Tag: birds

  • Biomimetic EV fan goes full ‘birds of prey’ toward muted efficiency

    Biomimetic EV fan goes full ‘birds of prey’ toward muted efficiency

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    German automotive supplier Mahle has been hard at work on next-gen electric drive systems, and it’s also been exploring other critical components to help make vehicular electrification a more viable reality. At September’s IAA Transportation show, it revealed a thermal management fan that borrows from nature to provide smoother, quieter, more efficient performance on the road and at the charger. The fan is designed to meet the needs of the full spectrum of vehicles, from small urban EVs to large fuel cell trucks.

    In order to arrive at its unique fan blade design, Mahle used an AI engine to explore a variety of possible biomimetic options.

    “We analyzed the characteristic features of bats, swordfish, and many other inspirations from nature,” explained Dr. Uli Christian Blessing, Mahle’s development chief for thermal management.We finally ended up with the owl, the silent hunter, as the main template for our new fan.”

    Blessing doesn’t exaggerate; owls are well-known as a silent predator, able to effectively swoop down on their prey in virtual silence thanks to the unique form of their wing feathers. Both the leading and trailing edges are broken into small comb-like serrations that smooth out air turbulence to cut noise and provide the owl’s hyper-quiet hunting ability.

    While Mahle may have indeed used AI to help narrow its specific search, it didn’t start from scratch on the idea of an owl-like blade. This style of design has been researched and pursued by a number of entities over the years, proposed for myriad uses that include wind turbines, aircraft engines and gaming system cooling hardware. In fact, German building and machinery component supplier Ziehl-Abegg has developed a full lineup of FE2owlet multipurpose axial fans with owl wing-inspired blades.

    The wavy ribbon-like blades feature owl-inspired serrated edges for smoother airflow and less noise
    The wavy ribbon-like blades feature owl-inspired serrated edges for smoother airflow and less noise

    Mahle

    Compared to the F2owlet, Mahle’s design looks downright docile and much less saw-like, but it still employs serrations along the wavy blade edges to channel and quiet airflow. The company says the blade design works much like it does on the owl’s wing, cutting noise by up to 4 decibel A, more than half the sound output of a standard fan.

    “One can imagine the sound reduction power of our fan to be like that of turning off one of the speakers on a stereo system,” Blessing analogized.

    Mahle says the effect is particularly valuable when the vehicle is running at full load or fast-charging at night, cutting down on noise pollution for both the vehicle driver and those nearby.

    Beyond just the blades, Mahle has applied biomimetic inspiration to the construction of the fan cover and hardware
    Beyond just the blades, Mahle has applied biomimetic inspiration to the construction of the fan cover and hardware

    Mahle

    The new blade design also results in 10% more efficient performance and a weight savings of 10% versus a conventional fan design, Mahle reports. Drivers may not notice any difference at the battery gauge, but efficiency optimization is the name of the game when it comes to EV design, and every bit contributes.

    Mahle has designed the fan for a scalable power range between 300 and 35,000 watts so it could be equipped to everything from small electric passenger cars to large commercial vehicles. Beyond just battery electrics, it’s also designed for use in fuel cell electric setups, and Mahle debuted it within an FCEV truck cab mockup with a full complement of FCEV system components, including its first all-electric axle with two SCT motors.

    At last month's IAA Transportation show, Mahle exhibited a mockup of its full fuel cell drive system that included a fuel cell and supporting hardware, thermal management setup (fan and battery cooling), complete liquid management system, and HD electric axle with two SCT electric motors worth 697 hp
    At last month’s IAA Transportation show, Mahle exhibited a mockup of its full fuel cell drive system that included a fuel cell and supporting hardware, thermal management setup (fan and battery cooling), complete liquid management system, and HD electric axle with two SCT electric motors worth 697 hp

    Mahle

    Mahle has supplied initial fan prototypes to both passenger and commercial vehicle manufacturers for testing. Citing forecasts that battery and fuel cell electric trucks will make up 30 percent of global production by 2035, the company plans to continue attacking the challenges of electrification from multiple angles, developing both next-gen electric drives and optimized components.

