KRAFTON India has established KIGI Academy in collaboration with IIT Madras to help India’s next generation of game developers. The academy involves not just theoretical learning but industry-related experience in fields such as coding, game design, user interface/user experience (UI/UX), artistry, and product development. This will enable KRAFTON India to help students acquire relevant skills and contribute to the development of India’s gaming ecosystem.

KIGI Academy Programme Details

The KIGI Academy is a six-month, fully sponsored program available to students at IIT Madras. The first batch of KIGI Academy will comprise 30 students and will provide them with practical training on game development. The program will run in two stages. During the first 16 weeks, students will train at the IIT Madras campus using the Unity engine. They will focus on developing skills for mobile game development. After this, 10 selected students will complete an eight-week residency at KRAFTON India’s Bengaluru headquarters.

Applications can be submitted via the IIT Madras placement website. Selection criteria include evaluation of the application form and personal interviews. Applications are eligible for third-year and fourth-year Bachelor’s and Dual Degree students of all years, and postgraduate/Master’s engineering students, irrespective of their engineering discipline. There are no prerequisites for game development.

Hands-On Training and KRAFTON’s Game Development Approach

Selected candidates will gain firsthand experience of real-world game production during the Bengaluru residency. Participants will also develop and showcase the final vertical slice of their game during the program. Industry experts will mentor the candidates and familiarise them with KRAFTON’s global development standards. Top-performing participants may also get an opportunity to join KRAFTON India.

KIGI Academy builds on KRAFTON Jungle, the company’s game development training program in Korea. KRAFTON’s Jungle was introduced in October 2022 as a project-based residency training system rather than classroom training. This training program equips developers throughout the game development process, from prototypes to public release. KRAFTON intends to expand the Jungle program to train 1,000 developers in Korea each year. Jungle program operators will also mentor KIGI participants.

KIGI Academy brings this hands-on approach to India’s mobile-first and fast-growing gaming market. IIT Madras became the founding partner because of its academic standing and long-standing relationship with KRAFTON India. IIT Madras has ranked as India’s No. 1 engineering institution for 10 consecutive years in the NIRF rankings. KRAFTON has also worked with the institute through Rendezvous, technical festivals, and game jams. These engagements have previously resulted in full-time offers for IIT Madras students.

Upgrading your home office can feel like going down a rabbit hole. A simple search for a basic new desk can quickly turn into hours down the drain and endless tabs open on your computer, with every option starting to blur together. Uplift has a loyal following for its super customizable desks, smart (and creative—under-desk hammock, anyone?) accessories, and a solid build quality that makes long workdays more manageable.

We’ve explored the perks of a standing desk, and the takeaway is pretty clear: even if it won’t magically fix everything, the right standing desk setup can make all the difference in the way you work. If you’re ready to make the leap into the standing desk space, starting with an Uplift coupon code is a smart move.

$300 Off Labor Day Sale

School is back in session and that means it’s time to upgrade your home office for less. With the Uplift desk Labor Day sale, you can save up to $575 on a standing desk, with many items from $100, $50, $20, and $10 off. To get the most from these deals, choose any Uplift V3 standing desk model, then choose five free accessories valued at $275, then you can save up to $300 with Uplift promo code UNPLUG at checkout. This Uplift coupon code saves you $300 on purchases of $2,999 or more, $200 on $1,999 or more, $150 on $1,4999 or more, and $100 off when you purchase over $999. Plus, show off your school spirit with $100 off all collegiate products.

Get $20 Off When You Sign up for Uplift Emails

Like many other brands, Uplift rewards their loyal customers. When you sign up for Uplift emails, which include things like product drops and restock alerts, you can save $20 on your order over $199. Not only will you get exclusive discounts, you’ll get email-only deals, early sale access, and special promotions with this Uplift newsletter sign up. Plus, the $20 off your next purchase.

Score Free Shipping on all Orders This Month

Who can say no to free shipping, especially when it’s for a major furniture item like a standing desk? Right now, Uplift is offering free and fast shipping on all orders, no Uplift desk coupon code required. And timing can work in your favor: most orders placed before 3 pm CST ship the same business day, so you’re not stuck refreshing the tracking page for a week. Whether you’re in the middle of an office refresh (or just impatient when it comes to deliveries), this is a major perk.

Claim up to 5 Free Accessories With Your Standing Desk Purchase

A built-in bonus when you buy an Uplift standing desk is that you get up to five free accessories baked into the purchase. You can choose from a huge catalog of over 400 add-ons to go with the desk (honestly, I was overwhelmed at first). Options range from practical to fun, like cable management kits and desk organizer sets to a desk-mounted cup holder and an under-desk hammock. There are even some branded extras, like a stainless steel tumbler and a t-shirt, depending on your vibe.

