WASHINGTON D.C

HISTORY

Prior to the arrival of explorers from Europe, this region of the Pacific Coast had many established tribes of Native Americans, each with its own unique culture. Today, they are most notable for their totem poles and their ornately carved canoes and masks. Prominent among their industries were salmon fishing and, among the Makah, whale hunting. The peoples of the Interior had a very different subsistence-based culture based on hunting, food-gathering and some forms of agriculture, as well as a dependency on salmon from the Columbia and its tributaries. The smallpox epidemic of the 1770s devastated the Amerindian population.[11]
The first European record of a landing on the Washington coast was by Spanish Captain Don Bruno de Heceta in 1775, on board the Santiago, part of a two-ship flotilla with the Sonora. They claimed all the coastal lands up to Prince William Sound in the north for Spain as part of their claimed rights under the Treaty of Tordesillas, which they maintained made the Pacific a "Spanish lake" and all its shores part of the Spanish Empire.
In 1778, British explorer Captain James Cook sighted Cape Flattery, at the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but the straits would not be explored until 1789, by Captain Charles W. Barkley. Further explorations of the straits were performed by Spanish explorers Manuel Quimper in 1790 and Francisco de Eliza in 1791, then by British Captain George Vancouver in 1792.
The British-Spanish Nootka Convention of 1790 ended Spanish claims of exclusivity and opened the Northwest Coast to explorers and traders from other nations, most notably Britain and Russia as well as the fledgling United States. American captain Robert Gray (for whom Grays Harbor County is named) then discovered the mouth of the Columbia River. He named the river after his ship, the Columbia. Beginning in 1792, Gray established trade in sea otter pelts. The Lewis and Clark Expedition entered the state on October 10, 1805.
Explorer David Thompson, on his voyage down the Columbia River camped at the junction with the Snake River on July 9, 1811 and erected a pole and a notice claiming the country for Great Britain and stating the intention of the North West Company to build a trading post at the site.
The UK and the USA agreed to what has since been described as "joint occupancy" of lands west of the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean as part of the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, which established the 49th Parallel as the international boundary west from Lake of the Woods to the Rocky mountains. Resolution of the territorial and treaty issues, west to the Pacific, were deferred until a later time. Spain, in 1819, ceded their rights north of the 42nd Parallel to the United States, although these rights did not include possession.
Negotiations with Great Britain over the next few decades failed to settle upon a compromise boundary and the Oregon boundary dispute became important in geopolitical diplomacy between the British Empire and the new American Republic. Disputed joint-occupancy by Britain and the U.S.A., lasted for several decades. With American settlers pouring into the Oregon Country; the Hudson's Bay Company, which had previously discouraged settlement because it conflicted with the fur trade, reversed its position in an attempt to maintain control of the Columbia District for Great Britain. Fur trapper James Sinclair, on orders from Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, guided some 200 settlers from the Red River Colony west in 1841 to settle on Hudson Bay Company farms near Fort Vancouver. The party crossed the Rockies into the Columbia Valley, near present-day Radium Hot Springs, British Columbia, then traveled south-west down the Kootenai River and Columbia River. Despite such efforts, Britain eventually ceded all claim to land south of the 49th parallel to the United States in the Oregon Treaty on June 15, 1846.
