FBI hostage rescue team bamboozled after criminals unleash drone swarm

Griff Aviations Drone concept

As useful as drones may be for delivering your Amazon packages or putting on a killer light show at the Super Bowl, these flying gadgets can also be put to rather nefarious schemes. After all, the machinery is only as good as the person controlling it, and in a recent case with the FBI, it would appear that the machinery was not good at all. In 2017, an FBI  hostage rescue team arranged an “elevated observation post” in order to keep an eye on a developing situation. But suddenly, they were overtaken by a swarm of small drones, who swept in with a series of “high-speed low passes at the agents in the observation post to flush them [out],” according to Joe Mazel, the head of the FBI’s operational technology law unit, speaking at the AUVSI Xponential conference in Colorado.

Needless to say, the fleet of drones presented an enormous problem to the FBI agents. “We were then blind,” Mazel said, “It definitely presented some challenges.”

While the agency has not disclosed any additional details about where this drone attack took place or what situation agents were monitoring, the episode could be indicative of the dangerous applications drones may be involved with in the future. After all, these unmanned flying vehicles are not only effective surveillance devices, but can also run quite a bit of interference. Mazel noted that whoever controlled the drones clearly had an eye on the agents and were keeping other people notified of the FBI’s whereabouts.

“They had people fly their own drones up and put the footage to YouTube so that the guys who had cellular access could go to the YouTube site and pull down the video,” Mazel said.

Apparently, organized criminals are increasingly using drones to run counter operations against law enforcement, Mazel said. In fact, some quadcopters are being used in so-called witness intimidation schemes, constantly monitoring police departments in order to determine “who is going in and out of the facility and who might be cooperating with police,” he noted. And drones are also being to plan robberies and other crimes, as lawbreakers are using the flying devices to surveil target homes, identify security weak spots, and observe patterns of activity.

It’s not just the FBI that is dealing with this issue. As Andrew Scharnweber, associate chief of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told Defense One,  “In the Border Patrol, we have struggled with scouts, human scouts that come across the border. They’re stationed on various mountaintops near the border and they would scout … to spot law enforcement and radio down to their counterparts to go around us. That activity has effectively been replaced by drones.”

The overwhelming concern, of course, is that drones will continue to be used for illegal purposes and that solutions to this burgeoning problem may take some time either from a legislative or technological perspective.

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These contact lenses use a stunningly simple technique to correct color blindness

University of Birmingham

Color-blindness, also known as color vision deficiency or CVD, affects approximately 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women around the world. It’s an incurable, inherited condition that makes it difficult to distinguish between certain colors. Fortunately, researchers from the U.K.’s University of Birmingham have come up with a way to help. They’ve developed contact lenses that could be used to correct color-blindness the way that regular contact lenses can improve the vision of individuals who are nearsighted or farsighted.

The lenses contain a special dye that is able block certain wavelengths of light. This solves one of the causes of color-blindness, a genetic deficiency in the cluster of cells in the eye (called “optical cones”) that allow us to perceive light. Each cone picks up a different wavelength of light. Combining multiple cones allows us to see the full spectrum of colors. When the cones are working correctly, that is.

The dye used by the University of Birmingham researchers blocks the band of light between the red and green wavelengths, which is perceived by two sets of corresponding cones at the same time. Removing this band makes it easier for people to differentiate between red and green — the most common form of color-blindness.

“We found dyes which are non-toxic and biocompatible, so won’t cause any harm to living cells in the eye,” Dr. Haider Butt, lead researcher from the University of Birmingham’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Institute of Healthcare Technologies, told Digital Trends. Butt pointed out that the lenses can even improve the vision of people who don’t have color-blindness, since they increase the contrast between colors.

This project isn’t the first to explore this technique. The company EnChroma already produces sunglasses that function in the same way, although as of yet, no one produces contact lenses that perform this task. “I think a lot of it will come down to personal choice on the part of the patient,” Butt continued, describing the difference between glasses and contacts. “Contact lenses have less of a footprint than glasses. Some patients also don’t want to advertise their disability, which makes contact lenses a good solution because it’s less apparent to others. Contact lenses can additionally be a lot cheaper than glasses.”

