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And
the Montpellier Ag University is splendid too!
Close to Montpellier: Navacelles See: http://www.ot-cevennes.com/Le-Cirque-de-Navacelles.html Brilliant Irish text message "Mary I'm going to have one more pint with the lads at the pub, I'll be home in 20 minutes. If not, reread this message."
America's largest farmer-led, farmer-focused convention & trade show 2-4 March - SAN ANTONIO (Texas) See: http://commodityclassic.com/home Upcoming Events Supported by New Ag International See: http://www.newaginternational.com/index.php/en/conferences/other-conferences Cheap laptops, expensive cell phones, auto-steer surprise This installment of Tech Five offers a non-ag look at new tools to help you keep up on a range of technology issues. See: http://www.farmindustrynews.com/technology/cheap-laptops-expensive-cell-phones-auto-steering-surprise Smart irrigation panel, no-till drills, silage trailer See; http://www.farmindustrynews.com/equipment/smart-irrigation-panel-no-till-drills-silage-trailer Backups, Consumer Electronics Show and a bigger Amazon Each week Tech Five branches out to cover a wide range of tech tools and innovations across all industries because what happens in the tech world eventually matters to farmers too. See: http://www.farmindustrynews.com/technology/backups-consumer-electronics-show-and-bigger-amazon Smart irrigation panel, no-till drills, silage trailer New Product Monday installment features first looks at a range of new tools. See : http://www.farmindustrynews.com/equipment/smart-irrigation-panel-no-till-drills-silage-trailer
Farming Robots (French Academy of Agriculture Seminar - 25 January 2017 - Sorry for my rather poor translation en English - GW) Seminar organised and animated by René AUTELLET (E-mail: rene.autellet(a)wanadoo.fr) For this seminar, we wished to enlighten existing solutions and their most predictable evolutions. We limited the scope of the presentations proposed to crops, fruits and vegetables. But we intend to propose a dedicated seminar to robots devoted to cattle productions within the next months. At first, we raised the question “What about the first robots developed in the years 80?”. Gilbert Grenier; professor of automatics at Bordeaux Ag University, presented a short history of farming robots, with at first e.g. the ploughing “Robot labour” that was fully operational 30 years ago. Developed by Jean Lucas, research director at Cemagref, and was a living lab that epitomised the concept of “group of robots”: an army of small machines developed to replace big machineries. Six labour robots with a plough 2 corpses should replace an over powerful tractor with a plough 12 corpses. These small and light robots should have the advantage to be less expensive, more secured, more flexible and e.g. to go back at the end of the field and perform a fast U-turn. Thus the idea was to protect the environment and landscape since e.g. small law cost robots made not necessary to enlarge rural roads. Another idea was to enable new small industrial enterprises to enter a new market place where will compete with well-known world companies. Other robots quite famous in France in the eighties were “Magali” to harvest apple trees, “Citrus” to harvest oranges, robot to manipulate heavy loads in the green houses. But to tell the truth, public authorities were more interested in farm robots that the farmers since roots did not really met their actual needs. Technical difficulties were enormous: lack of efficient localisation and positioning tools, inefficient vision and radar tools, law information processing capabilities. A realistic vison of users’ needs was missing too: in particular the balance between works performed by operators and robots must be studied precisely. It is noticeable that Ms Audrey Guillet who was awarded by the French Agricultural Academy with its silver medal for its thesis who dealt driving a group of tractors, is now working with Agco. It is noticeable too to observe the palmares of the next SIMA 2017 (Paris agricultural machinery show): two silver medals were attributed to very powerful autonomous tractors. Within the second part of the seminar, robots produced and marketed by different start-ups were presented: - Naïo Technolgies (20 people, 70 clients, 1M€ in 2017: Moving robots for open air or green house vegetable productions, or vineyards. - Effidence: transport robots to help field (and to follow) operators to avoid painful operations (intelligent autonomous automotive barrow). - Vitirover: small size autonomous robots to cut and control weeds in the vineyards with solar panels to produce its electricity, working in groups, the computer facilities being located in the cloud. - Agco: second World Tractor Manufacturer: To cope with the enlargement of farms, an unavailable manpower, efforts are made to better prepare field works but what about the robots and the real expectations of farmers who wish to remain active? On the other hand the security / results’ quality challenges are not completely met. The manufacturer cannot forget that the tractors have to use public road where they cannot circulate without driver. In the third part of the seminar, Michel BERDUCA, searcher at ’IRSTEA, presented the main research axes, and challenges to address. A classification in three levels of complexity proved to be useful. The most complex and ambitious robots did not meet success and less complex robots seem to be welcomed by the producers. It is important to remember that the robots do start to work in the farm itself before going to the fields, the tractor requiring complementary tools to really work. Eventually, the activities of national RobAgri platform were presented. Frédéric COLLEDANI searcher at CEA, described some interesting evolutions of industrial robotics and possible applications in Agriculture. Collaborative robots (cobots) were presented and the use of exosquelet was considered to help ag workers to perform painful tasks. Jean-François COLOMER, former president of our Academy, drew conclusions in the context of the numerisation / computerisation of Agriculture. Contact: Guy WAKSMAN E-mail: guy.waksman(a)laposte.net
A satire published in The Newyorker… Kremlin names Trump employee of the month, by Andy Borowitz, December 30, 2016 (My personal view is that his Presidency could be “Stations of the Cross” for him at first, since it’s a terrible job, for the rest of the world it could be the same - GW) MOSCOW (The Borowitz Report)—Capping an extraordinary year for the former television host, the Kremlin has named Donald J. Trump its Employee of the Month for December. “No one has worked more tirelessly for the glory of the Fatherland than Donald Trump,” the Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an official statement. “He has set a high bar for all Kremlin employees, and for that, we salute him.” To mark the honor, Trump’s name will be added to a plaque that hangs in the hallway outside the Kremlin’s H.R. office. According to Kremlin sources, Trump faced tough competition in the Employee of the Month voting, besting both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ExxonMobil’s C.E.O., Rex Tillerson. Speaking to reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate, in Florida, Trump called the award “a tremendous honor, just tremendous.” “Obama was President for eight years and he didn’t win this a single month,” he said. “Loser.” Andy Borowitz is a New York Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes the Borowitz Report for newyorker.com. See: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/kremlin-names-trump-employee-of-the-month See also: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/intel-chiefs-say-trumps-twitter-account-was-hacked-by-four-year-old Bush, Obama and Trump go to a job interview with God... God asks Bush: "What do you believe in?" Bush answers: "I believe in the free market, and the strong American nation!" "Very well", says God. "Come sit to my right." Next, God asks Obama: "What do you believe in?" Obama answers: "I believe in the power of democracy, and equal rights for all." "Good", says God. "You shall sit to my left." Finally, God asks Trump: "What do you believe in?" Trump answers: "I believe you're sitting in my chair."
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