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Category: drones – Page 167

It’s not a fighter jet, it’s a Warthog (A-10), obviously.

Assuming this footage is real, that probably means it’s some kind of experimental ground attack drone. Also, I’ve read that there have been a few warthogs converted into drones themselves, so maybe it’s some sort of drone integration trials or something.

Or it’s aliens.

wink

Excited UFO hunters claim to have spotted fighter jets chasing an ‘alien ship’ — but then deciding not to shoot.

Naturally, the seasoned alien-spotters at UFO Sightings Daily claim this is proof that Earth’s military know not to mess with alien craft.

The incident, at Nova Zagora in Bulgaria, was shared by local site Portal12 — and shows a series of stills captured over the villages of Gaz and Zagortci.

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Amazon’s plans to create a fleet of automated drones to deliver packages straight to customers’ doorsteps are widely known. But now the company is addressing concerns about noise pollution, collisions and even people who might try and shoot drones down.

In an interview with Yahoo News, Amazon Vice President of Global Affairs Paul Misener explained that the company is trying to implement a high-tech delivery system to get small packages to customers in 30 minutes or less – a far shorter period than a driver navigating a system of roads would require.

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Davos, US military branches, Time Magazine, etc. are all talking about the Robotic Battlefield.

Automated systems have already reshaped modern warfare, most notably with the widespread use of drones in conflict. Now, experts predict that advances in artificial intelligence could further change how we fight battles.

The new frontiers of warfare are not without ethical questions. Many have already challenged whether the United States should use unmanned drones to kill terrorists.

In this poll ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos, TIME asks key questions about how readers think artificial intelligence will change warfare. TIME Executive Editor Michael Duffy will present the results in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 21.

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A laser set to begin live-fire tests at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, in January uses rare earth minerals. It was developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of Poway, Calif., the company that produced the revolutionary MQ-1 Predator drone. Its precise power levels are classified, but Michael Perry, the company’s vice president for laser programs, said the experimental weapon’s beam is in the 150-kilowatt class. That’s more than 100 times the power needed to heat an electric oven to 350 degrees.

The General Atomics laser is five times more powerful than the only laser the military has fielded, the 30-kilowatt-class Laser Weapon System, a fiber laser the Navy developed that has knocked down small drones and crippled small boat swarms in tests at short range. That laser was installed on the USS Ponce, an Afloat Forward Staging Base deployed to the Middle East, in 2014. This past October, the Navy awarded Northrop Grumman a $53 million contract to develop a more powerful shipboard laser.

Bulk lasers use slabs or strips of rare earth minerals — ytterbium, for example — as their gain medium. Fiber lasers “gang” fiber-optic cables together as the gain medium.

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Just How Much Did ‘Back to the Future’ Get Right about October 2015? 2:19.

In “Back to the Future Part II,” Marty McFly and Doc Brown travel from 1985 to October 21, 2015, to find a world filled with flying cars, hoverboards and self-drying jackets.

Those predictions didn’t exactly pan out, although people are working on each of those concepts. (Screenwriter Bob Gale did get a lot of things — from drones to fingerprint scanners — right, as he told TODAY earlier this year.)

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Amazon says drones can deliver packages weighing up to 5 pounds within 30 minutes.

“In time, there will be a whole family of Amazon drones,” says narrator Jeremy Clarkson, the former BBC “Top Gear” cohost who is working on a similar show for Amazon. “Different designs for different environments.”

Amazon isn’t alone in the race to create a drone-based delivery service. Alphabet, Google’s new parent company, said earlier this month it would be offering drone deliveries by 2017, and Walmart said in October it had applied for permission to test delivery drones.

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