Month: April 2025

The skies around Dallas are about to get a lot more interesting. No, DFW airport isn't planning any more expansions, nor does American Airlines have any more retro liveries to debut. This will be something different, something liable to make all the excitement around the supposed New Jersey drones look a bit quaint.

Zipline is launching its airborne delivery service for real, rolling it out in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Mesquite ahead of a gradual spread that, if all goes according to plan, will also see its craft landing in Seattle before the end of the year. These automated drones can be loaded in seconds, carry small packages for miles, and deposit them with pinpoint accuracy at the end of a retractable tether.

It looks and sounds like the future, but this launch has been a decade in the making. Zipline has already flown more than 1.4 million deliveries and covered over 100 million miles, yet it feels like things are just getting started.

Read full article

Comments

China Mobile liegt ganz vorn und zeigt erste 6G-Technik. Ob es in der jetzigen Weltlage überhaupt einen globalen 6G-Standard geben wird, ist offen. (6G, Mobilfunk)

Sicherheitslücken an Konzerne wie Microsoft zu melden, war ihm offenkundig nicht genug. Nebenbei soll der Sicherheitsforscher Teil einer bekannten Cyberbande sein. (Cybercrime, Virus)

Warum die Nutzung von ChatGPT, Apple Intelligence und Deepseek sowie ihre Integration in den privaten und beruflichen Alltag riskant sein können. Eine Analyse von Christian Rentrop (KI, Wissenschaft)

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the Powers of 10 video, which came out in the 1970s. Perhaps you remember it, with the narrator taking us both outward toward the fathomless end of the Universe and then, reversing course, guiding us back to Earth and inside a proton. The film gave a younger me a good sense of just how large the Universe around us really is.

What I did not know until much later is that the short film was made by the Eames Office, which was founded by the noted designers Charles Eames and Ray Kaiser. It's the same organization that produced the Eames Lounge Chair. It goes to show you the value of good design across genres (shoutout to Ars' resident designer, Aurich Lawson).

Anyway, I say all that because the Power of 10 film continues to live in my head, rent-free, decades later. It was the first thing I thought of when looking at today's image of the Milky Way Galaxy's center. The main image showcases huge vertical filaments, with the supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core clearly visible. This image, captured by a South African radio telescope named MeerKAT, also shows the ghostly, bubble-like remnants of supernovas that exploded over millennia.

Read full article

Comments

Die XR/AR-Brille von Viture ersetzt einen großen Bildschirm und soll auch bei Licht und Bewegung nutzbar sein. (Technik/Hardware, Videobrille)

Analysten haben die Bergung des zweiten US-amerikanischen Satelliten vorgeschlagen. Das Unterfangen birgt einige Hindernisse. (Technikgeschichte, Raumfahrt)

Behörden in den USA sollen Strategien für den Einsatz von KI entwickeln. Anweisungen zum Schutz von Bürgerrechten wurden dafür aufgehoben. (KI, Politik)

In einer geleakten E-Mail macht CEO Tobias Lütke klar: Alle bei Shopify sollen KI benutzen und werden dazu auch abgefragt. (KI, Technologie)

Die USA und China dringen immer weiter ins All vor. Der Chef der Space Force nennt Pekings Weltraumambitionen eine "mächtige destabilisierende Kraft". (Raumfahrt, Satelliten)