Science and Technology

(Reuters) - Russia said it had lost track of a newly-launched, multi-million-dollar telecommunications satellite on Thursday, the latest in a series of setbacks that have dogged its space industry.

The $265-million Express AM-4 satellite, described by its makers as the most powerful satellite ever built in Europe, launched late on Wednesday aboard a Proton-M rocket from the Russian-leased launchpad in Kazakhstan.

The Russian space agency said the first stages of the launch went smoothly but communication with the satellite was lost due to a failure of the Briz-M upper stage.

Global Economy
What's a bright, ambitious Western company to do?

China is where the customers are - and where the customers are increasingly going to be.

But China, too, is perceived to be the country where technology mysteriously transfers from in-coming companies with know-how to companies which want to know how.

That, at least, is the pervasive view of influential German business leaders.
Artur Fischer, for example, is the head of the Berlin stock-exchange who got his fingers burnt in China.

Today at Robotech 2011, Professor Sawada from Kagawa University in Japan demonstrates its talking robot, a robot capable to mimic and reproduce the natural human speech. Thanks to a clever set of different elements that duplicate human organs with the Lung/Trachea, Vocal Cords, Vocal Tract/Nasal Cavity, Professor Sawada and his team came up with a unique robot offering a natural speech reproduction.
The elements responsible for this achievement includes a regular Airflow, with Pressure and Control Valve, as well as a Resonance Tube (the Pink Fake mouth) with 8 Resonance Control Motors (Vocal Cord), a Nasal Cavity and a silicon tongue.