FAA gets help from CNN for its new commercial drone-testing program

As part of its effort to work with companies on advancing drone use here in the States, the Federal Aviation Administration announced two initiatives today that’ll do just that. First, a testing program called Pathfinder will encompass CNN‘s existing exploration of the UAVs for news coverage with the expertise of two other companies. Rounding out the trio, PrecisionHawk will focus on surveying rural areas and BNSF Railway will use drones to inspect its tracks. As it turns out, those companies contacted the FAA directly, and Pathfinder will continue so long as the partners are willing. The FAA already gave Amazon the OK to conduct tests for its delivery drones and gave AIG permission to use UAVs for insurance inspection purposes. It also approved a commercial crop-dusting drone for agricultural use. Even though those companies have to submit reports to the FAA, the aforementioned threesome is working directly with the government as part of the newly announced project.

Pathfinder will use PrecisionHawk’s LATAS (Low Altitude Tracking and Avoidance System) as the traffic-management tech for the project. The system uses a combination of onboard transponders and hardware and software on the ground to avoid collisions. More importantly, LATAS will enable tests that venture beyond the pilot’s line of sight under certain conditions — a distance that’s prohibited by current FAA regulations. CNN is tasked with conducting tests in urban areas outside of visual range while PrecisionHawk and BNSF will have similar trials in rural and isolated environments.

“This is a big job, and we’ll get to our goal of safe, widespread UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) integration more quickly by leveraging the resources and expertise of the industry,” said US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

For the average drone pilot, the FAA is working on a mobile B4UFLY app. The software will let hobbyists and other UAV owners know if it’s safe to fly in a certain area — like parts of Washington, DC. The app features a Planner Mode for scouting out locations for future flights and provides quick access to current drone regulations. If you’re looking to try it out, you’ll probably have to wait a bit. It’ll be available for a group of 1,000 beta testers later this summer.

“We want to make sure hobbyists and modelers know where it is and isn’t okay to fly,” said FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. “While there are other apps that provide model aircraft enthusiasts with various types of data, we believe B4UFLY has the most user-friendly interface and the most up-to-date information.”

[Image credit: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

Filed under: Misc

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Via: NBC News

Source: FAA (1), (2)

Do you need a $249 ‘smart’ water filter?

There seem to be three mindsets when it comes to the water we drink. You can care a lot about it and buy bottled; care a lot about it and have a water filter; or you just drink from the tap. Maybe it’s because I fit into the third category that water filters don’t really seem like a growth market to me. A casual survey of my colleagues tells me there are lots of people that do care, though. Cove is built for them. The pitch is simple: Our natural water is full of crap. Harmful chemicals, heavy metals, pathogens. You name it; it’s in there. Most filters do a good job at removing chlorine and other elements, but according to some studies, many introduce bacteria into your water. Cove’s new filtration system apparently solves that issue, and, this being 2015, it’s wrapped up in a “smart” housing that talks to your phone.

So I think you’ll agree this thing looks really attractive. Cove CEO Alex Totterman says he wanted the product to offer a “desirable experience.” He’s taken cues from the way other companies have tried to reinvigorate staid markets like razors and mattresses with good design, simple-to-use products and innovative business models. Purely from a design perspective, this works for me way more than the transparent plastic jug my parents have used for the past few decades. My inner consumer wants one — it’d sit nicely in my kitchen, next to the panini press I never use and that Nespresso machine I feel terrible about, but use daily.

Thanks to its design, Cove’s mechanics are neatly enclosed, but they’re probably the most interesting thing about it. The first part of the filtration system uses “responsibly sourced” filtering materials that Totterman says absorb impurities, and include silver to prevent a buildup of bacteria. The second stage utilizes a miniature pump that pushes water through more mineral and filtering blocks and silver-coated, laser-etched membranes to catch further contaminates. What you’re left with, says Cove, is purified water that hasn’t been stripped of its minerals.

I spoke to a couple of experts on water contamination, and neither was willing to give a verdict (or have their names linked to an article) without more details on the product. Regardless, the makeup of Cove’s anti-bacterial filter (catalytic-activated coconut shell carbon impregnated with silver) seems to be scientifically sound. Once we get our hands on a unit, we should be able to be more scientific with our analysis of the company’s claims.

Assuming that the filtration process is as good as Totterman says it is, it’s still only one part of what Cove’s selling here. Now I’m probably not alone in rolling my eyes at the idea that my home needs yet another “revolutionary smart device,” but Cove’s smarts likely comprise a large chunk of its asking price, and they’re well worth talking about. They include the ability to serve water at a range of temperatures, change the color of its lights to match your decor, monitor water quality to tell you when you need to order a new filter (which you can do through its app) and monitor how much water you’re drinking and (optionally) send you notifications to let you know when you should be drinking more.

The quality monitoring is a nice touch. Many filters feature electronics, but they’re usually acting as a glorified counter, only guessing when the filter has run its course, despite water hardness and quality varying dramatically from region to region. As for the “you need to drink water” alerts, I’m pretty sure my nervous system can send me push notifications by itself.

There’s also more to Cove than the company is letting on. Totterman was very coy when pressed, obviously afraid of giving away future business plans, but it’s clear the sensors and electronics enclosed are capable of much more than the company is talking about right now. “We can collect data on the quality of the water, how it’s being used. We can create all these algorithms that will then determine how we deliver certain filters to consumers.”