In 1836, a group of missionaries including Marcus Whitman established several missions and Whitman’s own settlement Waiilatpu, in what is now southeastern Washington state, near present day Walla Walla County, in territory of both the Cayuse and the Nez Perce Indian tribes. Whitman’s settlement would in 1843 help the Oregon Trail, the overland emigration route to the west, get established for thousands of emigrants in following decades. Marcus provided medical care for the Native Americans, but when Indian patients – lacking immunity to new, ‘European’ diseases – died in striking numbers, while at the same time many white patients recovered, they held ‘medicine man’ Marcus Whitman personally responsible, and murdered Whitman and twelve other white settlers in the Whitman massacre in 1847. This event triggered the Cayuse War between settlers and Indians.
The first settlement in the Puget Sound area in the west of what is now Washington, was that of Fort Nisqually, a farm and trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1833. Washington's erstwhile founder, the black pioneer George Washington Bush and his caucasian wife, Isabella James Bush, from Missouri and Tennessee, respectively. They led four white families into the territory and settled New Market, now known as Tumwater, Washington, in 1846. They settled in Washington to avoid Oregon's racist settlement laws.[12] After them, many more settlers, migrating overland along the Oregon trail, wandered north to settle in the Puget Sound area.
In 1852, people from all over what was to become Washington state gathered in Monticello (now Longview) to draft a memorial to Congress. The memorial expressed their desire to be granted statehood under the name of Columbia. This meeting came to be known as the Monticello Convention. The desires of the Convention were met favorably in Congress, but it was decided that a state named Columbia might be confused with the preexisting District of Columbia. The state was instead named Washington in honor of the first U.S. president.[13] Washington became the 42nd state in the United States on November 11, 1889.
Early prominent industries in the state included agriculture and lumber. In eastern Washington, the Yakima River Valley became known for its apple orchards, while the growth of wheat using dry-farming techniques became particularly productive. The heavy rainfall to the west of the Cascade Range produced dense forests, and the ports along Puget Sound prospered from the manufacturing and shipping of lumber products, particularly the Douglas-fir. Other industries that developed in the state include fishing, salmon canning and mining.
For a long period, Tacoma was noted for its large smelters where gold, silver, copper and lead ores were treated. Seattle was the primary port for trade with Alaska and the rest of the country, and for a time it possessed a large shipbuilding industry. The region around eastern Puget Sound developed heavy industry during the period including World War I and World War II, and the Boeing company became an established icon in the area.
During the Great Depression, a series of hydroelectric dams were constructed along the Columbia river as part of a project to increase the production of electricity. This culminated in 1941 with the completion of the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest concrete structure in the United States.
During World War II, the state became a focus for war industries, with the Boeing Company producing many of the nation's heavy bombers and ports in Seattle, Bremerton, Vancouver, and Tacoma were available for the manufacture of warships. Seattle was the point of departure for many soldiers in the Pacific, a number of which were quartered at Golden Gardens Park. In eastern Washington, the Hanford Works atomic energy plant was opened in 1943 and played a major role in the construction of the nation's atomic bombs.
On May 18, 1980, following a period of heavy tremors and eruptions, the northeast face of Mount St. Helens exploded outward, destroying a large part of the top of the volcano. This eruption flattened the forests, killed 57 people, flooded the Columbia River and its tributaries with ash and mud, and blanketed large parts of Washington and other surrounding states in ash, making day look like night.