Photograph: Nicole Kinning

Use Your FSA Dollars to Get the Most out of Your Desk

Uplift desks may be eligible for reimbursement through your HSA or FSA, which means you could effectively pay for part of your desk setup with pre-tax dollars. This can lead to major savings, especially when stacked with an Uplift promo code.

The process is pretty straightforward: Check out normally (no need to use your HSA/FSA card upfront), then complete a quick health survey through Uplift’s partner program, which will be on your confirmation screen or through your email receipt. If you qualify, a licensed provider will issue a Letter of Medical Necessity, which you can then submit for reimbursement. It’s a few extra steps, but the payoff is worth it, especially if you’ve been eyeing a bigger purchase.

Share the Joy With an Uplift Gift Card

Not sure what to get the new grad headed to college, or your loved one who works from home? An Uplift desk gift card is a great way to help with these big purchases without having to make the weighty decision on behalf of someone else. Uplift gift cards are good for five years from purchase date, and are available in increments of $50 to $5,000.

Unlock Uplift for Your Business

Uplift standing desks aren’t just for individuals, they are also a great way to get the whole office healthier this year. Uplift Desk offers a wide variety of office furniture that’s great for commercial offices, along with free 3D space planning so you can fully transform your team office. This means you’ll get that previously mentioned expert consultation and space planning to define your needs and get the assistance you need for your business. You’ll also receive fast shipping with same-day shipping on qualifying orders, along with 1 to 4 business day transit across the USA. Plus, you can opt for white glove delivery with on-site installation.

Following pressure from President Donald Trump and a change to the GNIS, Apple Maps has been updated, renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America.

Apple Maps was drawn into the middle of a trade disagreement between the United States and Canada, by President Trump changing the name of one of the Great Lakes. After being contacted by Trump and nudged to do so, Apple has now updated Maps to update the name of Lake Ontario.

Users searching for Lake Ontario will now be greeted by a sight of “Lake America.” There was a short in-between where searches for “Lake America” would show Lake Ontario on the map but Lake America in the search results.

The name update arrives after a formal change in the U.S. Geographic Names Information System. That has already triggered an update in Google Maps.

While Apple has been slower to make the change, it did get some encouragement from the White House. On August 31, U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Trump spoke to Apple about the name change.

Apple Maps and Google Maps aren’t the only label-based battlegrounds over Lake Ontario. Doug Ford, Ontario’s Premier, revealed a Lake Ontario sign near Grimsby, Ontario.

Victory from some viewpoints

The change won’t necessarily apply to all Apple Maps users, as the previous high-profile renaming of the Gulf of Mexico proves.

The January 2025 renaming, again under the direction of President Trump, the Gulf of Mexico became the Gulf of America. At that time, Apple was also reluctant to make the change, but eventually did.

However, what is visible to users varies depending on where they are in the world. In Mexico, it retained its original name, while other countries saw Gulf of Mexico with Gulf of America in parentheses.

It is still the early stages of the Lake America rollout in Apple’s system, but it will probably make changes in a similar way to the Gulf of America updates.

Standard drones start sliding on ice after a slope of only nine degrees. Gravity presses less of the aircraft into the surface as the angle rises, so a 60-degree wall leaves just half the usual downward force. Ice Dart, a 2.65-kilogram carbon-fiber quadrotor from Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec, now perches on ice that steep and stays put.

Isaac Tunney, John Bass, and Alexis Lussier Desbiens worked on the design at Createk Engineering Lab, where they created something truly remarkable: a drone capable of landing and perching on ice with steep inclines. They submitted their work in IEEE Transactions on Field Robotics, describing it as the world’s first drone capable of such tasks. Their aircraft is quite smart, with four legs arranged in an X form that attach via pivot joints. These joints are unique because they allow each leg to follow the precise angle of the ice as it comes into contact with the drone.

Sale

DJI Neo, Mini Drone with 4K UHD Camera for Adults, 135g Self Flying Drone that Follows You, Palm Takeoff…

• Due to platform compatibility issue, the DJI Fly app has been removed from Google Play. DJI Neo must be activated in the DJI Fly App, to ensure a…
• Lightweight and Regulation Friendly – At just 135g, this drone with camera for adults 4K may be even lighter than your phone and does not require FAA…
• Palm Takeoff & Landing, Go Controller-Free [1] – Neo takes off from your hand with just a push of a button. The safe and easy operation of this drone…

Each of those four legs has two spines that come out when the drone touches down: one large spine that handles the downhill weight and digs in to keep the drone from slipping into a crevasse, and a smaller spine on the uphill side that grips even when there isn’t much weight on it. These spines return back into their housings until the landing gear compresses, at which moment they emerge to grab a grip on the ice, much like a cat about to pounce. The goal was to create a system that would work regardless of the direction the drone landed or how uneven the ice appeared.

