Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology recently demonstrated a fuel cell system that can power an RC plane for up to 5 hours on just 500 grams (17 ounces) of liquid hydrogen, and is expected to power a UAV variant of the plane for up to 10 hours when the autonomous pilot system in completed. KAIST hopes to use the tech in a future Korean military UAV, and, pending funding, expects to have a complete production-ready drone within two years. Sadly, there's no word on when Korean kids will be able to hold all-night drone-flying stamina contests, but we're waiting for that YouTube video pretty eagerly.

[Via AutoBlog Green]

Reports of advances in memory storage densities aren't all that surprising anymore -- after all, storage devices have continually gotten both smaller and more capacious since IBM kicked out the first hard drive in 1956 -- but it's still nice to learn that the NAND flash used in our DAPs, cellphones, and soon laptops and desktops will break the terabyte barrier within the next decade. Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the National Nano Fab Center are claiming success in building the world's first NAND flash chip using an 8nm fabrication process, which could eventually lead to capacities as large as one terabyte in a package 1/25th the size of Samsung's 40nm 32GB unit. The breakthrough was realized by merging nanowires with silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon technology, and although it might seem like huge iPods are right around the corner, the research team still faces problems such as shrinking the area where data is saved. In other words, your gear isn't out of date quite yet, but you can rest assured that it will be soon.

[Via China View]

Oh, South Korea -- land of robots galore, ranging from the militaristic to the domestic servant-like -- can you just stop making any robot that we won't be envious of? We're not really sure how this one works though, but apparently scientists at the Korean Institute of Advanced Science and Technology have just created a "sobot," or a software robot that can be transfered like a ghost in the machine from computer to computer and from robot to robot (such as the MyBot, pictured here). The theory goes that in one application, a sobot could be serve as a nurse, being able to perform triage on incoming patients. However, when Wired News went to go check one out, "Rity" the sobot, got stage fright (not the first time we've heard of that from a Korean robot), and eventually arrived on screen in the form of a dog character with a less than pleasant attitude. Still, Korea's got 14 more years to get the bugs out of this one, right?