OTHER

Washington, D.C. (pronounced /ˈwɒʃɪŋtən ˌdiːˈsiː/), formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the Territory of Columbia until an act of Congress in 1871 effectively merged the City and the Territory into a single entity called the District of Columbia. It is for this reason that the city, while legally named the District of Columbia, is known as Washington, D.C. The city is located on the north bank of the Potomac River and is bordered by the states of Virginia to the southwest and Maryland to the other sides. The District has a resident population of 591,833; because of commuters from the surrounding suburbs, its population rises to over one million during the workweek. The Washington Metropolitan Area, of which the District is a part, has a population of 5.3 million, the ninth-largest metropolitan area in the country.
Article One of the United States Constitution provides for a federal district, distinct from the states, to serve as the permanent national capital. The centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are located in the District, as are many of the nation's monuments and museums. Washington, D.C. hosts 174 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The headquarters of other institutions such as trade unions, lobbying groups, and professional associations are also located in the District.
The United States Congress has supreme authority over Washington, D.C.; residents of the city therefore have less self-governance than residents of the states. The District has a non-voting at-large Congressional delegate, but no senators. D.C. residents could not vote in presidential elections until the ratification of the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1961.

COLORADO

HISTORY

The ruins of the Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde as photographed by Gustaf Nordenskiöld in 1891.
The region that is today the State of Colorado has been inhabited by Native Americans for more than 13 millennia. The Lindenmeier Site in Larimer County contains artifacts dating from approximately 11200 BCE to 3000 BCE. The Ancient Pueblo Peoples lived in the valleys and mesas of the Colorado Plateau. The Ute Nation inhabited the mountain valleys of the Southern Rocky Mountains and the Western Rocky Mountains. The Arapaho Nation and the Cheyenne Nation moved west to hunt across the High Plains.
The United States acquired a territorial claim to the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains with the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803. The U.S. claim conflicted with Spain's claim that a huge region surrounding its colony of Santa Fé de Nuevo Méjico was its sovereign trading zone. Zebulon Pike led a U.S. Army reconnaissance expedition into the disputed region in 1806. Pike and his men were arrested by Spanish cavalry in the San Luis Valley the following February, taken to Chihuahua, and expelled from México the following July.

Bent's Old Fort along the Arkansas River operated from 1833 to 1849.
The United States relinquished its claim to all land south and west of the Arkansas River as part of the U.S. purchase of Florida from Spain with the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819. México finally won its independence from Spain in 1821, but it surrendered its northern territories to the United States after the Mexican-American War with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. In 1849, the Mormons of Deseret (now Utah) organized the extralegal Provisional State of Deseret which claimed all land drained by the Green River and the Colorado River. The federal government refused to recognize the new government, and the Mormons declined to settle east of the Green River for more than 20 years. The United States divided the area of the future Colorado among the Territory of New Mexico and the Territory of Utah organized in 1850, and the Territory of Kansas and the Territory of Nebraska organized in 1854.
Most American settlers traveling west to Oregon, Deseret, or California avoided the rugged Rocky Mountains and instead followed the North Platte River and Sweetwater River through what is now Wyoming. On April 9, 1851, Hispanic settlers from Taos, New Mexico, settled the village of San Luis, then in the New Mexico Territory, but now Colorado's first permanent European settlement. Gold was discovered along the South Platte River in western Kansas Territory in July 1858, precipitating the Pike's Peak Gold Rush.[20] The placer gold deposits along the rivers and streams of the region rapidly played out, but miners soon discovered far more valuable seams of hard rock gold, silver, and other minerals in the nearby mountains.

A lithograph of the Denver City mining camp in 1859.
The Provisional Government of the Territory of Jefferson was organized on August 24, 1859, but the new territory failed to secure federal sanction. The election of Abraham Lincoln for U.S. President on November 6, 1860, led to the secession of six slave states and the threat of civil war. Seeking to augment the political power of the free states, the Republican led U.S. Congress hurriedly admitted the eastern portion of the Territory of Kansas to the Union as the free State of Kansas on January 29, 1861, leaving the western portion of the territory, and its gold fields, unorganized.

The Georgetown Loop of the Colorado Central Railroad as photographed by William H. Jackson in 1899.
Thirty days later on February 28, 1861, outgoing U.S. President James Buchanan signed an act of Congress organizing the free Territory of Colorado.[21] The original boundaries of Colorado remain unchanged today. The name Colorado was chosen because it was commonly believed that the Colorado River originated in the territory.[22] Early Spanish explorers named the river the Rio Colorado for the reddish-brown silt the river carried from the mountains.[23] In fact, the Colorado River did not flow through the State of Colorado until House Joint Resolution 460 of the 66th United States Congress changed the name of the Grand River to the Colorado River on July 25, 1921.[24]