    Source: Mahle



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  • Habitat ‘Pop-Ups’ Could Be Great News for Birds

    Habitat ‘Pop-Ups’ Could Be Great News for Birds

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    This article was originally published by High Country News.

    Every July, the western sandpiper, a dun-colored, long-beaked bird, leaves the shores of Alaska and migrates south. It may fly as far as the coast of Peru, where it spends several months before making the return trip. Western sandpipers travel along the Pacific Flyway, a strip of land that stretches along the western coast of the Americas, from the Arctic down to Patagonia. The wetlands of California’s Central Valley offer sandpipers and many other species a crucial place to rest and feed along the way. At the peak of the southward-migration season, millions of birds stop there.

    But intensive farming and development have destroyed more than 90 percent of the Central Valley’s wetlands, and as the wetlands have disappeared, the number of migrating birds has plummeted. Shorebirds like the western sandpiper, which dwell along seashores and in estuaries, are particularly imperiled, having declined by about one-third since 1970.

    In 2014, in the middle of a particularly punishing drought in California, a network of conservation organizations called the Migratory Bird Conservation Partnership tried a new strategy to help migrating birds: paying farmers to create “pop-up” habitats. The program, which is called BirdReturns and was initially funded by the Nature Conservancy, has since produced tens of thousands of acres of temporary wetlands.

    Rice farmers in the Central Valley flood their fields when the growing season ends, generally around November, and keep them flooded until February to help the leftover vegetation decompose. They plant their crop in the spring. The program pays rice farmers in the birds’ flight path to flood their fields a bit earlier in the fall and leave them flooded later in the spring. This creates habitat when the migratory birds need it most, as they fly southward in the late summer and early fall and pass through again on their way north in the spring.

    Daniel Karp, a researcher at UC Davis who studies conservation in working landscapes and is not involved in BirdReturns, sees the program as a rare conservation win. Most of the time, small farms that grow many different crops and plant hedgerows and pollinator-friendly flowers are the best way to conserve biodiversity in human-dominated landscapes. But although rice farmers grow only one crop, their large fields are an exception. The BirdReturns program is far from a complete solution, but “it’s this weird rare circumstance where you have a large, industrial-scale intensive agricultural system that can simultaneously support wildlife,” Karp says.

    To figure out where these surrogate habitats are most needed, BirdReturns uses data from eBird—a community science project composed of birders’ recorded sightings—to assess where and when migratory birds typically land in the Central Valley. Researchers combine that information with satellite data showing when and where surface water is most available, and where it’s needed.

    BirdReturns is not like traditional conservation strategies in which organizations buy land and protect it in perpetuity. Instead, it’s a market-based program that pays farmers to flood their fields for a certain amount of time, rather like renting bird habitat, explains Julia Barfield, a program manager for the Nature Conservancy and part of BirdReturns.

    The amount of money that farmers receive is determined by a reverse auction: The farmers bid for leases, and the lowest bidder wins. The payment increases according to how late or early they flood their fields, which cuts into the growing season. Preliminary data from studies by Karp’s lab suggests that the birds might benefit farmers in more direct ways too, by helping to break down leftover vegetation.

    BirdReturns started with just 10,000 acres in the Sacramento Valley. In 2021, it expanded to the San Joaquin Delta. The program now has a network of regional partners that lead their own reverse-auction programs, such as the similar Bid4Birds, piloted by the California Ricelands Waterbird Foundation.

    Over the past decade, BirdReturns has created 120,000 acres of seasonal bird habitat. Though that’s dramatically less than the 4 million acres of wetlands present before colonial settlement, studies have shown that shorebird density is 2 to 3.5 times greater in pop-up wetlands than in other rice fields. And BirdReturns is fine-tuning its approach based on data, feedback from farmers, and ongoing research: A study published in early September analyzing nearly 9,000 field observations over five years gave scientists more information about the factors that make for good shorebird habitat. For example, more shorebirds tend to visit fields with shallower water, especially if they’re flooded consistently for several months or if they’d been flooded in previous years.

    BirdReturns also has the flexibility to adapt as conditions change from year to year. During droughts, for example, the program prioritizes places that birds have visited in the past. In wetter years, it might scale back. “The findings of your results are applied right away to on-the-ground actions,” says Greg Golet, a senior scientist for the Nature Conservancy who is involved in the program.

