-energy particle accelerator in the world until the Large Hadron Collider opened below Geneva.

Source: Wired

Apple to Release OS X Lion and New MacBook Airs on Wednesday?

AppleInsider reports that this Wednesday may finally be the day that OS X Lion and new MacBook Air models finally begin shipping as consumers have been anxiously awaiting the releases.

According to people with proven track records who would be in a position to know, the new product launches are set to occur later this week. Specifically, one person said the products would be released on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.

The latest details align with what AppleInsider was told earlier this month, when it reported that new MacBook Air models with backlit keyboards and Thunderbolt ports would launch the week of July 21.

Those details were reaffirmed late last week in a separate report that corroborated other details, including the fact that Apple is expected to do away with the entry-level 64GB solid-state flash hard drive option. Instead, the new MacBook Airs are expected to have a minimum of 128GB in capacity.

Apple has been reported to be holding new hardware launches until OS X Lion is ready so that it can ship the machines with the latest operating system pre-installed. A number of other new hardware updates are said to be pending, including a Mac mini refresh and an updated LED Cinema Display. New Mac Pro models have also been rumored for release later this month or early next month. All of the new releases are said to support the new Thunderbolt high-speed data connectivity standard.


A few weeks ago, Apple began undertaking preparatory measures to unveil Lion. While it was initially believed that the operating system could have gone on sale as soon as last week, there have been rumors of last-minute holdups associated with the logistics and infrastructure related to Apple's switch to a digital distribution method through the Mac App Store. 

The Golden Master of Lion was seeded to developers on July 1. The term "Golden Master" means that the software is viewed as a final build that will be identical to the software released to the general public.

While Lion and the new MacBook Air models are said to be set to launch this week, there has been no specific indication given regarding any other hardware. However, Apple provided its own evidence of a forthcoming refresh to its LED Cinema Display last week, when it posted images on its site showing a Thunderbolt-equipped display with the new part number "MC914."

Supply of Apple's white MacBook has also been severely constrained since late June, suggesting a change to the product could be forthcoming. However,AppleInsider has received no indication of an imminent hardware refresh.

That would leave just the Mac mini and Mac Pro as the only Mac hardware not updated in 2011. In June, CNet reported that Apple planned to update both the Mac Pro and Mac mini either at the end of July or the first week of August. The Mac mini was last refreshed in June 2010, while the Mac Pro was last updated a month later, in July.

Spanish Surgeons Conduct the World's First Double Leg Transplant

This month in amazing medical procedures, it’s all about Europe. Last week we learned that a pan-European team of researchers and doctors have successfully pulled off the first transplant of a synthetic organ grown from the patient’s own stem cells. This week, the world’s first double leg transplant was successfully executed in Spain.

The male patient has not yet been identified, but the 13-hour surgery that involved painstakingly reattaching each of his nerves and blood vessels to those in his new legs has been deemed a success. The patient is awake and reportedly quite pleased with his new biological hardware, though it will take a good deal of immunotherapy to ensure his body doesn’t reject the new limbs, and another several months before he can be expected to gain any feeling in the transplanted extremities.

Leg amputees usually aren’t good candidates for limb transplants because there are very good prostheses available and the procedure is quite difficult. In this case, the patient had lost his legs in an accident, and the amputation had occurred so high on the thigh as to rule out attaching prosthetic limbs. With no alternative, doctors green lit the procedure. They hope to have the patient moving his knees in a few weeks, and perhaps have him walking in physical therapy within six months.

Source: Popsci via New Scientist

Google Plus: Basic Tips for Beginners

Google+ is on its way to charm people and many of the Facebook users are already making their minds to take a shift, so it is just matter of time, but again these are somehow pre-mature thoughts, so we will have to wait and see the impact.

Frankly speaking, we had to spend sizable amount of time to get familiar with Google+, we thought of saving you from the effort. So let’s start with Google+ and here you will get some basic useful tips if you are just joining Google+ or are still wondering what to do here?

Getting Started

There has been much hype about how and from where to get Google+ invitations. People started writing tutorials on how to invite someone on Google+, but Google has resolved the issue now and you do not need to end up pasting your email address here and there to ask for an invite.

Registrations on Google+ are now open and you can sign up without any invite. Simply visithttp://google.com/+/ and register yourself.

Welcome to Google+

If you have ever used any of Google’s services (Gmail, Google Profile, Blogger, etc.), then there are chances that Google+will detect more than 50 percent of your bio – to fill your profile. Don’t worry, your privacy settings will not be disturbed. For instance, you can link your Picasa account with Google+ while maintaining the same privacy settings as they were with your Picasa account.

So it’s time now to upload your profile picture and write something about you.

Build Your Circles

Next thing that you should do is, build up your circles and invite others. But to know what really circles are, read below:

• Circles are different set of groups, or lists with different permissions. You can add your contacts in these circles to make sure that you don’t share your information with those who shouldn’t see them.
• You will get updates from contacts that you have added in your circle. Just like twitter, you start getting updates from those whom you follow
• Contacts in your circle will not get your updates, though they will be invited – but they can deny any incoming requests.

By default Google offers following circles to you, of course you can create more with ease

• Friends
• Family
• Acquaintances
• Following

You can simply mouse over them to read what kind of circle it is and sharing settings.

Adding Contacts to Circles:

• Click circle button (right on top middle – or where the red arrow is in above image)
• Go to "Find and Invite" tab
• Here you will be suggested with contacts that you may want to add in your circles, drag and drop them in below circles… simple as that
• Note: Suggestions will be those contacts that you recently interacted with on Gmail
• Want to add someone who is not in suggestions: There’s a button “Add a new Person”, click on it – type email address and you are done.

So you are almost done with basic settings and this is the time to go out and say Here I am!