Colorado state history plaque
The United States Congress passed an enabling act on March 3, 1875, specifying the requirements for the Territory of Colorado to become a state.[8] On August 1, 1876 (28 days after the Centennial of the United States), U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed a proclamation admitting the State of Colorado to the Union as the 38th state and earning it the moniker "Centennial State".[25] The discovery of a major silver lode near Leadville in 1878, triggered the Colorado Silver Boom. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 envigorated silver mining, but the repeal of the act in 1893 led to a major collapse of the mining and agricultural economy of the state.
Colorado women were granted the right to vote beginning on November 7, 1893, making Colorado the first U.S. state to grant universal suffrage by popular vote. By the 1930 U.S. Census, the population of Colorado exceeded one million residents. The state suffered through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, but a major wave of immigration following World War II boosted Colorado's fortune. Tourism became a mainstay of the state economy, and high technology became an important economic engine. Colorado's population exceeded 4.3 million at U.S. Census 2000.
Three warships of the United States Navy have been named USS Colorado. The first USS Colorado was named for the Colorado River. The later two ships were named in honor of the landlocked state.

OTHER

Colorado is a U.S. state located in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States of America. It may also be considered to be part of the Western and Southwestern regions of the United States. Colorado entered statehood in 1876 and was nicknamed the “Centennial State”. It is bordered to the north by Wyoming, to the south by New Mexico and Oklahoma, at the southwest corner by Arizona, to the east by Nebraska and Kansas and to the west by Utah.
The state is well known for its magnificent scenery of mountains, rivers and plains. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the state population was 4,939,456 in 2008, a 14% increase since the U.S. Census 2000.[7] Denver is the capital of Colorado and the state's most populous city. Residents of Colorado are properly known as "Coloradans", although the archaic term "Coloradoan" is still used.[1][2]

Los Angeles

HISTORY

The old city plaza, 1869
The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva (or Gabrieleños) and Chumash Native American tribes thousands of years ago. The first Europeans arrived in 1542 in an expedition organized by the viceroy of New Spain and commanded by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese-born explorer who claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire. However, he continued with his voyage up the coast and did not establish a settlement.The next contact would not come until 227 years later, when Gaspar de Portolà, along with Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. Crespí noted that the site had the potential to be developed into a large settlement.
In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra built the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel near Whittier Narrows, in what is now called San Gabriel Valley. In 1777, the new governor of California, Felipe de Neve, recommended to Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa, viceroy of New Spain, that the site noted by Juan Crespí be developed into a pueblo. The town was officially founded on September 4, 1781, by a group of forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores". Tradition has it that on this day they were escorted by four Spanish colonial soldiers, two priests from the Mission and Governor de Neve. The town was named El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels on the Porciúncula River). These pueblo settlers came from the common Hispanic culture that had emerged in northern Mexico among a racially mixed society. Two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto, and therefore, had African and Indian ancestry. More importantly, they were intermarrying. The settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820 the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles.
New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, and the pueblo continued as a part of Mexico. During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico, made Los Angeles Alta California's regional capital. Mexican rule ended during the Mexican–American War: Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847.


Los Angeles City Hall, shown here in 1931, was built in 1928 and was the tallest structure in the city until 1964, when height restrictions were removed.
Railroads arrived when the Southern Pacific completed its line to Los Angeles in 1876. Oil was discovered in 1892, and by 1923 Los Angeles was producing one-quarter of the world's petroleum.
By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000 people, putting pressure on the city's water supply. 1913's completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, under the supervision of William Mulholland, assured the continued growth of the city.
In the 1920s, the motion picture and aviation industries flocked to Los Angeles. In 1932, with population surpassing one million,]the city hosted the Summer Olympics.
The post-war years saw an even greater boom, as urban sprawl expanded the city into the San Fernando Valley.In 1969, Los Angeles became one of the birthplaces of the Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from UCLA to SRI in Menlo Park.
In 1984, the city hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time. Despite being boycotted by 14 Communist countries, the 1984 Olympics became the most financially successful in history, and only the second Olympics to turn a profit – the other being the 1932 Summer Olympics, also held in Los Angeles.


