September 2019 – Page 2

Self-Piloted passenger drones coming to Australia soon: What are the risks?

Credit: ID 62410910 © Alain Lacroix | Dreamstime.com

I love the idea of passenger drones and flying cars. I grew up watching “The Jetsons” on Saturday morning’s thinking that would be us one day. It’s funny when you think about it, some of the engineers who are putting these vehicles together today would have been growing up thinking the same thing as me. Long have movies, TV been a place where brilliant people see something and say “you know what I can make that for real” and they do.
Passenger drones are not quite here yet though which I am admittedly very disappointed about (which I am sure you would all have guessed) but honestly they are becoming reality. Especially if you are talking about passenger drones. A report by Deloitte “Elevating the future of mobility” from January last year is an interesting read and discussing some of the challenges that the industry faces. In the report/article it predicts that we could see Passenger drones as early as 2020, some form of traditiona..

XTEK secures exclusive contract to supply and service drones used by Australian Defence Force

Tech

Berkay Erkan

17:42 Wed 25 Sep 2019

Investor deep dive

XTEK expects at least $11.6 million of revenues this half-year

During A Police Raid, Russian Activist Uses Drone To Whisk Sensitive Data To Safety

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the video-or-it-didn't-happen dept

Drones have moved beyond the novelty stage, and are now capable of having a global impact. That was shown most dramatically by the recent drone attack on the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia. The loss of production has caused the price of oil to spike, and fears about a global recession to mount — all because of a few tiny drones. An article in the Guardian suggests:

Drones are now an integral part of the inventory of the region's most advanced militaries, and the also-rans. Non state actors have been clamouring to secure them as well — convinced by the utility of hard-to-detect, dispensable flying toys to be used as weapons of war.

But as Techdirt has noted before, drones are not all about death and destruction. BBC News has an interesting example of a novel use from Russia. It concerns a police..

The Shared Tech Roots Of Silicon Valley and Israel’s Startup Nation

… Israeli technology companies have offices in the US. The tech … tanks in the 1960s, drones in the 1970s and … the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Weizmann Institute of Science … importance on developing new technologies within their research departments. …

The 7 Most Dangerous Technology Trends In 2020 Everyone Should Know About

… of the most dangerous technology trends:
1. Drone Swarms
The British, … testing how interconnected, cooperative drones could be used in … between swarms and how drones are used by the … of using facial recognition technology for surveillance and racial …

[Hydrogen Korea] Doosan’s hydrogen drone pushes the limits

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Drone strikes on Saudi oil fields spike prices – New Europe

Geopolitical tensions and fears of longer-than-expected supply shortfalls led to Brent crude oil prices rising more than 1% on 19 September following the drone attacks on 14 September on the Abqaiq facility and the Khurais oil field in Saudi Arabia when Brent temporarily jumped over 20%.

According to Reuters on 19 September, Global benchmark Brent LCOc1 settled 80 cents, or 1.3%, higher at $64.40 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 pared earlier gains and ended largely steady at $58.13 a barrel, just 2 cents firmer.

The attacks on 14 September reportedly resulted in the temporary suspension of 5.7 million barrels per day of Saudi Arabia’s crude oil production, or around 5% of global daily oil supply.

“It’s not that major at the moment. It’s enough to give you headlines and give the market a fright but it’s not enough to actually change policy in terms of going in and expecting the price to rise dramatically,” Justin Urquhart Stewart, director at Seven Investm..

Kuwait – Bill seeks to regulate flying drone industry

FedEx, Walgreens team with Wing for drone delivery test

FedEx, Walgreens team with Wing for drone delivery test
By Glenn CHAPMAN
San Francisco (AFP) Sept 19, 2019

Drone deliveries are coming soon, at least for one Virginia community, as part of a pilot project announced Thursday by Wing, the unit spun out of a “moonshot” lab at Google parent Alphabet.

The drone service to launch in October in Christiansburg, Virginia, will be the most advanced real-world test of the technology to quickly fly items ranging from Gummy Bears to painkillers to customers, Wing chief executive James Burgess said Thursday.

“By delivering small packages directly to homes through the air in minutes, and making a wide range of medicine, food and other products available to customers, we will demonstrate what we expect safer, faster, cleaner local delivery to look like in the future,” Burgess said.

Joining the pilot project will be delivery giant FedEx, retail and pharmacy outlet Walgreens and local ice cream and gifts retailer Sugar Magnolia.

The Wing pro..

How hi-tech sensors on buildings, cars and in the sky could help keep Toronto’s air clean

TorontoHow hi-tech sensors on buildings, cars and in the sky could help keep Toronto's air cleanAcademics and industry came together at the University of Toronto this week to talk about better ways to monitor air quality and odours. Conference at U of T showcases the next generation of air quality monitoring The city of Toronto's public health officials say air pollution contributes to the deaths of of about 1,300 people annually. (Ramna Shahzad/CBC)High tech “super sniffers” using next-generation sensing technology and high-powered data crunching could help Toronto track down sources of odour and pollution, according to experts at a conference on air quality this week.
Some of the new systems were on display at the third annual Air & Odour Management Conference and Technology Showcase held at Hart House at the University of Toronto.
Recent U of T grad Omid Youssefi is a research and development engineer at Scentroid, a company that specializes in the manufacturing of odour..