That’s an interesting thought: If the company can get enough Coves into homes around the world, it can build an independent map of water quality, work out the quirks of local supplies and tailor its product to better meet the needs of its users. It’s essentially treating kitchen hardware the same way Google and others approach software: as an evolving product that gets better with time, that can become more effective as it learns about you, and your environment. If Cove wants to take even more cues from Google, the door could also be open to monetize that data at some point.

My thought going into this was that water filters were mostly a con. I have a pretty strong bias here: People are neurotic, and selling them an even-more-expensive filter is callously taking advantage of those neuroses. Speaking with Totterman at least convinced me he isn’t simply trying to scare people into buying a product they don’t need. I quizzed him about the claims existing water filters weren’t up to the task, and the basis for Cove’s belief that US drinking water is often contaminated. He’s suggesting that drinking water in the US is at the very least unhealthy, if not dangerous. And when pressed to back this up, he cited (admittedly dated) independent studies and journalistic investigations. I’m not about to believe that anyone drinking water from the tap is in mortal danger, but he’s clearly done his homework.

After our interview, Totterman sent along an essay on water safety and the weaknesses of various filtration systems he’d written on Medium a few weeks prior to Cove’s launch. Although it’s well-researched, it doesn’t really explain in any real detail why his system is any better, and also somewhat unfairly includes purification systems that aren’t really commonplace in the kitchen, like UV, which is used by campers to clean water when away from a power source.

Cove pre-orders kicked off this week at $249, and shipments start later this year. That’s a lot of money to throw at a water filter, and way past my upper limit of an impulse buy. Despite giving Totterman a free pass on taking advantage of people’s neuroses, it’s likely that anyone picking up a $249 water filter is going to be hugely anxious about germs and other harmful things finding their way into drinking water. I’m a little uncomfortable about that, but if the market exists, it may as well be served properly.

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EU aims to remove regional restrictions on digital goods by 2017

Being an EU citizen means you can grab your passport, head to the airport and travel freely among the 28 EU member states. When you arrive at your final destination, however, and fire up Netflix in your hotel room, you’ll find a local content catalog that may not include your favorite show. The same level of localization is true for many digital goods and services, which is why the European Commission wants to create a “Digital Single Market” to rid the EU of geo-blocking and encourage a more connected Europe online. The Commission gave a vague outline of its Digital Single Market strategy back in March, but today its released a detailed proposal of what it intends to do by the end of next year to make it happen.

In many cases, if you try to access an online service from outside your home country (or the country you’re registered in, at least), you’ll be geo-blocked. This can happen in several ways: you may be greeted with a local version of the service, à la Netflix, or denied access altogether. It’s the unfortunate consequence of complicated content licensing agreements, but you can’t change the way the entire media industry works overnight. The European Commission is instead looking at how it can modernize copyright law so “users who buy films, music or articles at home can also enjoy them while traveling across Europe.”

This doesn’t mean online services will have to provide the exact same experience throughout Europe, but that whatever you pay to watch or use at home should be “portable” — something the UK’s Business Secretary pushed for earlier this year. So, if you log-in to your favorite streaming service anywhere in Europe, you’ll see a familiar library of content, no VPN required. This is especially important for country-specific services like BBC’s iPlayer, for example, which is only accessible within the UK. The broadcaster has confirmed today “it would look into the possibility of easing its iPlayer restrictions” so license fee-paying Brits can access BBC content elsewhere. Not that it appears it will have much of a choice under the European Commission’s Digital Single Market Strategy.

Geo-blocking isn’t just a problem for people wanting to stream TV abroad, but for those wanting to buy goods and services online, too. The European Commission wants to end the “discriminatory practice” whereby consumers are forced to use a local online store that may have higher prices than others. Beyond this specific goal, the Commission wants consumers to feel more comfortable purchasing goods, digital or physical, from other EU countries. It wishes to improve legislation to offer better consumer protection, thereby increasing trust in foreign outlets, and wants “more efficient and affordable parcel delivery,” which is seen as another reason people prefer to shop on home turf.

The Digital Single Market strategy is concerned with much more than geo-blocking, though. The Commission also intends to “present an ambitious overhaul of EU telecoms rules” to improve mobile spectrum management and encourage investment in high-speed broadband networks, assess how it can crack down on online piracy and other illegal content, and tighten up EU data protection rules. It will also be keeping an eye on “online platforms” like search engines, social networks and app stores, particularly where certain products or services are being promoted “to the disadvantage of competitors.” The Commission already does this to a certain extent, and it recently began investigating Google for allegedly abusing a dominant position in search and mobile.

There are plenty of other proposals in the Digital Single Market strategy that should benefit people and businesses throughout the EU, so the Commission has a lot to do if it’s to deliver on these promises. It’s said it will do just that by the end of 2016, but that target could well be a little too ambitious. After all, the Commission has a plan to scrap mobile roaming fees across the EU, originally promising to do so in 2014. The goalposts have moved a few times since then, and it doesn’t appear we’re particularly close to that plan becoming a reality.

[Image credit: Westend61/Getty Images]

Filed under: Internet

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Source: European Commission (1), (2)