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Drone-like taxi whizzes over Singapore, firm eyes Asian push

A drone-like flying taxi whirred over Singapore’s waterfront Tuesday, with the firm behind the test hoping the aircraft will revolutionize travel in traffic-choked Asian cities.

The 18 propeller vehicle, developed by German firm Volocopter and with a pilot onboard for safety during the test flight, took off from a promontory and flew for about two minutes and 30 seconds around the Marina Bay district.

Heavy rains in the morning almost delayed the flight, but the skies cleared in time for the battery-operated, two-seater taxi to quietly fly past skyscrapers.

Using Drones to Plant 20,000,000 Trees

Join #TeamTrees at https://teamtrees.org/
Create your own personal website at https://wix.com/go/MarkRober

ALSO, see how I make all my builds using Wix: https://markroberbuildinstructions.com

Thanks to my friends at Discovery Channel for helping us find Arbor Day in the first place and then capturing all the footage for my video. They are absolute champions to work with I’ve got some really cool projects coming up soon.

Learn more about my smart friends at DroneSeed- https://www.droneseed.co/

Thanks to www.carlyletools.com for giving my workbench tools a seriously needed upgrade!

The Drones Are Coming! How Amazon, Alphabet and Uber Are Taking to the Skies

Flying robots that deliver packages to people’s doorsteps are no longer science fiction. Companies including Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Wing and Uber Technologies Inc. are starting the most advanced trials of drone delivery in U.S. history.

While commercial drone delivery faces many hurdles, government-approved tests by the tech giants will mark the first time consumers in parts of the country experience the technology. Wing this month started tests in Christiansburg, Va., while Uber says it will experiment in San Diego…

To Read the Full Story.

Alphabet’s Makani Tests Wind Energy Kites In The North Sea IEEE Spectrum

The idea is simple: Send kites or tethered drones hundreds of meters up in the sky to generate electricity from the persistent winds aloft. With such technologies, it might even be possible to produce wind energy around the clock. However, the engineering required to realize this vision is still very much a work in progress.

Dozens of companies and researchers devoted to developing technologies that produce wind power while adrift high in the sky gathered at a conference in Glasgow, Scotland last week. They presented studies, experiments, field tests, and simulations describing the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of various technologies collectively described as airborne wind energy (AWE).

In August, Alameda, Calif.-based Makani Technologies ran demonstration flights of its airborne wind turbines—which the company calls energy kites—in the North Sea, some 10 kilometers off the coast of Norway. According to Makani CEO Fort Felker, the North Sea tests consisted of a launch and “landing” test for the flyer followed by a flight test, in which the kite stayed aloft for an hour in “robust crosswind(s).” The flights were the first offshore tests of the company’s kite-and-buoy setup. The company has, however, been conducting onshore flights of various incarnations of their energy kites in California and Hawaii.

US Air Force gets its first anti-drone laser weapon from Raytheon

Raytheon has delivered the first anti-drone buggy to the US Air Force, just over year after it introduced the technology. It’s a high-energy laser system mounted on a small all-terrain vehicle, to be specific, which uses electro-optical/infrared sensors to detect and track drones. After it identifies and tracks the unwelcome flying device, it then neutralizes it with its laser in a process that takes a few seconds.

Volocopter takes to Singapore sky, but can air taxis take off?

The air taxi’s maker, German aviation start-up Volocopter, has previously conducted public demonstration flights in Germany, Dubai and Finland.

“[This] is an important milestone for the introduction of urban air mobility, simply because we give people the image in their mind and the opportunity to see how the vehicle behaves in the air, and how quiet it is in full flight,” Volocopter CEO Florian Reuter told Al Jazeera after the test run.

Volocopter is one of several companies developing a drone equivalent to traditional helicopters, and proponents say electrically powered air taxis offer a safer, quieter, emissions-free alternative.

Man Uses His Heat-Seeking Drone to Find Missing Child

Search and Rescue

This isn’t the first time a drone has proven invaluable in a search-and-rescue operation — we’ve seen others help save stranded swimmers, earthquake victims, and lost hikers.

While many of the drones used for those missions were designed for rescue purposes, in this instance, the drone’s owner, Steve Fines, typically used it to shoot photography — but when he heard Ethan was lost, he knew he had to do what he could to help find the boy.

UPS Strikes Agreements to Use Drones to Deliver Medical Supplies

United Parcel Service Inc. is striking a series of drone-delivery agreements with health-care groups as it develops new technology pitched to the growing medical market.

The plans include expanding the use of drones to deliver cargo such as medical samples and supplies on hospital campuses in Utah and elsewhere, and an agreement with CVS Health Corp. to evaluate the use of drones for home delivery of prescriptions and other products, UPS said Monday.

The agreements are the first UPS has announced since the package delivery giant won U.S. regulatory approval to operate commercial drone flights through the company’s Flight Forward subsidiary. The nod from the Federal Aviation Administration paves the way for UPS to scale up operations as it competes with FedEx Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and others vying to develop drone delivery services in the U.S.

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