'We had people come just to see it': Amazon delivers its first UK parcels by drone Amazon has become the first retailer in the UK to start a drone delivery service with a limited launch in Darlington, County Durham. Packages weighing less than 5lb (2.2kg) and containing everyday items such as beauty products, batteries and cables are now being delivered within a 7.5 mile (12km) radius of Amazon's fulfilment centre. The tech giant is convinced there is demand for ultra-fast deliveries and hopes to slowly expand the service. Rob Shield let Amazon use an Airbnb on his farm for its first test runs. Initially it was a novelty, so we were ordering everything under the sun, he says.

Aurora Therapeutics' first target is the rare inherited disease phenylketonuria, also known as PKU. Here at we've been writing about the gene-editing technology CRISPR since 2013, calling it the biggest biotech breakthrough of the century. Yet so far, there's been only one gene-editing drug approved. It's been used commercially on only about 40 patients, all with sickle-cell disease. It's becoming clear that the impact of CRISPR isn't as big as we all hoped. In fact, there's a pall of discouragement over the entire field--with some journalists saying the gene-editing revolution has " lost its mojo ."

Combinatorial optimization problems are complex problems with a discrete but large set of possible solutions. Some of the most renowned examples of these problems are the traveling salesman, the bin-packing, and the job-shop scheduling problems. Researchers at the Amazon Quantum Solutions Lab, part of the AWS Intelligent and Advanced Computer Technologies Labs, have recently developed a new tool to tackle combinatorial optimization problems, based on graph neural networks (GNNs). The approach developed by Schuetz, Brubaker and Katzgraber, published in Nature Machine Intelligence, could be used to optimize a variety of real-world problems. "Our work was very much inspired by customer needs," Martin Schuetz, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore.

Researchers have figured out a way to rapidly recharge ultra dense batteries capable of powering flying cars, theoretically making them suitable for everyday use. The breakthrough with electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles could enable the commercialisation of next-generation transport systems in the near future, according to the researchers from Penn State university who made the discovery. "I hope that the work we have done in this paper will give people a solid idea that we don't need another 20 years to finally get these vehicles," said Chao-Yang Wang, director of the Electrochemical Engine Center, Penn State. "I believe we have demonstrated that the eVTOL is commercially viable." The research was published today, 7 June, in the scientific journal Joule.

When reviewing 2018's retail landscape, there have certainly been ongoing challenges and opportunities that have pushed the evolution of retail to match the demands of a changing consumer. Mobile technology, speed of service/delivery, and low prices are just the tip of the iceberg. In recent discussions with a variety of retailers and retail analysts in Australia and New Zealand, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are high on everyone's list of toys for the New Year to generate efficiencies across the retail enterprise. The question retailers are asking is whether to build an AI/ML engine themselves or, more probable, turn to a specialised software company already operating in the AI/ML space. Consumers want their product and they want it now -- in their size, flavour, length, shape, brand, weight.