Downtown Los Angeles saw heavy development from the 1980s to 1990s, including the construction of some of the city's tallest skyscrapers.
During the remaining decades of the 20th century, the city was plagued by increasing gang warfare, drug trades, and police corruption. Racial tensions erupted again in 1992 with the Rodney King controversy and the large-scale riots that followed the acquittal of his police attackers. In 1994, the 6.7 Northridge earthquake shook the city, causing $12.5 billion in damage and 72 deaths.
Voters defeated efforts by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood to secede from the city in 2002.
Gentrification and urban redevelopment have occurred in many parts of the city, most notably Hollywood, Koreatown, Silver Lake, Echo Park and Downtown.

CULTURE

The people of Los Angeles are known as Angelenos. Nighttime hot spots include places such as Downtown Los Angeles, Silver Lake, Hollywood, and West Hollywood, which is the home of the world-famous Sunset Strip.
Some well-known shopping areas are the Hollywood and Highland complex, the Beverly Center, Melrose Avenue, Robertson Boulevard, Rodeo Drive, Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, The Grove, Westside Pavilion, Westfield Century City, The Promenade at Howard Hughes Center and Venice Boardwalk.
The greater Los Angeles area is the most important site in the United States for movie and television production. This has drawn not only actors, but also writers, composers, artists, and other creative individuals to the area.

OTHER

Los Angeles (pronounced /lɒs ˈændʒələs/ los-AN-jə-ləs; Spanish: [los ˈaŋxeles], Spanish for "the angels") is the largest city in the state of California and the second largest in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over 498.3 square miles (1,290.6 km2) in Southern California. Additionally, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area is home to nearly 12.9 million residents. Los Angeles is the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated and one of the most diverse counties in the United States. Its inhabitants are known as "Angelenos" (/ændʒɨˈliːnoʊz/). In 2008, Los Angeles was named the world's eighth most economically powerful city by Forbes.com, ahead of Shanghai and Toronto but behind Chicago and Paris.
Los Angeles was founded September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula (The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of the river of Porziuncola). It became a part of Mexico in 1821, following its independence from Spain. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican-American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States; Mexico retained the territory of Baja California. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood.
Los Angeles is one of the world's centers of business, international trade, entertainment, culture, media, fashion, science, technology, and education. It is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. As the home base of Hollywood, it is known as the "Entertainment Capital of the World", leading the world in the creation of motion pictures, television production and recorded music. The importance of the entertainment business to the city has led many celebrities to call Los Angeles and its surrounding suburbs home.

Las Vegas

HISTORY

The first reported visit to the valley by someone of European descent was Raphael Rivera in 1829. Las Vegas was named by Spaniards in the Antonio Armijo party,who used the water in the area while heading north and west along the Old Spanish Trail from Texas. In the 1800s, areas of the Las Vegas Valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas or meadows (vegas in Spanish), hence the name Las Vegas.
John C. Frémont traveled into the Las Vegas Valley on May 3, 1844, while it was still part of Mexico. He was a leader of a group of scientists, scouts and observers for the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On May 10, 1855, following annexation by the United States, Brigham Young assigned 30 missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints led by William Bringhurst to the area to convert the Paiute Indian population to Mormonism. A fort was built near the current downtown area, serving as a stopover for travelers along the "Mormon Corridor" between Salt Lake and the briefly thriving colony of saints at San Bernardino, California. However, Mormons abandoned Las Vegas in 1857. Las Vegas was established as a railroad town on May 15, 1905, when 110 acres (44.5 ha) owned by Montana Senator William A. Clark's San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, was auctioned off in what is now downtown Las Vegas. Las Vegas was part of Lincoln County until 1909 when it became part of the newly established Clark County. The St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church near 4th and Bridger in downtown was founded in 1910. Las Vegas became an incorporated city on March 16, 1911.
Las Vegas started as a stopover on the pioneer trails to the west, and became a popular railroad town in the early 1900s. It was a staging point for all the mines in the surrounding area, especially those around the town of Bullfrog, that shipped their goods out to the rest of the country. With the proliferation of the railroads, Las Vegas became less important but the completion of the nearby Hoover Dam in 1935 resulted in the growth of residents and tourism. The dam, located 30 mi (48 km) southeast of the city, also formed Lake Mead, the world's largest man-made lake and reservoir. Today, tours are offered into lesser known parts of the dam. The legalization of gambling in 1931 led to the advent of the casino-hotels, for which Las Vegas is famous. Major development occurred in the 1940s. The success of the city's early casino businesses was owed to American organized crime. Most of the original large casinos were managed or at least funded under mob figures Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Meyer Lansky or other mob figures at this time. The rapid growth of this gambling empire is credited with dooming Galveston, Texas; Hot Springs, Arkansas; and other major gaming centers in the 1950s
With the arrival of billionaire Howard Hughes in the late 1960s, who purchased many casino-hotels and television stations in the city, legitimate corporations began to purchase casino-hotels as well, and the mob was run out by the federal government over the next several years. The constant stream of tourist dollars from the hotels and casinos was also augmented by a new source of federal money. This money came from the establishment of what is now Nellis Air Force Base. The influx of military personnel and casino job-hunters helped start a land building boom which still goes on today.
Though Las Vegas's gambling revenues have been surpassed by Macau, the city remains one of the world's top entertainment destinations.