Posts and Stream

You must be familiar with wall posts on Facebook, here Google calls it stream. And for me, the most loveable feature of Google+ is to get stream from specific circle.

• Select stream from any of your circle and updates from only those will be shown from the circle
• You can Share a post from your stream, comment on it +1 it (kind of liking a post)

You can post an update, using the box given on top of stream – exactly like facebook has;

• Post any thing you feel like, you can add videos, pictures, links and so on
• You can edit posts later on, delete them, mute them and so on
• You can select circles or contacts that you want your post to be shared with.
• You can disable resharing and/or commenting

Hangouts

Hangouts is the coolest feature of Google Plus, it will let you start a video conversation with as many friends of yours as you like.

Simply click the “Hangout” button available on right sidebar or visit this link:plus.google.com/hangouts

You’ll be taken to a "green room" where you can select circles or individuals to add in your room (video chat).

Sparks = Interests and Likes

Visit the Sparks menu from left sidebar and you will find featured interests. Don’t worry, you are not bound to like them. Search your interests and while adding them, Google+ will give you content suggestions that you can share on your wall, stream in fact.

Once again Google+ allows you here to set which circles you want to share with and it works the same way as described for the post.

Turning Off Email Alerts

By default, Google+ will email you for every post, comment, +1 or anything that happens and is related to you.

This may irritate you – so simply visit Google+ settings from the Options menu which you can find at the extreme right of black bar – codenamed the “Sandbar”, you must have noticed it appearing from few days.

So just un-check the relevant boxes and you are done.

Missing Facebook?

If you are missing Facebook here on Google+ and all that blue interface still mesmerizes you, make your Google+ look like Facebook.

It is simple and easy. Visit http://userstyles.org/styles/50051/google-facebook and follow the two step tutorial.

First install Stylish extension by selecting your browser from the list and then install the script. Here you are with your Google+ converted into Facebook!

This was just a sneak peak of Google+ for beginners.

Google has planned to add more features like Games, Events etc. As project is considered to be one of the prime goals of Google to compete it’s rival Facebook so we can expect a lot from Google here.

Fell free to share any tip in comments.

Souce: ProPakistani.pk

D-Dalus - an entirely new genre of aircraft arrives

Austrian research company IAT21 has presented a new type of aircraft at the Paris Air Show which has the potential to become aviation's first disruptive technology since the jet engine.

The D-Dalus (a play on Daedalus from Greek mythology) is neither fixed wing or rotor craft and uses four, mechanically-linked, contra-rotating cylindrical turbines, each running at the same 2200 rpm, for its propulsion.

The key to the D-Dalus' extreme maneuverability is the facility to alter the angle of the blades (using servos) to vector the forces, meaning that the thrust can be delivered in your choice of 360 degrees around any of the three axes. Hence D-Dalus can launch vertically, hover perfectly still and move in any direction, and that's just the start of the story.

Like most cars and aircraft these days, it sounds very complex but it's all controlled by computer algorithms, so it's simple joystick control for the user, and far less exacting than a helicopter to fly.

Existing rotary wing aircraft offer VTOL capabilities but have vulnerabilities which make them unsuitable for many applications. They are challenged in bad weather, at long ranges, at high speed and in operating to and from lurching platforms, such as boats in rough weather.

By contrast, D-Dalus is particularly suited for such conditions and can thrust upwards and hence "glue down" on landing, which it can also do on a moving vehicle. Indeed, landing on a moving vehicle is one of the D-Dalus' many party tricks, and it's a natural for landing on watercraft. Not surprisingly, since it initially broke cover at the Royal Aeronautical Society conference a few days ago, it has already attracted a lot of interest from military quarters.

The D-Dalus is also near-silent, and has the dynamic stability to enter buildings and handle rough weather with ease - things which existing rotorcraft simply cannot achieve. The aircraft also has a sense-and-avoid system which, in conjunction with its complete lack of vulnerable external parts (such as rotors), means it can hover in very close proximity to vertical rock faces and walls, making it suitable for search-and-rescue operations, as a surveillance drone with hover-and-stare capabilities and as a proactive tool for urban battlefield situational awareness.

The lack of vulnerable external moving parts will give a small D-Dalus-type drone the ability to fly into buildings through windows, and its unique capabilities also offer 360 degree vision, another aspect lacking in traditional rotor craft which have blind spots due to the rotors, and nowhere near the same maneuverability as the D-Dalus.

IAT21 forsees many applications based on these key new criteria - apart from being able to enter and search buildings, it could conceivably remove radioactive contamination or explosives, extract casualties, or hold and direct water hoses for fire fighters.

As it can lift heavy loads, and becomes even more efficient in doing so as it scales upwards in size, it is also envisaged as a platform for loading and unloading ships when cranes are not available.

The D-Dalus is also so simple mechanically that it needs little maintenance and requires no more maintenance expertise than an auto mechanic. It should be noted that all VTOL aircraft capable of carrying large payloads are complex and very costly to maintain.

Currently, tests are being conducted using a 120 bhp KTM engine and turbines around five feet long - and the capability of lifting a payload of 70 kg. More tests are planned over the coming weeks. IAT21 is now also working with Cranfield University in the U.K. on a larger, more powerful motor, a new hull shape for the craft, and advanced guidance and control systems.

The forces on the blade pivots are understandably huge, and in initial testing it was found that all available bearings failed, so inventor Meinhard Schwaiger, who already has more than 150 patents to his name, knuckled down and invented (and patented) his own, near-frictionless swivel-bearing to cope with the stresses.

The D-Dalus is constructed of carbon fiber, and appears to be scalable for a range of potential applications including maritime search and rescue, freight transport, operating alongside and within buildings during fires - the long term hopes for the platform include a passenger version for public transit.