Archive for the ‘drones’ category: Page 165
Jul 9, 2015
Switzerland begins postal delivery by drone
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in category: drones
Swiss postal service says tests will run until the end of July although the widespread use of drones is not likely to kick in for another five years.
Jul 7, 2015
Switzerland Begins Trials of Expensive Postal Drones
Posted by Bryan Gatton in category: drones
Jun 21, 2015
Brain–Brain Interface Allows Humans To Control Cockroaches With Their Minds
Posted by Bryan Gatton in categories: drones, neuroscience
May 25, 2015
DRONES: How Drones Could Help an Indigenous Community Fight Mining and Deforestation Emiko Jozuka | Motherboard
Posted by Seb in category: drones
“The local Wapichana monitoring team learned how to build a fix-winged drone from scratch. The team then mounted a GoPro onto the drone, which shot around 500 images of the Shulinab village along a pre-programmed flight path. Using Pix4Dmapper automatic imaging software, the team were then able to recreate a 3D model of their village from the images. The aim, explained MacLennan in a blog post, is to ‘create high-resolution up-to-date imagery at a fraction of the cost of satellite imagery.’” Read more
May 7, 2015
Drone Strikes Reveal Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die
Posted by Seb in category: drones
Barack Obama inherited two ugly, intractable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when he became president and set to work to end them. But a third, more covert war he made his own, escalating drone strikes in Pakistan and expanding them to Yemen and Somalia.
The drone’s vaunted capability for pinpoint killing appealed to a president intrigued by a new technology and determined to try to keep the United States out of new quagmires. Aides said Mr. Obama liked the idea of picking off dangerous terrorists a few at a time, without endangering American lives or risking the yearslong bloodshed of conventional war. Read more
The Economist
“The employment of drones for nefarious, or potentially nefarious, purposes thus seems to have begun in earnest. It is only a matter of time before somebody attempts to use a drone, perhaps carrying an explosive payload, to cause serious damage or injury. The question for the authorities is how to try to stop this happening.” Read more
Apr 22, 2015
Amazon Drones Could Deliver A Package In Under 30 Minutes For $1
Posted by Seb in category: drones
By Tasha Keeney, Analyst: Industrial Innovation — Seeking Alpha
In December of last year, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced Prime Air, the company’s plan to deliver future packages by drone (“UAV”). While the media and others mocked this announcement, UAV delivery is likely to disrupt traditional package delivery significantly. If the FAA gives Amazon clearance for commercial rollout of its drone delivery service, the price that a consumer would pay for the delivery of a five-pound package could be as low as $1.1 Just as impressive, delivery times could drop below thirty minutes. As shown below, FedEx Corp. (NYSE:FDX) and United Parcel Service (NYSE:UPS) cost 8–13 times more for much longer delivery times for a small package.2
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Apr 3, 2015
Facebook is planning to test its 747-sized internet drones this summer
Posted by Seb in category: drones
By Rich McCormick — The Verge
Facebook’s ambitious plan to bring internet to the entire world with a fleet of broadband-beaming unmanned aerial vehicles has taken a step closer to fruition. The company’s vice president of engineering, Jay Parikh, told The Wall Street Journal that Facebook is planning “a real test flight” of its solar-powered internet drone this summer. A smaller version of the drone, one tenth the size of the planned product, was tested earlier this month.
The scheduled test flight would be the first time the full-sized internet drone — called Aquila — will take to the skies. Facebook says the vehicle will have the wingspan of a commercial passenger jet and the length of “six or seven [Toyota] Priuses,” but will only weigh as much as four car tires. The lightweight build should help the craft stay flying for weeks, months, or years at a time, using solar energy to keep itself aloft. Google, also in the process of developing its own internet-proliferation project, is using a different approach. The company’s Project Loon uses a swarm of balloons to disseminate broadband to unconnected portions of the world.Read more