    Challenges remain, though. The migration and agriculture cycles are not fully synchronized, making it difficult for rice farmers to flood their land early enough to create habitat for shorebirds, particularly the long-distance migrants that might appear as early as July. BirdReturns has recently tackled other strategies, partnering with tomato farmers, who grow crops a bit earlier in the year and thus can flood their fields earlier.

    And the question remains of how this practice can continue sustainably, especially as climate-change-fueled drought makes water more scarce, Karp says. In drought years, it’s costly to pay farmers to keep their lands flooded, if they have any water to spare at all. There are no simple fixes or easy answers, but for now, BirdReturns and similar programs are coming up with “creative solutions,” Karp says.

    “We thought we could rely on protected areas to conserve habitat globally, and we now know that’s not enough, and we need to complement that with a suite of different conservation strategies,” says Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela, a conservation ecologist at UC Santa Cruz who is not involved with BirdReturns. Although market-based solutions shouldn’t be the only answer, she says, they are “a piece of the puzzle.”

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  • Hurricane Helene Couldn’t Stop Birders From Using eBird

    Hurricane Helene Couldn’t Stop Birders From Using eBird

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    Last week, Hurricane Helene spun north into western North Carolina causing catastrophic damage, particularly in the Asheville area and surrounding counties. Entire homes and businesses were flooded, some floating away in a horrific wave of debris.

    In the midst of it all, some bird-watchers noticed something: People in some of the most heavily impacted areas were continuing to log sightings in the popular app eBird. As it happens, some of those areas—Buncombe and Henderson Counties in particular—have been birding hot spots for years. Less than a day after the storm passed, as many were still assessing the damage, birders were back to chronicling their finds.

    Helene made landfall as a category 4 hurricane in western Florida on September 26 before becoming a tropical storm as it made its way north. When it struck Appalachia, rivers overflowed, and flooding buried valley towns. Thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed. The storm’s current death count is over 200, which is expected to rise in coming days as emergency crews reach increasingly remote areas.

    For birders, the storm was traumatic. None of them had power, cell service, or water in their homes. But they could walk outside, try to take their mind off of the tragedy unfolding around them, and spot birds both local and exotic to the area. When they finally got limited cell service—either by traveling or by satellite connection or through temporary cell towers—posting their findings to eBird, which has more than 900,000 users around the world, was almost instinctual.

    Tambi Swiney has lived in Appalachia all her life and in the Asheville area for about two years. An ordained minister, Swiney works as a spiritual adviser—which is similar to a life coach but focused exclusively on the spiritual. She started birding about five years ago because of her son, who had a budding interest.

    “I got serious about downloading the eBird app and the Merlin app that helps you to identify birds by sight and sound,” she says. “Ever since then, it’s been something that has just become a part of the regular rhythm of my life.”

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard weren’t in the area in full force until a few days after the storm, she says. Before then, they had to rely on their neighbors. One, who had a generator, she says, opened up their home to people who needed to charge their phones or boil water.

    Swiney began volunteering with her local First Baptist Church to distribute food and supplies donated from a group in South Carolina. It’s been overwhelming, she says, to come to terms with the “heaviness” of the storm. Birding, she says, has been a source of reprieve. Even before the storm, she had checked for birds in her backyard every day.

    “It’s been a relief to me to have moments where I’m just looking out the window at the bird feeder hanging on my porch and identifying the birds that are coming up,” Swiney says. “It just has brought some peace and comfort in the midst of this storm.”

    Normally, at this time of year, Swiney would have traveled to birding hot spots to look for migrating hawks, which come in by thousands as they fly south. The road to the area is currently closed, so she has birded only in places she can travel to by foot.

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  • Urban Birds Are Harboring Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

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    This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

    Urban ducks and crows might offer us a connection to nature, but scientists have found wild birds that live near humans are more likely to harbor bacteria resistant to important antibiotics.

    Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is largely caused by the overuse of drugs such as antibiotics among humans and livestock.

    The issue is of serious concern: According to data for 2019, about 4.95 million deaths globally were associated with bacterial AMR, including 1.27 million directly caused by such resistance.

