The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Monday said it is issuing long-awaited rules to allow for small drones to fly over people and at night, a significant step toward their use for widespread commercial deliveries. From a report: The FAA is also requiring remote identification of most drones, which are formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles, to address security concerns….
Tag: drone
France Bans Use of Drones To Police Protests In Paris
France’s top administrative court has backed privacy campaigners by imposing a ban on police use of drones for covering public protests in Paris. The BBC reports: The Council of State said Paris police prefect Didier Lallement should halt “without delay” drone surveillance of gatherings on public roads. The ruling comes weeks after MPs backed a controversial security bill that includes police…
US Blacklists Dozens of Chinese Firms Including SMIC
The United States confirmed on Friday it will add dozens of Chinese companies, including the country’s top chipmaker, SMIC, and Chinese drone giant DJI to a trade blacklist. From a report: The move, which was first reported by Reuters, is seen as the latest in President Donald Trump’s efforts to cement his tough-on-China legacy. It comes just weeks before Democratic President-elect…
Drone catches Arecibo Observatory’s last moments
When the cables broke at Arecibo Observatory, a drone caught the whole event on video. Source: https://www.livescience.com/drone-footage-arecibo-observarory.html
A statement on Arecibo Observatory’s engineering options
Worrisome news regarding broken cables and engineering options at Arecibo Observatory, the iconic big radio dish in Puerto Rico. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/arecibo-observatory-broken-cables-aug-nov-options…
How the US Military Buys Location Data from Ordinary Apps
Joseph Cox, reporting for Motherboard at Vice: The U.S. military is buying the granular movement data of people around the world, harvested from innocuous-seeming apps, Motherboard has learned. The most popular app among a group Motherboard analyzed connected to this sort of data sale is a Muslim prayer and Quran app that has more than 98 million downloads worldwide. Others include…
Image of herons nesting high in the treetops wins drone photo award
This shot of a great white heron and grey heron in their respective treetop nests in Russia was taken by Dmitrii Viliunov using a drone. It won first prize in the wildlife category for the 2020 Drone Photo Awards Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833080-300-image-of-herons-nesting-high-in-the-treetops-wins-drone-photo-award/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
As UK Military Begins Mass Coronavirus Testing, Head of Armed Forces Ponders Robot Soldiers
Remembrance Sunday is the day of commemoration for British and Commonwealth servicemen, and the head of the British Armed Forces marked the occasion with a special interview on Sky News. And he shared a thoughtful answer when asked whether the army might try to recruit fewer soldiers. “[W]hat I’m hinting at is that we need to be thinking about how we…
Life-hunting Perseverance rover is halfway to Mars
NASA announced that its Perseverance rover mission – which will search for evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars – has now passed the halfway mark in its journey to the planet. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/perservance-rover-halfway-to-mars-nasa-astrobiology…
Google AI Tech Will Be Used For Virtual Border Wall, CBP Contract Shows
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: After years of backlash over controversial government work, Google technology will be used to aid the Trump administration’s efforts to fortify the U.S.-Mexico border, according to documents related to a federal contract. In August, Customs and Border Protection accepted a proposal to use Google Cloud technology to facilitate the use of artificial…