Wednesday, April 16, 2008

American animator Ollie Johnston, the last of Disney’s so-called “Nine Old Men”, has died at the age of 95.

Johnston died of natural causes on Monday in Sequim, Washington, according to Walt Disney Studios Vice President Howard E. Green.

Johnston worked on many of the Disney’s classic films, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinnochio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Bambi (1942), and many others.

Johnston worked extensively with his best friend Frank Thomas, a fellow “old man” who died in 2004. The pair met at Stanford University in the 1930s and worked together until Thomas’ death. They retired from animation in 1978, but remained popular speakers and authors about Disney and animation.

“Ollie was part of an amazing generation of artists, one of the real pioneers of our art, one of the major participants in the blossoming of animation into the art form we know today,” said Roy E. Disney.

Johnston devoted much of his retirement to writing and lecturing, but perhaps even more to model trains, a field in which he became considered one of the world’s foremost experts.

Ollie Johnston’s last film was The Fox and the Hound (1981) on which he worked as a supervisor.

Monday, August 26, 2013

German non-profit organization Definetz announced on Friday the development of the ‘Defikopter’: a medical drone, launched by smartphone app, designed to be able to fly defibrillators to heart attack victims in remote areas quicker than an ambulance.

The Defikopter is to be launched by an app that sends out the GPS coordinates of the victim. With the ability to fly at 70km per hour in all weather conditions, the eight-armed octocopter could reach any patient within a ten kilometre radius.

The invention has received cautious praise from German medical services; the drone is still in the development and testing stage. Definetz and collaborating drone builder Height Tech have not issued any information about the release of the smartphone app or about when the drone will be available for medical services to purchase.

“We’ll have to see how much these drones can help,” German emergency services union representative Marco König told The Local. German news site Mittelbayerische reports a price tag of €20,000 (US$26,000) apiece.

One major problem Definetz faces is the law that requires all unmanned flying vehicles in Germany to be supervised. Another is that only members of the public who downloaded the app ‘just in case’ of an emergency, plus emergency workers with the app, could summon a drone.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The riots in Greece that started on December 6 have entered their fourth night. These are the worst riots the Hellenic Republic has witnessed in decades.

The riots were triggered when Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old student, was shot and killed by police. The police claim that Grigoropoulos was throwing a bomb at them when they fired.

Cities throughout Greece have been hit by the unrest, not just Athens. Hundreds of shops and businesses have been destroyed.

“No one has the right to use this tragic incident as an excuse for acts of violence,” said Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis, New Democracy party.

“The government cannot handle this crisis and has lost the trust of the Greek people,” George Papandreou of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement said. “The best thing it can do is resign and let the people find a solution … We will protect the public.”

The rioters are organizing on the campus of National Technical University of Athens (Athens Polytechnic). A constitutional clause enacted after the overthrow of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 prevents security forces from entering the campus.

The Guardian is reporting that the University is being used by young men and women to stock up on firebombs and break up marble slabs to throw at police. From behind their makeshift barriers, they vowed the unrest would become “an uprising the likes of which Greece has never seen.”

“We are experiencing moments of a great social revolution,” leftist activist Panagiotis Sotiris told Reuters. Sotiris is among those occupying a university building. “The protests will last as long as necessary,” he added.

“A switch has been flicked and the pressure cooker’s boiled over,” said David Lea, an analyst at {{w|Control Risks Group|Control Risks Group]] in [[London}}, to Bloomberg News. “There are certain places where anarchists are more likely to inspire violence, and that’s Greece.”

Two police officers have been charged in the shooting death of Grigoropoulos, who was buried on Tuesday.

Friday, February 3, 2012

The following is the third in a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2012 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after a brief mention of some of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail, the challengers to President Barack Obama react to the results of the New Hampshire Democratic Party primary, two new political parties choose their first presidential nominees, and an economist who announced his intentions to seek the nomination of Americans Elect answers a few questions for Wikinews.