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Deutsche Post shows off its Paketkopter drone delivery service in Germany
Well, it looks as if Amazon really started a trend since taking the wraps off of its Prime Air service. Not long after UPS said it, too, was experimenting with a delivery method lead by drones, Deutsche Post DHL, which is deemed to be the world's largest carrier, has begun to test its very own service in the German city of Bonn. Earlier today, the company used what it is calling the Paketkopter to transport and deliver a box of medicines across the Rhine river, with the entire trip totaling about 0.6 mile and taking the drone around two minutes to complete it. Although this particular Paketkopter model was being controlled by humans, Deutsche Post did say there is an option for its drones to be flown without any assistance and have them rely solely on GPS. However, the parcel carrier isn't actually planning to launch a drone delivery service anytime soon, noting that this stage is only "the beginning of the research project." We'd suggest paying the DW link below a visit, where you'll find a video of the Paketkopter's first successful mini trek.
Weekly Roundup: Amazon Prime Air drones, LG G Flex review, hands-on with the YotaPhone and more!
You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Daily Roundup: Andy Rubin's Google robotics, Microsoft completes Nokia acquisition and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
UPS experimenting with delivery drones, set to challenge Amazon's Prime Air
When Jeff Bezos went on 60 Minutes and mentioned that Amazon was experimenting with delivery drones, we knew it was only a matter of time before other companies revealed similar plans. And, one day later, sources at UPS have told The Verge that the delivery giant has its own unmanned flying couriers in the lab. Publicly, the company is largely keeping silent, saying only that "the commercial use of drones is an interesting technology and we'll continue to evaluate it." But Ryan Calo, a law professor specializing in drones, isn't afraid to speculate about what the program might look like. While he doesn't rule out Amazon's ambitious vision of an octo-copter dropping a package at your doorstep, he believes the first versions will be much more limited in scope. For example, he foresees a company like UPS using the self-piloted vehicles to move packages from airports and major cities to more remote pickup points. It wouldn't be quite as convenient as having a robot bring your family's Christmas gifts to your home, but it would certainly speed up delivery while keeping the cost in check. It would hardly be a surprise if UPS beat other delivery firms and Amazon to the punch on this one, as it invests quite heavily in R&D. According to a spokesperson, "UPS invests more in technology than any other company in the delivery business, and we're always planning for the future." That's hardly a surprise coming from the company that already offers 3D printing services at some of its retail locations.
Drones carrying textbooks may populate the Australian sky in the not-so-distant future, US up next
The image of drone traffic clouding the skies is still an alarming one considering the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in military operations, but it may not be an alien one in the not-so-distant future. Australian startup Flirtey is pairing drone delivery with Zookal's book sale service to -- government approval pending -- deliver textbooks via UAV. According to AU newspaper The Age, deliveries via Flirtey can be tracked over users' Android phones while en route. Of course, Flirtey and co. can't just take to the sky for commercial sales without Australian approval first; Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority still has to rule on an application from the startup. We imagine it'll mostly be questions about how Flirtey plans to handle bundles of books falling from the sky onto unknowing pedestrians. Following that approval, Flirtey's hoping to bring the project to the US -- what we'd call a much pricklier process, especially given the aforementioned military use for drones (specifically by US forces). To see the company's drones in action, head below the break for a video. Now if you'll excuse us, we'll be working out plans for weaponized textbooks.
EVE Evolved: Everything we know about Rubicon
Back in April, EVE Online Senior Producer Andie Nordgren delivered an incredible long-term vision for the game's future that included deep space colonisation, player-built stargates, and players controlling practically everything that's currently run by NPC empires. This vision sets the tone and direction for development over the next ten expansions, each of which will introduce a small component of the overall goal. In a live interview session earlier this week, CCP revealed the first steps it will take toward space colonisation in its upcoming winter expansion. Named Rubicon, the expansion will be in players' hands on November 19th and promises to give individuals and small groups unprecedented control over the sandbox. It will let players fight over planetary customs offices in high security space, significantly buff the ability of small ships to participate in hit-and-run style warfare, and even introduce a new set of personal deployable structures that can be hidden anywhere in space. All this comes alongside two new Sisters of EVE ships, twitch livestream integration, and significant balance changes to Marauders, Interceptors, Interdictors, and Electronic Attack Frigates. In this week's EVE Evolved, I run down all of the new features and changes announced so far for EVE Online's Rubicon expansion.