CULTURE

On the first Friday of each month, the "First Friday" celebration is held which exhibits the works of local artists and musicians in a section of the city's Downtown region now called the "Arts District".
The Southern Nevada Zoological-Botanical Park, also known as the Las Vegas Zoo, exhibits over 150 species of animals and plants.
The $485 million Smith Center for the Performing Arts (currently under construction) will be located downtown in Symphony Park. The center will be appropriate for Broadway shows and other major touring attractions as well as orchestra, opera, and dance performances.
The city also hosts annual events like the Helldorado Days (Las Vegas).

TOURISM

The major attractions in Las Vegas are the casinos. The most famous hotel casinos are located on Las Vegas Boulevard, better known as the Las Vegas Strip. Many of these hotels are massive, carrying thousands of rooms, with their large adjoining casino areas. There are many hotel casinos in the city's downtown area as well, which was the original focal point of the city's gaming industry in its early days. Several large hotels and casinos are also located somewhat off the Strip but adjacent to it, as well as in the county around the city. As of 2009, total number of hotel rooms in Las Vegas was over 140,000.
Some of the most notable casinos involved in downtown gaming are on the Fremont Street Experience which was granted variances to allow bars to be closer together, similar to the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego.

El Robot ASIMO mejorado

La compañía japonesa Honda ha mejorado las funcionalidades de su androide ASIMO, considerado el robot humanoide más avanzado del mundo, dotándolo de mayor autonomía y movilidad, hasta el punto de que ya es capaz de correr, reconocer a personas de su entorno, subir escaleras y hasta encajar la mano.
Honda ha presentado en Barcelona, en medio de una gran expectación y una nutrida presencia de periodistas europeos, la nueva versión de ASIMO, que ha tenido ocasión de demostrar sus habilidades entre los aplausos y la admiración de más de un centenar de asistentes.
ASIMO es un androide con aspecto de astronauta de 1,30 metros de altura y 54 kilos de peso. Diseñado para “mejorar la vida de los ciudadanos”, tanto su apariencia como sus movimientos, más variados, naturales y ligeros, se parecen cada vez más a los de una persona real.
Los ingenieros de Honda, que trabajan desde 1986 en el diseño y fabricación de este fascinante robot, han logrado que el nuevo ASIMO, además de caminar a paso “normal”, sea capaz de correr a seis kilómetros por hora y de identificar los objetos que se encuentra a su paso, salvando los obstáculos y escogiendo el camino adecuado.
“ASIMO tiene un sistema de caminar inteligente que le permite modificar la velocidad y la longitud de sus pasos. Se desplaza de manera muy fluida, casi como un hombre. Además, puede caminar mientras gira, cosa que hasta ahora sólo podía hacer cuando estaba parado”, ha explicado el ingeniero jefe de Honda, Shinishi Matsunaga.
El nuevo androide, que tiene una autonomía de una hora, dispone de más articulaciones en las manos, las rodillas y la cintura, lo que le permite tener una mejor capacidad de giro, de inclinación y de ejercer presión sobre un objeto.
