Free Republic

Tanzania’s government is working with U.S. logistics company Zipline to launch what they call the world’s largest drone delivery service for emergency medical supplies. In the first quarter of 2018, Tanzania’s government will begin using drones to make up to 2,000 deliveries per day to more than 1,000 health facilities, Zipline said in a statement Thursday. The service will be crucial in times of unexpected demand or bad weather and for small but critical orders, said Laurean Bwanakunu, director-general of Tanzania’s national medical stores. Since October 2016, Zipline has been operating a similar drone delivery service in Rwanda for emergency...

A US Air Force MQ-1 Predator drone has crashed in southeast Turkey, the Incirlik Air Base has confirmed. This is the second drone crash in four days involving Predators flown from the joint US-Turkish base near the Syrian border. Monday’s crash happened around 11:50 am local time (0850 GMT), the 39th Air Base Wing said in a statement. No further information about the incident was made available. Another Predator crashed shortly after taking off from Incirlik on Thursday evening, ending up in a field near the city of Adana. That drone was retrieved by US and Turkish officials, the 39th...

The US decision to sell 22 Sea Guardian drones to India at an estimated cost of $2 billion will create around 2,000 jobs in the US and “cement” bilateral ties, an American executive involved in the deal has said. “This should be viewed as a significant step in cementing the US-India bilateral defence relationship,” Vivek Lall, chief executive US and international strategic development, General Atomics, told the Atlantic Council on Friday. Lall echoed Senator John Cornyn, Co-Chair of the Senate India Caucus, who tweeted, “Drone Sale Would Cement US-India Ties.” The announcement in this regard was made by Trump in...

Military drones such as the U.S. Predator and Reaper have soared above battlefields for more than a decade. But small consumer drones that anyone can buy online have also begun to make their presence felt in modern battlefields. The militant group Islamic State has begun turning such small drones into flying bombs in their battles across Syria and Iraq. Islamic State has used ordinary camera-carrying drones for surveillance and to film their suicide car bomb attacks for years. But the militants have more recently begun weaponizing the small drones by packing them with explosives, according to the New York Times....

The laser, known as the Laser Weapons System (LaWS), may seem as though it were pulled straight from a James Bond movie, but it's entirely functional and can shoot with stunning accuracy, the U.S. Navy told CNN. The LaWS is currently deployed aboard the USS Ponce, an amphibious transport ship, in the Persian Gulf. "Operationally, it works just like a laser pointer," Lt. Cale Hughes, a LaWS officer, told CNN. "There's a chamber inside with special materials that release photons." ... The $40 million system requires a team of three to operate it and a small generator to power its...

WASHINGTON – It used to be that firefighters’ biggest worries in a wildfire might be unpredictable winds, rocky terrain and scorching heat. That was before the advent of affordable, readily available aerial drones. Firefighters battling the Goodwin Fire in central Arizona had to suspend operations twice in one week after drones flew into airspace over the blaze, incursions that one official called “extremely unusual” but which he fears is the beginning of a “very disturbing trend.” Drone incursions into airspace that is restricted to helicopters and fixed-wing airplanes, which drop water and fire-retardant chemicals, forces them to be grounded to...

One of the drone companies whose representatives met with President Donald Trump at the White House last week is optimistic that regulations will be created that will help the drone industry take off in the United States. Measure CEO and co-founder Brandon Torres Declet joined CEOs of large corporations and startups at the White House on June 22 in what the company characterized as an open and constructive conversation about drones and the future of the industry. Leaders from AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile also took part in the meetings last week. The drone industry is in that peculiar position...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wants drones regulated, and she wants them regulated now. And, along with strong bi-partisan support, the goal is to have them primarily regulated at the state and local level. It won’t happen in Washington. A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled last month the Federal Aviation Authority lacks authority to regulate drone use by hobbyists or to require they register their drones in a national database, and legislation the senator introduced to regulate drones in the last Congress went nowhere. So she has opted for another approach. She has joined forces with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.,...

The best medicine for a person who goes into sudden cardiac arrest is an electric shock. That jolt temporarily stops the heart, along with its rapid or erratic beat. When the heart starts itself up again, it can revert to its normal rhythm and resume pumping blood to the brain and the rest of the body. The sooner this happens, the better.

In Urgent Request, US Special Ops Adds 350 Kamikaze Drones to Fight ISIS And that's not all. The command is also opening a drone-hacker lab to help keep up with ISIS weaponeers. TAMPA, Florida — Here’s how Mad Max the situation in Iraq is right now. Earlier this year, the military put out an urgent request for inexpensive kamikaze drones that special operations troops could fire from handheld bazooka-like launchers against ISIS, according to documents obtained by Defense One. It’s another sign that drone warfare is changing far faster than traditional military equipping can keep up, a fact reinforced this...