FAA approves first drones for commercial operations in US airspace
Insitu's Scan Eagle X200 and AeroVironment's Puma (above) are the first UAVs to snag FAA approval for commercial operations, and they're set to take to the skies later this summer. Prior to this, the only way the private sector could fly an unmanned vessel in US airspace was with an experimental airworthiness certification -- and that cert prohibits business activities. It's worth noting that these craft weigh less than 55 pounds and measure four and a half feet long; they aren't Predator drones, by any means. Come August, a "major energy company" will use the X200 to patrol the Alaskan coast, keeping an eye on ice floes and migrating whales where the firm is doing petroleum exploration. Plans for the Puma sound slightly more action-packed, as it's expected to support oil spill emergency response-crews and watch over wildlife in the Beaufort Sea. See, this is how it all begins: First we start trusting them with our lives, then it all takes a turn for the worse. [Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]
Ziphius aquatic drone hits Kickstarter, we go hands-on with an updated prototype
If you followed our Insert Coin: New Challengers contest at our first-ever Expand event, you may recognize this guy. The Ziphius, an WiFi-enabled aquatic drone powered by a Raspberry Pi, won $25,000 in prize money back in San Francisco, and three months later it's taking the next big plunge: launching on Kickstarter. The bot launched its crowd-funding campaign tonight -- at Engadget+ gdgt live in NYC, no less -- and the Ziphius team says the $125,000 in requested money will go toward refining the device's mold for the final-production version. As you can see from our gallery below, the package already looks sleeker, and it comes in pink along with several other new colors. Backers of all pocket sizes will be rewarded with everything from their name on the website ($1 pledge) to a Ziphius of their own ($195 and up). Click the source to check out the Kickstarter page for yourself and donate if you're so inclined; the project has 29 days to meet that lofty funding goal. %Gallery-192221% Zach Honig contributed to this report.
EVE Evolved: Fitting battleships for PvP in Odyssey, part 2
Battleships used to be the backbone of every major PvP fleet in EVE Online, but recent years have seen them increasingly overtaken by more mobile Battlecruisers, Heavy Assault Cruisers, and tech 3 Strategic Cruisers. Armour buffered battleships are still used in carrier-supported fleets and for a while nullsec played host to huge missile-spamming Maelstrom blobs of unholy death, but many of the battleships just haven't been worth using. Developers saught to rectify that in the recent Odyssey expansion with a complete balance overhaul of the standard tech 1 battleships, and it's starting to pay off. In last week's EVE Evolved, I looked at how Odyssey buffed the tier one Dominix, Scorpion, Typhoon, and Armageddon beyond all recognition and experimented with new PvP setups for each of them. This week I've turned my attention toward the tier 2 battleships, which turned out to be equally versatile and deadly. Now officially falling under the umbrella of "Combat Battleships," the Megathron, Raven, Apocalypse, and Tempest have become powerful damage-dealing platforms for fleet warfare. Each of them can now fulfill sniper or close-range damage roles and carry a spare flight of Warrior II drones to bat off tacklers, but what's impressed me the most is the sheer level of damage and tank they can achieve. In this week's EVE Evolved, I experiment with setups for the recently revamped Megathron, Raven, Apocalypse, and Tempest tier 2 battleships. These setups may require Advanced Weapon Upgrades 4 and a cheap 1-3% powergrid or CPU implant.