    Researchers say species of wild birds that tend to turn up in urban settings are reservoirs for bacteria with the hallmarks of resistance to a host of drugs.

    “Basically what we’re seeing are genes that confer resistance to antimicrobials that would be used to treat human infections,” said Samuel Sheppard, coauthor of the research from the Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research.

    The team say their findings are important as wild birds have the capacity to travel over considerable distances. Sheppard said a key concern was that these birds could pass antimicrobial-resistant bacteria to captive birds destined to be eaten by humans—such as those kept in poultry farms.

    Writing in the journal Current Biology, Sheppard and colleagues report how they analyzed the genomes of bacteria found in 700 samples of bird poo from 30 wild bird species in Canada, Finland, Italy, Lithuania, Japan, Sweden, the UK, and the US.

    The team looked specifically at the presence of different strains of Campylobacter jejuni—a type of bacteria that are ubiquitous in birds as a natural part of their gut microbiome. Such bacteria are a leading cause of human gastroenteritis, although antibiotics are generally only used in severe cases.

    Sheppard added that, in general, each wild bird would be expected to harbor a single strain of C. jejuni, specific to that species.

    However, the team found wild birds that turn up in urban settings contain many more strains of C. jejuni than those that live away from humans.

    What’s more, the strains found in urban-dwelling species contained about three times as many genes known to result in antimicrobial resistance, with these genes also associated with resistance to a broader range of antimicrobials.

    The authors suggest that wild birds may pick up antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in a number of ways: Gulls and crows, for example, are known to lurk at landfill sites, while ducks and geese may pick them up in rivers and lakes that are contaminated with human wastewater.

    Thomas Van Boeckel, an expert in antimicrobial resistance at ETH Zurich who was not involved in the work, said the research was unusual as it focused on the impact of antimicrobial use by humans on animals.

    “What are the consequences of that for the birds? We don’t really know but it seems like we humans are responsible for this change,” he said.

    Danna Gifford from the University of Manchester added the findings could have implications for human health.

    “While alarming, the risk of direct transmission of resistance from urban birds to humans is unclear. Poultry-to-human transmission, however, is well documented,” she said. “With urban development encroaching on agricultural land, increasing contact between urban birds and poultry raises significant concerns about indirect transmission through the food chain.”

    Andrew Singer, of the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, said more samples were needed to ensure the results stood up, but that precautions could be taken.

    “The most obvious place to start is to ensure birds do not congregate in our landfills, wastewater treatment plants, and animal muck piles, where both pathogens and AMR are abundant,” he said. “Moreover, we must also eliminate the discharge of untreated sewage into our rivers, which exposes all river-using wildlife—and humans—to human-associated pathogens and AMR.”

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  • Birds sing in their sleep – and now we can decipher their dreams

    Birds sing in their sleep – and now we can decipher their dreams

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    Researchers have tracked muscle contractions in a bird’s vocal tract, and reconstructed the song it was silently singing in its sleep. The resulting audio is a very specific call, allowing the team to figure out what the bird’s dream was about.

    When birds sleep, the part of their brains dedicated to daytime singing remains active, showing patterns that resemble those produced while awake. Researchers from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) previously demonstrated that these brain patterns activate a bird’s vocal muscles, enabling them to silently ‘replay’ a song during sleep.

    But, until now, it hasn’t been possible to map how that nocturnal activity gets processed. In their new study, the UBA researchers turned the vocal muscle movements made during avian dreaming into synthetic songs.

    “Dreams are one of the most intimate and elusive parts of our existence,” said Gabriel Mindlin, a specialist in the physical mechanisms behind birdsong and corresponding author of the study. “Knowing that we share this with such a distant species is very moving. And the possibility of entering the mind of a dreaming bird – listening to how that dream sounds – is a temptation impossible to resist.”

    Great Kiskadee Calling

    A bird’s vocal sounds are made by a unique organ only they possess, the syrinx. Located at the base of the windpipe (trachea), passing air causes some or all of the organ’s walls to vibrate, while a surrounding air sac acts like a resonating chamber. The pitch of the sound produced depends on the tension surrounding muscles exert on the syrinx and the airways.

