quadcopters
Latest
After Math: If I had no loot
It was a week of lost and found fortunes in the tech world. The Feds charged My Big Coin Pay over its $6 million cryptocurrency scam, Netflix is poised to take home as many a four golden statues for Mudbound, Bungie's in hot water again over tweaking its Faction token payouts and Google will be holding onto its $20 million XPrize payout thankyouverymuch. Numbers, because how else would you evenly divvy up the spoils?
The Power Egg is unlike any drone you've ever flown before
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Normally, when you think "quadcopter", you think of the standard block-shaped mass of propellers, struts and landing gear. But nothing says they have to look that way. In fact, one drone company from China is taking a radically different approach with a UAV that looks like something from the labs of Capsule Corp.
California bill allows firefighters to ground pesky drones
As wildfires scorched sections of California Interstate I-15 last week, firefighters found themselves hamstrung and unable to deliver aerial water coverage for nearly 20 minutes because a couple of schmucks were flying their quadcopters directly overhead. In response, Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale) and Senator Ted Gaines (R-El Dorado) have introduced Senate Bill 168. The bill would grant "immunity to any emergency responder who damages an unmanned aircraft in the course of firefighting, air ambulance, or search-and-rescue operations." The bill will also levy stiff fines and potentially even jail time for people whose UAVs inhibit an emergency response.
Rural pop-up hospital gets America's first drone delivery
The first FAA-ok'd parcel delivery by drone took place in rural Virginia on Friday at Wise County, Virginia's annual Remote Area Hospital. The RAH pops up every summer in Wise, which is deep in Appalachia, as a makeshift field hospital that treats hundreds of uninsured area residents for free. This year, the event's organizers, Remote Area Medical, sought to explore the roles of emerging technology in humanitarian crises and, to that end, had Australian startup Flirtey drop off 10 pounds of supplies.
Roman schoolkids give the pope a drone of his own
From pizza to Fiats, people love giving gifts to Pope Francis. Most recently, students from a Jesuit school in Rome presented the Holy See with a customized quadcopter painted in the colors of the Vatican flag and replete with the Papal emblem. According to a statement from the school, the UAV symbolizes "the values of technology in the service of man." The school continued, "drones have proved useful to check the condition of structures [in quake-ravaged Nepal] and study paths from bringing relief to people who need this in remote villages." There's no word yet on whether Pope Francis will have the time for flying lessons. There's a chance that he may auction off the UAV to raise money for the poor, as he did back in January with the Fiat and a number of other expensive gifts. Or, like the pizza, he could just be saving it for later. [Image credit: The Associated Press]
