On the morning of May 18, the 297,000 dead-weight-ton (DWT) VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) "Front Queen", which was built by Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding (SWS) for Norway-based shipping company Frontline Limited, was officially named and delivered. To date, SWS has built and delivered a total of 100 ships with gross DWT of nearly 16.5 million.
Today, the Capesize bulk carrier built by SWS has already become an international brand. SWS has received a total of over 110 orders for the 170,000 DWT Capesize bulk cargo carriers, the highest amount of orders in the world.
The world's sixth generation 3000-meter deep-water semi-submersible drilling platform, which is being built by SWS, is China's first independently-designed and built deep-water semi-submersible drilling platform, and the most advanced in the world. It has filled the gap in the development of super-large deep-water drilling equipment in China.
The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine airliner manufactured by the European corporationAirbus, a subsidiary of EADS. The largest passenger airliner in the world, the A380 made its maiden flight on 27 April 2005 from Toulouse, France, and made its first commercial flight on 25 October 2007 from Singapore to Sydney with Singapore Airlines. The aircraft was known as the Airbus A3XX during much of its development phase, but the nickname Superjumbo has since become associated with it.
The A380's upper deck extends along the entire length of the fuselage, and its width is equivalent to that of a widebody aircraft. This allows for a cabin with 50% more floor space than the next-largest airliner, the Boeing 747-400, and provides seating for 525 people in a typical three-class configuration or up to 853 people in all economy class configurations. The A380-800, the passenger model, is the largest passenger airliner in the world, but has a shorter fuselage than the Airbus A340-600, which is Airbus's next-biggest passenger aeroplane. The A380-800F, the freighter model, was offered as one of the largest freight aircraft, with a payload capacity exceeded only by the Antonov An-225. The design and production of the freighter was pushed back indefinitely, and outstanding orders were canceled. The A380-800 has a design range of 15,200 km (8,200 nmi), sufficient to fly from Boston to Hong Kong for example, and a cruising speed of Mach0.85 (about 900 km/h or 560 mph at cruising altitude). It is the first commercial jet capable of using GTL-based fuel.
A robot is a virtual or mechanical artificial agent. In practice, it is usually an electro-mechanical system which, by its appearance or movements, conveys a sense that it has intent or agency of its own. The word robot can refer to both physical robots and virtual software agents, but the latter are usually referred to as bots.There is no consensus on which machines qualify as robots, but there is general agreement among experts and the public that robots tend to do some or all of the following: move around, operate a mechanical limb, sense and manipulate their environment, and exhibit intelligent behavior, especially behavior which mimics humans or other animals.
Stories of artificial helpers and companions and attempts to create them have a long history but fully autonomousmachines only appeared in the 20th century. The first digitally operated and programmable robot, the Unimate, was installed in 1961 to lift hot pieces of metal from a die casting machine and stack them. Today, commercial andindustrial robots are in widespread use performing jobs more cheaply or with greater accuracy and reliability than humans. They are also employed for jobs which are too dirty, dangerous or dull to be suitable for humans. Robots are widely used in manufacturing, assembly and packing, transport, earth and space exploration, surgery, weaponry, laboratory research, and mass production of consumer and industrial goods.
People have a generally positive perception of the robots they actually encounter. Domestic robots for cleaning and maintenance are increasingly common in and around homes. There is anxiety, however, over the economic effect of automation and the threat of robotic weaponry, anxiety which is not helped by the depiction of many villainous, intelligent, acrobatic robots in popular entertainment. Compared with their fictional counterparts, real robots are still benign, dim-witted, and clumsy.