Gracias a ello, ASIMO es capaz de bailar, de estrechar la mano de su interlocutor, de subir y bajar escaleras, de chutar balones y hasta de transportar objetos, como bandejas, y dejarlos sobre una determinada superficie, entre otras muchas funciones.
Así lo ha demostrado en el Parque de Investigación Biomédica de Barcelona (PRBB), que ha acogido, por primera vez en Europa, la presentación oficial de este robot con apariencia humana, que, con un claro gesto de manos, ha llegado a pedir aplausos tras realizar correctamente algunas de las órdenes recibidas.
El responsable de Comunicación de Honda España, David Judes, ha explicado a Efe que ASIMO está diseñado para facilitar el día a día de las personas, pero también para “despertar” el interés de los más jóvenes por la ciencia y la tecnología.
“ASIMO se utiliza como aparador educativo, para fomentar el interés de los más pequeños por la ciencia, que en definitiva son los ingenieros y científicos del futuro”, ha señalado Judes.
El alcalde de Barcelona, Jordi Hereu, ha dicho en inglés que es un “honor” y un “reconocimiento internacional” que Honda haya decidido presentar su robot en la ciudad, a la vez que ha remarcado que proyectos como este “fomentan el interés por la ciencia y la robótica entre las generaciones más jóvenes”.
ASIMO ha sido presentado en Barcelona coincidiendo con la celebración de las II Jornadas de Robótica, que han atraído hasta la capital catalana a los androides más curiosos, novedosos y originales existentes en el mercado en la actualidad.

La Nasa lanzó la sonda Dawn

La Nasa lanzó con éxito la sonda Dawn que viajará hasta Vesta y Ceres, dos de los mayores asteroides en órbita alrededor del Sol, que se localizan entre Marte Y Júpiter.
La misión de la nave es encontrar elementos que permitan entender los primeros momentos del nacimiento del Sistema Solar, hace cuatro mil 600 millones de años. Los expertos prevén que la sonda orbite en torno a Vesta en 2011 y tres años después, en el 2015, llegue a Ceres.

Ferrari y Nokia se unen para vender celular de lujo

El gigante finlandés de la telefonía celular ha comenzado a vender en sus tiendas de Londres, Paris, Hong Kong y Singapur un teléfono diseñado conjuntamente con la firma italiana Ferrari con un precio de 25,400 dólares (unos 277,228 pesos mexicanos)”Trabajamos muy cercanamente para desarrollar esta edición limitada de 60 teléfonos. Los detalles del aparatos están inspirados en las características de una cantidad de autos Ferrari,” dijo la portavoz de la unidad de celulares de lujo Vertu, Elizabeth Maragh, en declaraciones recogidas por la agencias especializadas.
Los diseñadores famosos están siendo cada vez más solicitados por las empresas. A comienzos de esta semana, el diseñador italiano Giorgio Armani se unió a Samsung Electronics para diseñar un televisor y un teléfono móvil.
De igual forma, los diseñadores Dolce & Gabbana se han unido con la estadounidense Motorola para una versión de lujo del modelo de teléfono móvil RAZR y Prada ha desarrollado un teléfono con la surcoreana LG Electronics.
Además de presentar su teléfono con diseño Ferrari, en días previos Nokia anunció un acuerdo con la proveedora de tecnología estadounidense Cisco Systemspara desarrollar una solución de telecomunicaciones fijo-móvil que permitirá utilizar los teléfonos móviles de la serie E de Nokia, como terminales fijas cuando se encuentren en el entorno Wi-Fi de la empresa.