With a 236-foot wingspan thatβs wider than a 747βs, the battery and solar-powered Skydweller Aero drone is pushing the boundaries of aviation. And, after back-to-back three-day flights without recharging, itβs pushing the boundaries of energy efficiency, too, begging the question: is perpetual aviation really here?
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Like manual transmission shifting, the ability back a tow hitch under a trailer coupler seems to be a skill that younger generations have given up on β but that doesnβt mean they donβt want to haul their bikes, boats, or RVs out into the wilderness. Now, a new patent reveals GMβs plans to make hooking a trailer to your vehicle even easier, with a drone.
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Autonomous sidewalk delivery provider Serve Robotics has partnered with on-demand drone delivery provider Wing Aviation to pilot food transportation options that will βredefine last-mile delivery.β Together, the new partners will start testing autonomous robot-to-drone deliveries to customers several miles away.
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Danish renewables giant Γrsted is deploying heavy-lift cargo drones for the first time in an operational campaign at a Dutch offshore wind farm.
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E-bikes are my main form of transportation, and so the right gear can make a big impact on my rides. While I normally review e-bikes themselves, in this series weβre exploring some of the helpful tools, gear, and other devices that can help make living a car-free life easier, more convenient, or just more fun! And the HoverAir X1 folding drone has proven to be an incredible camera for my rides, fitting squarely into the βfun and conventientβ category.
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Γrsted says itβs now the worldβs first offshore wind company to use autonomous giant drones to transport cargo to turbines.
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A drone may be delivering your next vitamin or supplement order. Leading global health and wellness company GNC is joining forces with Zipline to offer fully electric drone delivery in select markets in the US starting this summer.
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Say goodbye to delivery delays due to traffic and weather. California-based startup Zipline is revolutionizing how we receive goods with its ultra-precise electric autonomous delivery drones called Zips.
The companyβs latest P2 electric drones are designed for fast, practically silent, precise autonomous home delivery that looks like they are straight out of a Disney movie.
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In Teslaβs latest video, a drone tours the companyβs latest Gigafactory in Berlin, Germany. High-speed drone videos are nothing new, but the video the skilled pilot captured (in tandem with equally adept video editing) is impressive and gives us a look at the robots and tools the company uses to produce its electric vehicles.
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The flying taxi company Kitty Hawk last night launched βCoraβ, a Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) personal airplane/helicopter drone hybrid that will carry a passenger. Kitty Hawk is funded by Google co-founder Larry Page and CEO-ed by Sebastian Thrun, the self-driving car pioneer who is the founding director of Googleβs X lab.
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Facebookβs (soon to be) solar-powered, wifi serving, laser mesh network drone, the Aquila, is retiring to the V&A β the worldβs leading museum of art and design β in London.
The plane has completed two successful test flights, one each in 2016 and 2017. Facebookβs goal is to create a broad network of technology to deliver internet connectivity to the 1.6 billion on earth without access.
Researchers testing cutting-edge unmanned aerial vehicle technology went to the 24 hours a day sunlight of Greenland to power βperpetualβ solar drone flights.
The main goal of the project from the manufacturerβs perspective was to find a practical application of a solar-powered drone that could fly indefinitely, as thereβd been few real-world uses. To partial success, the group tested the βFirst-ever solar-powered flight in the Arcticβ on June 20th.
Tesla has now over 14,000 employees, but back in 2005, the automaker was employing less than one hundred workers and Dan Adams was one of them. Adams joined Tesla as a Senior Mechanical Engineer in 2005 and had a 10-year career at the company, making him one of the most senior engineers at the 12 year old βstartupβ.
We now learn that Adams recently left Tesla to join Skydio, a drone startup in stealth mode, which announced the closing of a $25 million financing round this week.
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Rinspeed announced that it will debut a plug-in hybrid sport car at CES next month. The company says the car, called βΖ©tosβ, is based on the BMW i8 and comes with drone.
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A new video posted to Youtube today gives us the closest and most recent look at Teslaβs Gigafactory. We get a good view of the exterior work Tesla has been doing on the battery factory, but we also recently wrote about Tesla acquiring several permits for multi-million dollar interior construction work, which gives us a good idea of the progress on this $5 billion project.
See the video below the break:
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