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The Best Inexpensive Drones For Beginners

You’d like to get into the drone sensation, but you don’t want to break the bank to do it. Don’t worry: there are plenty of options in the $100–300 range that include everything you need.

Before we continue: the term “drone” is a misnomer, since it technically describes something that can navigate on its own, not simply a remote control device. But then again, some of the more advanced models available—even a few on this list!—can indeed fly on their own, returning to their operator if a signal is lost, performing some pre-programmed tricks, or even avoid obstacles. So perhaps a persnickety terminology gripe is unwarranted, but we always want to ensure our readers are well informed and end up with a product that meets their expectations.

We’ve selected the best all-around drone for beginners, a cheap and durable one for kids, a drone that folds up for easy travel, one that’s ideal if you want to get into the exciting drone racing scene, and an upgrade model if you’re ready to spend a little more for advanced features.

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Japan eager to be on board vertical-takeoff ‘flying cars’

Electric drones booked through smartphones pick people up from office rooftops, shortening travel time by hours, reducing the need for parking and clearing smog from the air.

This vision of the future is driving the Japanese government’s “flying car” project. Major carrier All Nippon Airways, electronics company NEC Corp. and more than a dozen other companies and academic experts hope to have a road map for the plan ready by the year’s end.

“This is such a totally new sector Japan has a good chance for not falling behind,” said Fumiaki Ebihara, the government official in charge of the project.

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SpaceX launches heavy telecom satellite, sticks high-seas landing

ICYMI overnight: A little more than an hour after its launch window opened—the delay was due to remnant thunderstorms in the area—#SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched from Florida early on Monday morning. The rocket’s first stage made a flawless flight, and then descended to a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean and safely landed.


The company has now flown 16 missions this year.

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DARPA’s New Brain Chip Enables Telepathic Control of Drone Swarms

The US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has created a brain-computer interface that enables a person to control everything from a swarm of drones to an advanced fighter jet using nothing but their thoughts and a special brain chip.

Life imitates art, in defense tech no less than in society. In the 1982 techno-thriller film “Firefox,” Clint Eastwood steals a fictional Soviet fighter jet called the “MiG-31 Firefox,” a Mach 6-capable stealth fighter he piloted with his thoughts. But now in 2018, the US military has gone even further: you can control a whole group of drones or fighter jets with your thoughts.

A F-22 Raptor fighter jet of the 95th Fighter Squadron from Tyndall, Florida approaches a KC-135 Stratotanker from the 100th Air Refueling Wing at the Royal Air Force Base in Mildenhall in Britain as they fly over the Baltic Sea towards the newly established NATO airbase of Aemari, Estonia September 4, 2015.

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