The legs also contain 38 friction disks, which absorb the impact as the drone lands, preventing the remainder of the airframe from bouncing about. Bouncing would allow the spines to pull free, which would be unacceptable. On impact, the motors discharge a short burst of reverse force, sending the drone sharply into the ice, which helps the spines dig in even harder. To be safe, the drone has an EVA foam casing around it that allows it to float if it ever gets into water.

The Createk team conducted lab drop tests at speeds of 1-3 meters per second on 60-degree ice slopes, and in the field, flew the drone in Iceland’s Fjallsjökull glacier and lagoon, making clean landings on slopes of up to 58 degrees, as well as landing off-center and into 30 km/h winds. It landed cleanly 24 times, with a 100% success record in temperatures ranging from 0 to 10°C.

You’re probably aware that a hovering drone quickly runs through its battery, but once Ice Dart is perched, it can basically turn off all of its systems and sit there silently for hours or even days, which is extremely useful for iceberg tracking, maritime safety, as well as Arctic research. Because drifting icebergs are a huge hazard for shipping routes and offshore rigs, the only choices until recently were a helicopter drop or hope a small tracker drone landed in the exact area, which is not ideal. Desbiens observes that after the drone is landed, its energy consumption decreases drastically, and it can even diminish its own thermal and radio signatures, making it far less detectable.

The test flights in Iceland still included a human pilot and another drone for visual checks. The next step is to test a drone on a freely drifting iceberg in open ocean, as there is where this design really shines. They also intend to work on autonomous site selection and program the drone to take off in an emergency if the berg begins to divide or roll. They’re already planning a journey to the Canadian Arctic, and while the same crew has previously successfully landed drones on moving trucks, boats, and even steep rooftops, this is a first for glaciers and icebergs.
[Source]

HopTo’s first machine, Hop-1, looks like a small quadcopter that grew a pogo stick. That extra leg is the whole argument. Continuous flight means the motors fight gravity every second the machine is aloft. Hop-1 spends most of its trip bouncing on a passive spring, so the rotors only top up energy lost on each landing and fully take over when a gap, a wall, or a sudden climb actually requires flight. HopTo puts hopping energy use at about a quarter of continuous flight. Stay on the ground as much as possible, and only fly when you have to.

A carbon fiber telescoping leg protrudes beneath a four-rotor body. It is held in position by either rubber bands or a spring, which stores the downward force before firing it back up. Contact is brief, lasting a few dozen milliseconds. As soon as that’s over, the robot transforms into a nearly silent ballistic object, sitting there until it receives another tap from the ground. The City University of Hong Kong team (later known as HopTo) released lab versions of this concept, known as the HopCopter, weighing approximately 35 grams and capable of hopping from 0.6 to 1.63 meters. At their biggest leap, they achieved an average vertical speed of 2.38 meters per second and remained in the air for less than 45 milliseconds. That is why they were able to sustain a relatively high hop rate without the use of a motorized knee or latch.

Sale

Advertisement

ELEGOO UNO R3 Smart Robot Car Kit V4 with Camera, Compatible with Arduino

• BUILD, CODE & DRIVE YOUR OWN ROBOT CAR: Turn coding, electronics and engineering into a working programmable robot car you can assemble, program and…
• EXPLORE FPV, LINE TRACKING & OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE: Control the robot with the ELEGOO app or IR remote, view live FPV video through the onboard camera…
• BEGINNER-FRIENDLY BUILD WITH GUIDED WIRING: Keyed XH2.54 connectors help reduce wiring mistakes, while the illustrated tutorial and example programs…

When they ran endurance tests on that lab rig, they discovered that a 250 milliamp hour battery pack could survive over six minutes in hover mode and more than 20 minutes in continuous hops. A larger 650 milliamp hour pack increased the hopping time to more than 50 minutes, albeit it did push the robot somewhat beyond its flight weight limit. They were also running the motors at a rather low duty cycle, around 0.28. The ability to make contact with the ground greatly enhances their agility; they can dump speed or snap around in midair at accelerations much exceeding 14 g. When they come into contact with a wall or an uneven slope, that same leg acts as a bumper.

HopTo split off from that lab in 2024 and is now developing this concept into a first-generation product. They’ve just finished building an engineering prototype, which recently passed a two-meter drop test on the South African shore, and they’re doing a short public survey ahead of launch. They’re talking about employing Hop-1 for a variety of purposes, from searching rough terrain on inspection missions to regions where hovering is too expensive, and they’re even looking into low gravity worlds on the outskirts of the solar system. Small flying robots have traditionally had rather low battery lives. Hop-1, on the other hand, is taking a novel approach, seeing the ground as a free energy source rather than an obstacle.