Free Republic

Climate change is a sprawling, complex problem. But there is an astonishingly simple way to make a difference: plant more trees. Trees scrub pollution from the air, reduce erosion, improve water quality, provide homes for animals and insects, and enhance our lives in countless other ways. It turns out that ecosystem restoration is also an emerging business opportunity. A new report from the World Resources Institute and the Nature Conservancy says governments around the world have committed to reviving nearly 400 million acres of wilderness — an area larger than South Africa. As countries push to regrow forests, startups are dreaming up...

Two teenage boys, struggling to make their way back to shore, were saved by a drone in Australia on Wednesday, in what officials say is a first-of-its-kind rescue mission by an unmanned aircraft — one captured by the drone's camera and later broadcast by Arab News and other outlets. A beachgoer caught a glimpse of the distressed swimmers, 15 and 17, who were fighting dangerous waves off Australia's Far North Coast in New South Wales. He alerted lifeguards, who happened to be in the middle of a drone training session, learning how the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) work. Lifeguard supervisor...

Over a career that has taken him to Afghanistan and Iraq, Col. Patrick Duggan has seen the lethal power of drones. Now, as a base commander in the nation’s capital, he is worried that frequent illegal flights buzzing over Washington could pose a threat. In the middle of a federal no-fly zone for drones, in some of the most sensitive and restricted airspace in the United States, technicians working with Duggan recorded nearly 100 drone sightings over two months last summer. And that was just around two Army posts he oversees. Many of the operators were probably oblivious to the...

Boeing today unveiled a giant drone that’s capable of lifting a 500 pound payload. Calling it an “unmanned electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) cargo air vehicle (CAV) prototype,” the aerospace giant said it could serve as a precursor for future autonomous flying aircraft. The heavy-duty drone took Boeing’s engineers only three months to design and build, the company says. It successfully completed initial flight tests at Boeing’s research lab in Missouri. “This flying cargo air vehicle represents another major step in our Boeing eVTOL strategy,” said Boeing chief technology officer Greg Hyslop in a statement. “We have an opportunity to really change...

A series of mysterious attacks against the main Russian military base in Syria, including one conducted by a swarm of armed miniature drones, has exposed Russia’s continued vulnerability in the country despite recent claims of victory by President Vladimir Putin. The attacks have also spurred a flurry of questions over who may be responsible for what amounts to the biggest military challenge yet to Russia’s role in Syria, just when Moscow is seeking to wind its presence down. In the most recent and unusual of the attacks, more than a dozen armed drones descended from an unknown location onto Russia’s...

[By Self] Surgical operations with these little guys! Fascinating!

After less than eight months of development, the algorithms are helping intel analysts exploit drone video over the battlefield. Earlier this month at an undisclosed location in the Middle East, computers using special algorithms helped intelligence analysts identify objects in a video feed from a small ScanEagle drone over the battlefield. A few days into the trials, the computer identified objects — people, cars, types of building — correctly about 60 percent of the time. Just over a week on the job — and a handful of on-the-fly software updates later — the machine’s accuracy improved to around 80 percent....

I know this proposal will be met with strong opposition, but it is my firm belief that the 108-year old 'War on Drugs' needs to come to an end. It has turned into a decades-long war on millions of our young people. It would be replaced with FDA-supervised quality control systems for supplies of comparatively safe recreational drug forms, probably reducing the number of overdose deaths by over 98% (~50,000/year -> ~1,000/year). Manufacturers, distributors, retailers and customers would have to get DEA licenses. There would be three forms of customer DEA licenses: casual user, habitual cocaine user and habitual opiate...

The 3-1 vote was met by jeers from dozens of people who crowded the Police Commission’s meeting room, many of whom repeatedly urged the civilian oversight panel to reject the proposal. “Shame on you!” some shouted. “Shame on you!” That frustration spilled outside the LAPD’s downtown headquarters as protesters settled in the middle of 1st and Main streets, chanting and holding signs as they denounced the decision. Officers ultimately led four people away in handcuffs. Drones have been hailed by law enforcement across the country as a valuable technology that could help find missing hikers or monitor armed suspects without...

The first confirmed mid-air collision involving a U.S. drone. Helicopter pilots flying over cities have to be extra cautious, as the pilot of this UH-60 (photographed over New York in 2014) undoubtedly was. (Maine Army National Guard) History was made and prophecies fulfilled last week when a quadcopter collided with a UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter over Staten Island in New York. According to the FAA, the event represents the first confirmed inflight collision between a drone and a piloted aircraft in the United States, although there have been other unconfirmed reports. The Black Hawk, which carried a crew of four,...