    The researchers chose the great kiskadee for their study, as it was the species they’d used in their previous research. Common throughout Middle and South America, the boisterous and aggressive bird is known for its three-syllable call – in fact, its “kis-ka-dee” sound is how it got its name. When defending its territory, the great kiskadee produces a distinct vocalization pattern – a ‘trill’ of short syllables – accompanied by raising its crest of head feathers.

    Trill EMG activity recorded during sleep and synthetic sounds generated by the dynamical model
    Trill EMG activity recorded during sleep and synthetic sounds generated by the dynamical model

    Döppler et al.

    Custom-made electromyography (EMG) electrodes were implanted in the birds to measure the muscle response and electrical activity in the obliquus ventralis muscle, the most prominent muscle producing the kiskadee’s birdsong. EMG and birdsong audio were recorded simultaneously while the birds were awake and asleep. An existing dynamical systems model of the kiskadee’s sound production mechanism was used to translate the information into synthetic songs. In basic terms, a dynamical systems model breaks down what occurs in the syrinx when sound is produced into a series of mathematical equations.

    “During the past 20 years, I’ve worked on the physics of birdsong and how to translate muscular information into song,” Midlin said. “In this way, we can use the muscle activity patterns as time-dependent parameters of a model of birdsong production and synthesize the corresponding song.”

    Analyzing muscular activity during sleep revealed consistent activity patterns corresponding to the trills produced by kiskadees during daytime territorial fights. Interestingly, the ‘dreaming trills’ were associated with raised head feathers, the same as during the daytime. The researchers created a synthetic version of one of the trills from the data they’d collected.

    What do bird dreams sound like?

    “I felt great empathy imagining that solitary bird recreating a territorial dispute in its dream,” Midlin said. “We have more in common with other species that we usually recognize.”

    The researchers say that their study has provided “a unique window into the avian brain” and that using dynamical biomechanics models to translate signals into behavior could be extended to other species.

    “In other words, in this work, we have shown how physical models can be used to listen to what a bird is dreaming,” they said.

    The study was published in the journal Chaos.

    Source: AIP Publishing



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  • World’s tallest spokeless Ferris wheel to offer bird’s eye view of Seoul

    World’s tallest spokeless Ferris wheel to offer bird’s eye view of Seoul

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    UNStudio has revealed plans to build the world’s tallest spokeless Ferris wheel in Seoul, South Korea. The unusual structure will take the form of two intersecting rings, with pods revolving around them to offer superb views of the area.

    The Seoul Twin Eye is being created in collaboration with Arup and Heerim Architects. It will be situated on top of a 40-m (131-ft)-high cultural complex and will have a diameter of 180 m (590 ft), bringing its maximum height to 220 m (656 ft).

    It will accommodate 64 pods, each holding up to 25 visitors at once. In total, it will be able to carry more than 1,400 people simultaneously. Its spokeless design means that the pods will move using a track-based system that pulls them around the inside and outside of the rings, rather than the entire wheel itself spinning like a traditional Ferris wheel.

    The Seoul Twin Eye will have a diameter of 180 m (590 ft)
    The Seoul Twin Eye will have a diameter of 180 m (590 ft)

    UNStudio

    “The UNStudio team focused on the concept of unity as a symbol for the design,” explained the firm. “The wheel is inspired by the Honcheonsigye, an astronomical clock that represents the movement of celestial objects through time. The double ring structure of the ‘Seoul Twin Eye’ provides both stability and a unique aesthetic. UNStudio teamed up with Arup, who reviewed the proposed structure’s earthquake and wind resistance, for the recently unveiled vision proposal.”

    The project also involves plans to build a monorail connecting a local subway station to the Ferris wheel, as well as a zip line.

    The Seoul Twin Eye appears to be an evolution of the Seoul Ring project announced by the Seoul Metropolitan Government last year. Construction is due to begin in 2025, with completion expected in 2028.

    Source: UNStudio



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  • Drone-deployed Mini LineFly robot crawls power lines to save birds

    Drone-deployed Mini LineFly robot crawls power lines to save birds

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    It’s a sad fact that birds are often killed when they collide with unseen overhead power lines. A new system is designed to keep that from happening, by using a drone and a robot to make those lines more visible.

