Two start-ups leading the race to build the first self-flying taxis are using money from the US military. Last year, Kitty Hawk and Joby Aviation received a total of nearly $2m from the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), a Pentagon organization founded to help America's military make faster use of emerging technologies. Neither company, nor the DIUx, disclosed the funding at the time. The website for Cora, Kitty Hawk's experimental air taxi, emphasizes its role in solving urban transportation challenges: "Cora is about the time you could save soaring over traffic. The people you could visit.

The General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. drone is scheduled to leave from the Grand Sky park at the Grand Forks Air Force Base Tuesday afternoon. The flight will cover more than 3,000 miles before landing in Gloucestershire, England, where the Royal Air Force is holding its centennial celebration.

Two start-ups leading the race to build the first self-flying taxis are using money from the US military. Last year, Kitty Hawk and Joby Aviation received a total of nearly $2m from the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx), a Pentagon organization founded to help America's military make faster use of emerging technologies. Neither company, nor the DIUx, disclosed the funding at the time. The website for Cora, Kitty Hawk's experimental air taxi, emphasizes its role in solving urban transportation challenges: "Cora is about the time you could save soaring over traffic. The people you could visit.

LuGus Studios, the developers of FPV racing simulator Liftoff, have announced Liftoff Academy, a new simulator for serious drone applications. Kevin Haelterman, CEO at LuGus Studios explains: "With Liftoff, we have built a strong product over the past three years, and what's maybe even more important: a vibrant community. Nonetheless, we also realize that the world of drones is bigger than FPV racing alone. In fact, we regularly see demand for simulations of all kinds of drone technology applications, but it would be hard to shoehorn all that into what is at its core a racing sim. That's why we will continue to support Liftoff, but will also create a space for all these'serious' applications in Liftoff Academy".

Moving stuff by air may be quick and convenient, but it's also horridly expensive, accounting for just 1 percent of global shipping by volume--and 35 percent of it by cost. So while autonomous drones dropping a few pounds of snacks or medical supplies are generating plenty of buzz, two Bulgarian brothers see an opening in the long-haul business. And they think they've got the tech to start flying hundreds of pounds of cargo over hundreds of miles, no pilot or 747 required. Svilen and Konstantin Rangelov are the CEO and chief technology officer, respectively, of Dronamics. They've spent the past four years developing an aircraft that can haul nearly 800 pounds of cargo up to 1,550 miles, a far cry from the 10 or 15 miles, or even just a few blocks, that most drone delivery services are targeting.

Drones have a habit of crashing. If they are ever to be relied on for delivering packages in complex environments like cities, they're going to have to get smarter. A team of researchers from the University of Zurich and Intel has come up with a way for drones to do this – learn to dodge obstacles as they fly. Elia Kaufmann and colleagues wanted to develop drones that could autonomously pilot themselves through hoops or gates used in drone racing.

The drone makes a conspicuous racket as it lifts off on a mission to capture images of the reservoir below. The sight and sound of this strange device stirs interest among locals as they make their way to and from the town of Kasungu in central Malawi. It takes a matter of minutes for a small crowd to form. A few yards away, Patrick Kalonde is wading through grass and mud. Patrick, an intern at Unicef working on humanitarian uses of drones, is carrying a plastic container and a ladle and is looking for mosquito larvae. The contrast between high-tech drones and low-tech "bucket-and-spade" science, metres apart, could not be starker – yet both are equally important to the success of our new project to map where mosquitoes breed. Kasungu, a small town at the base of the picturesque Kasungu Mountain, is the centre of Africa's first humanitarian drone testing corridor. Set up by Unicef in 2017 with support from the Malawi government, the corridor is an 80km-wide area for flying and testing drones to help the local people. Keen to dispel the reputation that drones are only useful for destruction, the Unicef corridor promotes "drones for good".

The ecosystem that's emerged around the collection and analysis of data from drones is growing very quickly, according to a new report issued by DroneDeploy, one of the companies operating in the space. According to DroneDeploy's "2018 Commercial Drone Industry Trends" report, more than 2,000 developers have signed up with the company to offer applications through its App Market, an online marketplace for drone-related software offered by companies such as Esri, Procore, and John Deere. Only about 80 apps are on offer from the App Market today, but the number is growing quickly. According to DroneDeploy, more than 120,000 applications have been downloaded from the App Market, and in the past 12 months there has been a 445% increase in downloads. This has corresponded with a general surge in drone usage during the same time.

Drones are becoming increasingly popular to their versatility and amazing imaging technology; From delivery to photography, a lot can be done with these flying devices. They are dexterous in the air and can be piloted with a remote controller, and can reach great heights and distances. All these features made drones a great device for photographers and video-makers. Many drones come with an attached camera, such as an action camera, that allows the drone to shoot pictures and videos from incredible perspectives. However, there are some drawbacks: flying a drone can be quite hard.

To fly drones commercially, however, companies must comply with numerous regulations and restrictions. The Federal Aviation Administration requires commercial drone operators to complete a "Part 107" process -- which Deangelis compared to "ground school" -- that includes testing to assure drone pilots understand things like airspace, weather patterns and sectional maps. Commercial operators must retest every two years and carry insurance that can cost several thousand dollars annually.