Predator C Avenger Drone (Image: General Atomics) India has plans to buy 100 jet propelled Avenger predator drones from the US costing an estimated $8 billion for the Indian Air Force (IAF). Besides joint projects under the bilateral Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI), in her first major engagement with a foreign counterpart, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman talks on September 26 with the US officials will focus on India-US defence cooperation, maritime security, avenger predator drones, counter-terrorism and other major issues of mutual concern, the sources added. Issues related to American defence companies seeking guarantees of retaining control of propriety...

**full title** *snip*Facebook aims to use a mix of solar-powered aircraft and low-orbit satellites to beam signals carrying the internet to hard-to-reach locations. The drones, flying at 65,000ft (19,800 metres), will be capable of staying in the air for months. Facebook reveals it has created an AI digital map showing where EVERY human on the planet lives Facebook has created a map showing where every single person on the planet lives, it has been revealed. The internet giant hopes the map will help it to offer internet access to more people by creating an 'internet in the sky'. The mapping...

MONTREAL (Reuters) - The United Nations’ aviation agency is backing the creation of a single global drone registry,

TOULON, France --- France has decided to arm its surveillance drones in West Africa as part of counter-terrorism operations against Islamist militants, Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Tuesday. French President Emmanuel Macron has made fighting Islamist militants his primary foreign policy objective and the move to armed drones fits into a more aggressive policy at a time when it looks increasingly unlikely Paris will be able to withdraw from the region in the medium to long-term. France has six Reapers France currently has five unarmed Reaper reconnaissance drones positioned in Niger's capital Niamey to support its 4,000-strong Barkhane counter-terrorism...

“The light passed about 100-200ft above their aircraft. They assumed it to be a drone and reported it to air traffic control. There was no time to take avoiding action,” said the report on the incident, which happened on May 26. ... In 2013 another A320 also had a narrow miss with an unidentified object over Glasgow. The A320 was flying with its landing lights on, in clear conditions and at an altitude of about 4,000ft above the Baillieston area of Glasgow, when the pilot and non-flying pilot saw an object “loom ahead” at a range of about 100m. The...

Caked in mud and covered with bug bites, a shivering group of six friends from the Quad-Cities huddled together in the dark this past Sunday, stranded in the woods of northeast Iowa.

Reports of satellite navigation problems in the Black Sea suggest that Russia may be testing a new system for spoofing GPS . On 22 June, the US Maritime Administration filed a seemingly bland incident report. The master of a ship off the Russian port of Novorossiysk had discovered his GPS put him in the wrong spot – more than 32 kilometres inland, at Gelendzhik Airport. After checking the navigation equipment was working properly, the captain contacted other nearby ships. Their AIS traces – signals from the automatic identification system used to track vessels – placed them all at the same...

The 2-foot-tall drone carried drugs worth about $46,000 into San DiegoAfter a drone carrying bags of methamphetamine landed in San Diego, a man was arrested for allegedly smuggling drugs nearby. The drugs were worth about $46,000 and weighed over 13 pounds, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). On Aug. 8, the agent spotted the remote-controlled drone flying over the U.S.-Mexico border around 11:25 p.m. Other agents in the area were immediately placed on the lookout for the drone, said CBP officials. “Due to the agents’ heightened vigilance, this drone smuggling scheme was stopped before these dangerous narcotics could...

The world's best-selling drone-maker is adding a privacy mode to its aircraft to prevent flight data being shared to the internet. The announcement comes a fortnight after it emerged that the US Army had prohibited its troops from using the Chinese firm's equipment because of unspecified cyber-security concerns. DJI told the BBC that it had already been working on the new facility, but had speeded up development after the ban. The mode should be launched next month. DJI previously faced security fears in 2016 after a member of its staff told reporters that the firm had repeatedly shared customer data...

An Iranian drone nearly collided with a U.S. Navy F-18 Super Hornet while the American jet was in a holding pattern, a U.S. defense official told Fox News on Tuesday. The jet was about to land aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, which recently arrived in the Persian Gulf, according to the report. The incident marked the first time an Iranian drone has “interrupted a flight pattern,” the official told Fox News. The F-18 “maneuvered to avoid collision,” said the official, who described the unarmed Iranian drone as a Qom-1, and added that the encounter was “unsafe and unprofessional…and dangerous.”...