Forget jetliners, the Paris Air Show means war (video)
There's a battle going on between Airbus and Boeing, but while both industry players maintain their fair share of government contracts, this war primarily concerns the commercial side of the biz. For many of the companies that surround these giants at this week's Paris Air Show, however, military might is big business. Fighter jets, troop transporters, attack drones and massive missiles are the bread and butter of manufacturers like US-based Raytheon and France's own Thales -- smaller companies from China, Germany, Israel and Russia flaunt their own munitions at otherwise ordinary trade show booths, too. High-profile politicians and military officers from around the world are also in no short supply at Le Bourget Airport this week. In one exhibition hall, we spotted Lieutenant General Craig Franklin, a top US Air Force commander, studying a new security screening system from Safran. Then, earlier today, we stumbled upon Sergey Shoygu, Russia's Minister of Defence, examining a handful of mobile rocket launchers. And just after yesterday's Airbus A350 cockpit tour, we bumped into a gaggle of Chinese officers as they were checking out model attack choppers at the Eurocopter booth. Troops from dozens of countries around the globe were in attendance, often dressed up in full military regalia despite the oppressive summer heat. Allies and enemies alike joined together to take note of the latest and greatest, scanning ground displays and taking in dramatic performances a few hundred feet above the sweltering tarmac. You don't need to rough it at Le Bourget to see this year's displays, though. We've collected many of the 2013 Paris Air Show's deadliest crafts in the gallery just below.%Gallery-191662%
EVE Evolved: Fitting battleships for PvP in Odyssey
Tech 1 ships in EVE Online used to be arranged in tiers that determined the cost and power of the ship and what level of the appropriate skill was required to fly it. This gave a sense of progression back in 2004 when all we had was frigates, cruisers, and battleships, but developers have since filled in the gaps between ship classes with destroyers, battlecruisers, strategic cruisers, and tech 2 ships of all shapes and sizes. In a recent game design initiative, CCP has been removing the tiers from within each tech 1 ship class by buffing the lower-tier ships up to the same rough power level as the largest ship in its class. The recent Odyssey expansion saw the humble battleship buffed beyond all recognition. The Megathron, Raven, Tempest, and Apocalypse all became extreme damage-dealing powerhouses, but the Dominix, Scorpion, Typhoon, and Armageddon were buffed the most. Each of them can now fit several monster setups, dealing upward of 1,000 damage per second or completely disabling enemy ships with energy neutralisers and electronic warfare. The build costs of these tier one battleships were more than doubled in the expansion, but prices are only slowly rising due to the existing stock on the market. That makes the tier one battleships incredibly cost-effective PvP powerhouses at the moment, and players are beginning to take advantage of it. In this week's EVE Evolved, I experiment with PvP setups for the newly revamped Typhoon, Armageddon, Scorpion, and Dominix battleships.
German railways hope to fight graffiti with thermal imaging drones
Drones aren't just for war, creating airborne logos or patrolling Aussie beaches. If German railway operators have their way, they'd be used to capture graffiti artists, too. Motivated by the high cost of property damage incurred by spray-painting vandals (around 7.6 million euros / $10 million a year), the Deutsche Bahn will soon begin testing miniature helicopter-style drones in the hopes of identifying those responsible. Each remote-controlled chopper is equipped with an infrared sensor capable of thermal imaging and producing high-resolution photos that would be useful to authorities. The tiny aircraft can also fly up to 150 meters (500 feet) and as fast as 33 mph and would cost about 60,000 euros ($77,550) each. The Bahn assured the public that the mini drones will be restricted to highly targeted areas, which should help allay those privacy concerns. [Image Credit: thierry ehrmann, Flickr]
Lockheed Martin's ADAM laser blasts enemy rockets with its HEL beam
Enemy rockets go up. ADAM makes'em go down... safely and in a grand explosion of fire. That's the name of Lockheed Martin's Area Defense Anti-Munitions system, or badass laser for short (to us, anyway), created to intercept and "negate" airborne rockets and drones. The aerospace company's been testing its portable, prototype system -- built with off-the-shelf parts -- since last summer, successfully proving ADAM's capability in detecting aerial threats at a distance of 5km or more and then obliterating those targets with its finely trained laser, or HEL beam (no, really), once they're within a 2km range. But why waste time with words when the the company's own slo-mo video paints a more vivid, shock and awe-some picture. Check it out after the break.
Navy launches first drone squadron, comprised of ten Fire Scout MQ-8Bs
The US Navy has officially introduced unmanned aircraft along with eight newly manned helicopters into its squadron, making it the latest military branch after the Army and the Air Force to embrace the drone. Indeed, ten of the 18 aircraft to be deployed are Fire Scout MQ-8Bs, an unmanned chopper the Navy wishes to operate from combat ships set in the Pacific in about a year. Built to track targets, the Fire Scout lets troops see what's happening over potentially dangerous areas, allowing them to regroup and rearm if necessary. The drone isn't without its fair share of detractors of course, especially after the occasional communication failure, but here's hoping that these Linux-operated copters will remain well within human control.
