The only thing growing faster than the global drone population is the population of people thinking “how can I knock these annoying things out of the sky?” DroneShield offers a way to do just that, and now in a much more portable package, with the DroneGun Tactical — that is, if you’re an authorized government agent, which I doubt. Read More
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DroneGun Tactical is a portable (but still illegal) drone scrambler
Imagine being in the ocean, trapped in a swell some 700 meters from shore. Suddenly a yellow package drops out of the sky as if sent by a god, hits the water next to you and expands into a flotation device. That was the experience of two unlucky, then lucky teenage boys off the coast of Lennox Head in Australia last week. Someone spotted the boys in distress and called it in, but the nearest lifeguard station was a kilometer away. Just that morning, however, Lennox Head had brought their new lifesaving drone into service. In a little over a minute, a lifeguard supervisor had launched the drone, spotted the boys, flew it over to them, and remotely dropped the flotation device. The boys were able to grab it and swim to shore. Here’s the footage: The drone is manufactured by a company called Little Ripper Lifesaver , founded by Kevin Weldon after he witnessed a drone canvassing the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and realized its lifesaving potential. The Marine Pod dropped over Lennox Head contained a water-triggered flotation device, which is repackable and reusable. The company is now testing a saltwater-activated electromagnetic shark repellent device, with plans to include that in future kits. Little Ripper also makes a Land Pod, which contains an automatic defibrillator, a location beacon, a thermal blanket, a radio, a highly-visible rescue banner and a first aid kit. Lastly they make a Snow Pod, which adds skin warmers and energy bars to the Land Pod. Lennox Head received the drone as part of a trial set up by an organization called Surf Life Saving NSW and the New South Wales Government. According to ABC News , Surf Life Saving NSW project manager for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), Kelvin Morton, said the project was a world-first. “These UAVs that we’re using to drop these inflatable pods is innovative, and we know that most or all of the lifesaving organisations around the world are stepping back and waiting to see how this goes.” Mr Morton said the drones gave surf lifesavers a new advantage. “It gives them eyes across the water at a height of 60 metres and they can move at 50 kilometres an hour, ” he said. “They’ve never had that ability before. They can see things in the water that a jet-ski simply cannot.”
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Rescue Drone Saves Two Boys from Drowning on Its First Day in Service
A DJI Phantom 4 at a launch event in 2016. (credit: Ron Amadeo) On September 21, 2017, just as dusk fell, Vyacheslav Tantashov launched his DJI Phantom 4 drone from a spot near Dyker Beach Park in Brooklyn, just southeast of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Tantashov wanted to see some spectacular views, he said, and he flew the drone nearly 280 feet up in the air and well out of his line of sight. The drone hovered over the shipping channel near Hoffman Island, some 2.5 miles from the launch site. Tantashov maneuvered the craft a bit, watching the images displayed on his Samsung tablet, and then punched the “return to home” button. The drone, which had a rapidly dying battery, made a beeline back toward the launch site. But it never arrived. After waiting 30 minutes, Tantashov assumed there had been a mechanical malfunction and that the drone had fallen into the water. He returned home. On September 28, Tantashov received a call at work. It was an investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), calling to asking if Tantashov was the owner of a Phantom 4 drone. He was, he said, though he had lost it recently near the Verrazano Bridge. Read 15 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Drone collides with US Army helicopter, puts 1.5“ dent in rotor
We talk about storing data in the cloud, but Amazon is looking into storing physical goods up there. The company has filed a patent for an ” Airborne fulfillment center utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles for item delivery:” In essence, the scheme is to have warehouses suspended from blimps, floating at 45, 000 feet (which is higher than/out of the way of commercial flight paths) over metropolitan areas and loaded up with delivery drones. When a customer orders something, it’s attached to a drone, then dropped out of the sky. The UAV may be deployed from the AFC and descend under the forces of gravity toward a delivery location using little to no power. Only as the UAV approaches earth does it need to fully engage the UAV motors to maintain flight and complete delivery of the item. After dropping off the package, the drone doesn’t fight its way back up to 45, 000 feet; Amazon reckons this would not be “an efficient use of power, ” so instead the drone flies off to a “replenishment shuttle.” This would be a smaller airship “that is configured to transport inbound items (e.g., UAVs, inventory, workers, supplies, fuel) to the AFC and retrieve outbound items (e.g., overstock inventory, transshipments, workers, waste) from the AFC.” As crazy as this plan sounds, the patent filing makes a lot of good points as to why it should be implemented. The airship isn’t tethered to a fixed location so can float around as needed or to avoid inclement weather. The company also envisions stocking them up over “temporal events” like football games, where they’d be loaded up with relevant product (sports paraphernalia, food products). And with the airship system, “items may be delivered within minutes of a user placing an order.” Ironic things I’d like to order from an AFC: Led Zeppelin’s eponymous first album, a book on the Hindenburg disaster and of course, a drone.
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Holy Cow: Amazon’s Plan for Flying Warehouses
If you measure the future in terms how pizza is delivered, the future is now: Domino’s now delivers via autonomous drone. Today, the pizza chain officially launched its drone delivery service in New Zealand. The pizzaria chain has been working with Flirtey on the program for awhile now, but has only just started offering it to a select group of customers. “Drones offer the promise of safer, faster deliveries to an expanded delivery area, ” Domino’s group CEO Don Meiji says. “Meaning more customers can expect to receive a freshly-made order within our ultimate target of 10 minutes.” Drone deliveries are being integrated into the company’s online ordering system, and the company says it hopes to expand the drone deliveries to a wider area soon. The company didn’t announce any plans to bring drone delivery to the United States, but Flirtey is working on it. Earlier this year, the company performed its first FAA-sanctioned delivery in Nevada , carrying emergency food, water and a first-aid kit to an empty house. That’s promising, but it will probably be awhile before you can order-in by air — US Drone standards are pretty strict. Source: PRNewswire
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Domino’s starts delivering pizza by drone, but only in New Zealand
The company makes ignition interlock breathalyzers that are mandated by courts as a condition of driving after DUI convictions. (more…)
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Internal documents from breathalyzer company Lifesaver dumped online
Researchers revealed ten major vulnerabilities in Internet-of-Things babycams from a variety of vendors ranging from spunky startups like Ibaby Labs to rock-ribbed (and deep-pocketed — attention, class actioneers!) giants like Philips. Read the rest
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Your baby monitor is an Internet-connected spycam vulnerable to voyeurs and crooks