    Announced earlier this month, the setup consists of an E2500 HP coaxial-rotor drone and a Mini LineFly robot – both made by FulcrumAir – along with Bird-Flight Diverter devices manufactured by PLP (Preformed Line Products).

    Each of the Diverters takes the form of a coiled length of wire, coated in PVC plastic. Ordinarily, these gadgets are wound and tightened onto power lines by hand, at regularly spaced intervals where they’ll be spotted by birds. It’s a time-consuming job, and is potentially dangerous for the workers who have to be lifted up to the lines in elevating work platforms.

    In the new system, however, the Diverters are applied by the Mini LineFly.

    Although the Mini LineFly robot is attached to the drone via a tether, the two devices are independently operated
    Although the Mini LineFly robot is attached to the drone via a tether, the two devices are independently operated

    FulcrumAir

    The self-powered robot is lowered down onto a section of power line by the drone, and then makes its way along the length of that section, periodically stopping to the apply Diverters (from an onboard supply) as it goes. Propellers on either side of the robot help keep it from swaying with the line in high winds.

    Upon reaching the end of one section, the Mini LineFly is simply lifted back off again by the drone and moved over to the next section. Just two ground-based operators are required, one for the drone and one for the robot.

    One of the Bird-Flight Diverters, installed on a power line
    One of the Bird-Flight Diverters, installed on a power line

    FulcrumAir

    The system has already been utilized to place nearly 15,000 Bird-Flight Diverters along a 75-mile (121-km) transmission line which is part of the High Banks Wind Project in Kansas. “We are extremely pleased with how the Mini LineFly performed during this demanding project,” said FulcrumAir president and CEO, Patrick Arnell.

    You can see a demo of the system, in the video below.

    For other examples of line-crawling robots, check out the power-line-inspecting LineRanger and the fiber-optic-cable-applying Bombyx.

    Drone-deployed Mini LineFly robot places Bird-Flight Diverters on power lines

    Source: FulcrumAir via Interesting Engineering



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  • Premium smart binoculars can identify thousands of birds and animals

    Premium smart binoculars can identify thousands of birds and animals

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    You can paw through books or search online to try an identify the strange bird visiting your garden feeder, or tap into the power of the Merlin Bird ID app. Now sports optics manufacturer Swarovski Optik has cooked Merlin smarts into a pair of high-end binoculars to name birds and other critters at the touch of a button.

    “The AX Visio is not only a flagship project with which we are demonstrating Swarovski Optic’s technological leadership in the sport optics market, but it also marks the beginning of a new technological era for us,” said the Austrian company’s CEO, Stefan Schwarz.

    After five years of R&D, the AX Visio 10×32 binoculars blends “high-precision analog optics” with a neural processing unit powering an object recognition system, as well as a built-in 13-megapixel camera.

    The user moves the dial up top to the bird or wildlife icon, brings the target creature into focus manually using the ring atop the bridge and then selects the target using buttons to the right. The system then consults the Merlin Bird ID or Mammal ID database – to help identify more than 9,000 birds and other wildlife – and the result is displayed onscreen. Other settings on the dial can activate the camera, a compass, or mark objects so that the binoculars can be handed to a friend, who will then be guided via direction arrows to the item of interest.

    The appearance comes courtesy of a collaboration with Marc Newson, and the the binoculars are made up of around 390 hardware components
    The appearance comes courtesy of a collaboration with Marc Newson, and the the binoculars are made up of around 390 hardware components

    Swarovski Optik

    The binoculars work with the company’s Outdoor app over Bluetooth, where images and/or videos can be stored or shared with friends, while also catering for future-proofing through system updates and potentially allowing third-party developers to come up with new digital functions for the system.

    Acclaimed Australian designer Marc Newson is responsible for the overall look, with priority focus on “a modern appearance and intuitive handling for the smart binoculars, combined with an ergonomic design that feels comfortable to hold.”

    Launched at CES this week, the AX Visio smart binoculars will go on sale from February 1 for a whopping US$4,799. The video below has more.

    SWAROVSKI OPTIK AX Visio – 9000 species in a pair of binoculars

    Product page: AX Visio



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