US Navy to fund development of vehicle-mounted, drone-shooting lasers
Lasers, particularly those that set boats ablaze and incinerate incoming missiles, have long been on the Navy's mind. Today, the Office of Naval Research revealed its latest energy weapon craving: vehicle-mounted lasers that shoot down drones. Dubbed Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-The-Move, the project is offering private outfits up to $400,000 each to develop such a system that blasts at full power for 120 seconds and juices back up to 80 percent after a 20 minute charge. The beam is required to pack a punch of at least 25 kilowatts, while the ability to ratchet up to 50 kilowatts is optional. Given that kind of power, Wired points out that making such a solution fit in a Humvee is going to be a feat -- especially when the Navy says it can't weigh more than 2,000 pounds and must fit entirely within a vehicle's cargo area. Have blueprints for a jeep-mountable laser squirreled away in your basement hobby shop? You'll have to send your application in by 2 PM on April 26th to qualify for the federal cash. [Image credit: Official U.S. Navy Imagery, Flickr]
Quadrocopter fleet stuns Londoners with giant hovering Star Trek logo (video)
Before quadrocopters become Skynet's roaming recon fleet, they'll begrudgingly entertain us, and in a recent promotional enterprise, a swarm braved the London "spring" to remind us of the imminent launch of Star Trek: Into Darkness. Over the weekend, drone masters Ars Electronica Futurelab sent a party of 30 LED-tagged AscTec Hummingbirds halfway to Hoth, and used the relative darkness of Earth Hour to set an approximately 300-foot high Star Trek logo twinkling over Tower Bridge. A video of the event can be found below, complete with epic music and movie cut-scenes sure to send even the most Vulcan of trekkers to sickbay with hysteria. If anyone behind the promotion is reading -- please, whatever you do, just don't give them phasers.
Quadrocopters can balance, juggle poles in mid-air now (video)
Play-time at quadrocopter boot camp.
Google gives WWF $5 million to fund wildlife-observing drones
Most of the drone-related news these days may focus on military or police use, but those are far from the only applications for the unmanned aerial vehicles. Case in point: the World Wildlife Fund, which has now received a $5 million grant from Google's Global Impact Awards program to fund UAVs designed to monitor endangered species. Details on the drones themselves remain light, but the WWF says they'll be used to detect poachers and tagged animals on the ground, and then relay that information to a command center and mobile law enforcement units. What's more, while that initial funding will only provide something of a testbed, the WWF says it's focusing on "easily-replicable technologies," with its ultimate goal being to create an "efficient, effective network that can be adopted globally." [Image credit: WWF]
3D Robotics' Chris Anderson discusses a drone-filled future (video)
You'll likely miss 3D Robotics on first pass. The company's San Diego R&D facility is headquartered in an unassuming building amongst similarly nondescript offices in a maze of a business park. Enter through the back and you'll find yourself in the middle of a small manufacturing assembly, where industrial Pick and Place machines buzz loudly and a handful of women are QAing finished product. Until earlier this month, the site was mostly off the radar, save for a devoted group of online enthusiasts. Then, Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson announced he was leaving the magazine in order to head up the company. Anderson's off grabbing lunch as we arrive -- like us, just off a flight from the East Coast for a brief visit before jumping on yet another plane. He's in transition at the moment, as the head of both Wired and 3D Robotics, trying out his keycard for the first time as we set up our film equipment to interview the newly minted executive for an upcoming Engadget Show segment. Anderson's ties to the company go back to its inception, however, co-founding 3D Robotics with Jordi Muñoz, a 19-year-old living in Tijuana when the two first met through Anderson's DIY Drones online community.
UAV Lifeguards to patrol Australian beaches, Hasselhoff given notice
Look, up in the sky. It's a bird, it's a plane -- it's... a lifeguard? Aiming to keep a robotic eye out for distressed swimmers and dangerous marine life, Surf Life Saving Australia will soon deploy flying safety drones across beaches in Queensland, Australia. Starting off on a trial basis, the unmanned bots have a wingspan of one meter (about three feet) and will feature detachable safety buoys and alert sirens. While it could be the next thing in oceanside safety, we'd image that some folks won't be too fond of being watched sans any say in the matter. That said, we'd be remiss not to mention to that SLS head Brett Williamson frankly stated to ABC that "at the end of the day this is about public safety." Big brother conspiracy aside, we're sure some folks could be swayed if these bad boys play Flight of the Valkyries while in formation. [Image credit: Kim Powell]