Twenty-five-year-old Blake Oliver saw an opportunity last year and took advantage of it. The young St. Albans resident is simply doing things the old-fashioned, American way — finding a niche to build his own business and earn a living. Instead of struggling to find a job from an established company, Oliver created his own. History has shown that in many cases, its companies like this — a small family firm where smart people see an opportunity and go for it — that become the big employers of the future. As business reporter Max Garland described in the Sunday Gazette-Mail, Oliver,...

THE US has mobilised a fleet of missile capable drones to blitz North Korea amid warnings it is running out of bombs to hit ISIS. The Grey Eagle drones are designed to carry Hellfire missiles and have reportedly been deployed in South Korea as war looms with the North after Kim Jong-un's third missile test fire this month. US Air Force is deploying a massive drone air armada to carry out strikes deep in North Korea territory.

Chinese drone maker DJI is offering up to one million yuan (£112,000) for information about drones that disrupted scores of flights at a Chinese airport. On four days this month - 14, 17, 18 and 21 - drones were blamed for stranding thousands of passengers at Chengdu Shuangliu International. Chinese reports said they caused 60 flight interruptions on 21 April alone. The bounty was a sign that the firm was taking the potential impact on its reputation seriously, suggested Prof David Dunn at the University of Birmingham. "Clearly they're concerned about their brand image, given how much they dominate the...

A Patriot missile intercepted a Syrian drone that entered Israeli airspace on Thursday evening, the army said. According to the IDF, the missile successfully downed the unmanned aerial vehicle over the Golan Heights. “The IDF will not allow any breach of Israel’s airspace and will act against any attempt of infiltration,” the army said in a statement. According to the IDF, the Syrian UAV was under “full [Israeli Air Force] surveillance” while it was in Israeli airspace. It was not initially clear if the aircraft was Russian or Syrian, but the army later confirmed that it was Syrian. The army...

A rare sighting in the animal kingdom continues to mesmerize marine biologists and whale watchers in the Monterey Bay. For the fourth day in a row, whale watchers on Sunday spotted an abnormally large pod of killer whales feasting on the carcasses of two gray whales, according to Nancy Black from Monterey Bay Whale Watch. Killer whales are famous for their violent attacks and relentless feeding practices, but to see this type of behavior and this amount of mammal-eating creatures just off the coast of Monterey is "pretty rare," Black said. "This won't happen everyday," she said. The first gray...

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Thousands of new jobs are coming to every industry in Florida and it's all because of drones. “I can have fun and I can get paid wooh!” Shawn Morse typically gets that reaction when he sells drones to customers from his TB Drones and Hobby Store on Ulmerton Road. St. Petersburg College professors typically get that reaction too when they introduce students to careers with drones. Nearly every industry from emergency workers to realtors are turning to the high flying contraptions. “The industry is just going to blow up,” explained Program Coordinator Fred Tucker, who coordinates the...

Barack Obama‘s CIA Director John O. Brennan targeted Trump supporters for enhanced surveillance, intelligence sources confirm to GotNews’ Charles C. Johnson. The surveillance took place between Trump’s election on November 8 and the inauguration in January, according to White House and House intelligence sources. The focus was on General Mike Flynn, billionaire Erik Prince, and Fox News host Sean Hannity — all of whom had close ties to Trump before and after the November election and had helped the future president with managing his new diplomatic responsibilities. Hannity was targeted because of his perceived ties to Julian Assange, say our...

Neighbors in Hurst are now pushing back after a police drone hovered over a resident's backyard without warning. Bobbie Sanchez said the feeling of privacy disappeared when her child said "Mommy there's a drone over our roof." Sanchez said it was hovering long enough for her to take photos and then call for help. "They're watching my children play in the backyard," said Sanchez. "I called the Hurst Police Department and was pretty surprised to hear that it was them." Hurst police and fire started using drones earlier this year. They said the day they were over Sanchez's yard was...

The United States has started to deploy attack drones to South Korea, a U.S. military spokesman said on Monday, days after it began to deploy an advanced anti-missile system to counter "continued provocative actions" by isolated North Korea. The drones, Gray Eagle Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) coming to South Korea are part of a broader plan to deploy a company of the attack drones with every division in the U.S. Army, the spokesman said. "The UAS adds significant intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability to U.S. Forces Korea and our ROK partners," United States Forces Korea spokesman Christopher Bush said in...

UPS tested out home delivery via drone this week in Florida, moving closer toward a more automated delivery process. The drone took off from the roof of a modified delivery truck, equipped with a high-tech docking bay, then dropped off package before returning. The company does not have a timeline for when drones would be put into wider use, according to Reuters. UPS said the drone deliveries could help drivers in more rural, spread-out areas....