The drones are coming. Soon, they’re going to be delivering our packages, our medical supplies, taking our photos, walking our dogs, and potentially end up being as ubiquitous as the smartphone. And while all that is certainly exciting, it also creates a ton of regulatory concerns about integrating drones into the national airspace.
If Amazon is going to deliver your DVDs, diapers, Oreos and tablets by drone in the near future, the US government is going to need to see it first.
As the series of seemingly coordinated shootings and explosions unfolds in Paris, Facebook has launched a tool to let those who are in the city alert friends and family members that they are safe through its 1.5-billion-strong network.
Many people—and car companies—seem to think that self-driving cars are the future of safe transport. If connected supercomputers can see all and react faster than humans in any situation, then in the future, we’ll be able to sit back and relax on our morning commutes. But we’re not quite there yet: Yesterday (Nov. 12), it was revealed that one of Google’s self-driving cars was pulled over in the company’s hometown of Mountain View, California. Its crime: driving too slowly.
Although Manchester United is currently lingering in fourth place in the Premier League, the club might be about to seal a title that no other soccer club has attained. According to the BBC, United’s earnings were up over 39% for the quarter over last year, and the club announced that it expects revenue for the year to be between £500 and £510 million ($760-$775 million). No other soccer club has had revenue greater than $760 million in a single year before.
Abundance and variety are great qualities in a store—unless you’re looking for something specific. And after a fruitless search through countless aisles, it’s not unusual to give in and ask for help, only to hear: “Oh I think we have some of those in aisle 12, or maybe we just used to sell those. I forget.”
Almost as if J.J. Abrams read our mind, it seems that in the forthcoming Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, Leia will no longer be referred to as “Princess”—she will be called General.
Smartphones seem to be getting bigger every year. (I currently use an iPhone 6S Plus, which is roughly the same size as Belgium.) As these devices get bigger, they become harder to carry around. But one Chinese smartphone company, called OnePlus, wants to buck the trend with its newest phone, the OnePlus X. And unlike many Android phones on the market, it actually looks pretty great.
Some people can tell how others are feeling just by looking at them; now Microsoft is trying to give computers that same ability. The company launched a new website today (Nov. 11) that uses facial recognition and artificial intelligence to try to determine the emotions of people in photos, and it wants developers to use the technology in their apps.
The holiday season is quickly approaching, and one of the most sought-after gifts is loved by celebrities and athletes alike, happens to be illegal to use in some countries—and catches fire on occasion. The hoverboard is everywhere right now, and Quartz has complied a guide to help you understand just what all the fuss is about.
There are so many precious moments in a newborn’s life that parents love to capture on film: The first time their child sits up on her own, the first time she stands, her first cautious steps. Igor Mordatch, a robotics post-doctorate student at the University of California, Berkeley, has been doing similarly for a humanoid robot, called Darwin, which he programed to learn just like a human child might.
Forty years after it was first released, Betamax is finally going to be discontinued. Sony, who developed the technology back in the 1970s, announced today (Nov. 10) that it plans to stop manufacturing the cassette format in March 2016. So stock up now.
Sometimes, being an early adopter can have its downsides. First-generation products can be buggy, or overly expensive. Sometimes, they can also explode.
Swiss precision now supports Bluetooth.
A long time ago, on a TV channel far, far up in the listings, a theatrical trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens film was released in the US.
What’s cooler than $50 million? $1 billion.
To test out its new wireless MW60 headphones, Master & Dynamic thought it would be a good idea to take a group of reporters up in helicopters for a ride around New York City. Although the headphones aren’t noise-canceling—they’re “noise-isolating”—CEO Jonathan Levine told Quartz he wanted to show off the headphones in dramatic fashion. ”It’s a launch, so we’re launching you,” he said.
By 2017, you’ll be able to drive a 3D-printed car, according to a Nov. 3 announcement by US carmaker Local Motors.
Phones used to just call people. Then we put cameras and the internet in them, and a man in a mock turtleneck created one that revolutionized the way we communicate. You might be surprised to hear it, but we’re near a similar inflection point with drones. Right now, they’re seen either as scary, privacy-invading hovering robots, or cameras with wings of uncertain legality that hobbyists use to take photos. But in the near future, they could become as important to the way we live and work as smartphones have become. What’s missing right now is a developer community making apps that transform drones into new tools that their manufacturers haven’t even imagined. And that might be right round the corner.
On Aug. 24, Facebook for the first time saw 1 billion people access the social network in a single day. Now it’s averaging slightly more than that—1.01 billion users—every day, the company announced with its Nov. 4 quarterly earnings report.
Tesla announced today (Nov. 3) that, in the third quarter, it delivered about as many cars to customers as it did the quarter before, and missed on its revenue target. But in after-hours trading, it seemed that investors were not too concerned: Tesla’s stock price was up about 9% at the time of publishing on the news that Tesla plans to deliver far more electric cars—and batteries—next quarter.
While there will never be enough hours in the day to answer emails, Google’s new artificial intelligence system might be able to get you one step closer to Inbox Zero.
Pretty much as with any other language, learning to code seems to get increasingly difficult the older you are—for every app or startup idea that you’ve had over the years that went unrealized, you may consider starting your children on coding earlier. A new game sets out to do just that: Two little robots called Dash and Dot, from toymaker Wonder Workshop, are designed to teach kids the fundamentals of coding, through play. Just in time for the holidays.
One of the biggest issues preventing drones delivering packages—other than many, many regulations—is figuring out how to make sure they don’t crash into things. But new research out of MIT may have figured out how to turn the dreams of Google, Amazon, and myriad other companies into reality.
