Aviation history was made off the coast of Norway recently as a Camcopter S-100 drone rotorcraft delivered a 3D-printed part to an oil rig after a 100-km (55-nm, 62-mi) flight over the North Sea, potentially opening up a path towards safer, cheaper and lower-emissions servicing of these massive off-shore operations. To service these platforms, the oil companies operate the world’s […]

Drones may be seeing increased use by police forces, but the things are still limited by relatively short flight times, and the need for certified operators. Public safety tech company Axon has set out to address the problem, by leveraging the existing Fotokite tethered drone. Designed by Russian roboticist Sergei Lupashin, it’s essentially an electric quadcopter on a long, reeled […]

Functional batteries that incorporate lithium metal into the anode could herald a huge breakthrough in energy research, with the material promising incredibly high energy density compared to the copper and graphite used today. Scientists at Pennsylvania State University are putting forward a new solution to one of the key problems plaguing the technology so far, demonstrating a self-assembling layer that […]

While autonomous drones are now pretty good at avoiding large obstacles, thin suspended power lines can still pose a challenge. A new onboard sensing system, however, could change that. Currently, drones use radar and/or optical sensors to detect power lines. Not only are these technologies sometimes unreliable, but the sensors themselves tend to be large, expensive and energy-hungry. Seeking an […]

When seeing an underwater drone for the first time, some people say “That would make a great fish-finder!”. The problem is, the device’s surface-located user can’t always tell where the drone is, relative to themselves. That’s where the Chasing F1 Fish Finder Drone comes in. The gadget was created by Chinese company Chasing Innovation, which also manufactures the Gladius Mini, […]

There are a lot of issues in Apple’s supply chain in terms of environmental impact (among other things…) — and the tech giant is addressing a few of them in a new report. Most interestingly, Apple is working on a new “carbon-free aluminum” for its devices, which the company claims is the first-ever. Last week, Apple published a blog post outlining […]

There are now several robots that are designed to accompany and assist ground-based army troops. Those machines could soon have a new ability – detecting changes in the environment that may be missed by soldiers. When weapons such as IEDs (improvised explosive devices) are hidden along the roadside, they do visually change the environment, but in a manner which is […]

Researchers at Donghua University in China have developed a new type of fabric they claim can keep the wearer much cooler. The material is made from several different polymers in a relatively simple way, and can efficiently transfer heat and wick away sweat, while remaining water repellent from the outside. The material is composed of three main components: polyurethane, which […]

More and more, we’re hearing about scaffolding-like materials that are used to help heal bone injuries. A new one is claimed to be particularly versatile, as it’s inspired by Lego building blocks. Typically made of biocompatible polymers, so-called bioscaffolding is usually either 3D-printed in one solid piece, or injected in the form of a gel that sets into a solid. […]

While it might seem like the internet is leaving a detailed record of history, the world’s knowledge is all surprisingly vulnerable to being lost in a disaster. To help keep a backup, GitHub has now archived 21 TB of public open source data and buried it in a vault in the Arctic designed to preserve it for a thousand years. […]