Looking forward, Butt said he doesn’t want to commercialize the technology, but rather to “open source” it so that people can potentially create the dyes in the privacy of their own home. This would allow patients to experiment with different concentrations to find a personalized, optimal solution, while keeping the cost down.

A paper describing the project was recently published in the journal Advanced Healthcare Materials.

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• A pioneering stem cell treatment restores eyesight in nearly blind patients

The Force is strong with Google Assistant on this Star Wars Day

It may just be May 4 to some of the world, but to the rest of us (which is to say, dedicated Star Wars fans), it’s practically the most important day of the year. And here to help us celebrate is Google Assistant, who certainly understands the gravity of this most hallowed day. On Friday, product management director of Google Assistant Lilian Rincon introduced a couple new ideas for how Star Wars devotees can celebrate May the Fourth with a little bit of help from Google Assistant.

“What started as a fun pun — May the Fourth — has now become an official holiday for Star Wars fans,” Rincon wrote. “On this day known around the globe as ‘Star Wars Day,’ fans celebrate the lore of the galaxy far, far away.” But with your nearby Google Assistant, you can really get the party going.

Google Assistant can serve as your official box office guide, helping you find, learn about, and purchase tickets to the movies. While this new action is debuting just in time for the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story, which will open on May 25, you can also use this feature to search for plenty of other movies. All you need to do is ask Assistant for “showtimes near me.” If the smart helper returns a title that interests you, ask for more information by asking, “Who stars in it?” or “Show me the trailer.”

Then, if you want to take the plunge, you can now buy movie tickets simply by saying so — thanks to a new partnership with Fandango, Google Assistant will let you make purchases simply by saying “buy tickets” once you’ve decided on a film. And those films don’t have to be in theaters now — you can already buy advance tickets for the latest Star Wars installment by telling Assistant to do so. Fandango will also help you pick your seats before you finish your purchase (if you go to a theater that requires that sort of thing).

Google is also offering discounts and deals on Star Wars apps, games, movies, books, and more on the Google Play store. For more about what you can do with Assistant, check out our handy guide.

Editors’ Recommendations

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• ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’: News, trailers, and everything we know so far

Inside the ambitious plan to decode and digitize the Vatican Secret Archives

Cutting-edge technology that unlocks long-forgotten Vatican secrets? No, it’s not the latest Dan Brown thriller, but a large-scale project in Italy involving smart artificial intelligence, an almost mind-boggling amount of handwritten documents, multiple universities, and 120 high school students.

Called “In Codice Ratio,” the project aims to turn the Vatican Secret Archives’ 53 miles of shelves, dating back 12 centuries, into a searchable digitized database. While the archive includes priceless documents such as the papal bull that excommunicated Martin Luther, currently it is virtually useless to scholars. That needs to change. Unfortunately, while scanning this volume of information to make it readable would be hard under ordinary circumstances, it is particularly difficult in this case. One reason for that is that the decorative, flowing cursive handwriting of some of the documents prove impossibles for modern optical character recognition software to comprehend.

This is where researchers from the University of Rome, La Sapienza University of Rome, and the Vatican Secret Archives enter the frame. They have developed a system involving convolutional neural networks and image-processing algorithms. This system performs a task called jigsaw segmentation, in which documents are broken down into something approximating individual pen strokes and then reconstructed as words.

They’ve also crowdsourced an army of users to help check the results: A large assortment of students from 24 schools, who can judge the system’s accuracy and help train it. Preliminary findings show an accuracy rate of 65 percent. This will no doubt improve as the project progresses.

“Our main goal is to complete the transcription task and to start extracting information from the manuscripts,” Paolo Merialdo, a researcher on the project, told Digital Trends. “Until now, we have been working on a sample of 1,000 digitized pages of the Vatican Registers. Once we have a reliable transcription system, the next step is to ask the Vatican Secret Archives [for] the remaining manuscripts of the Pope Registers. They are digitizing their manuscripts for preservation and to make them available for researchers, under their copyright protection. At the same time, we are currently working in many research directions, including more sophisticated neural networks for the handwritten text recognition step, and advanced natural language processing tools for handling abbreviations.”

Should the project prove successful, its creators believe this system could not just unlock the mysteries of the Vatican Secret Archives, but also be an invaluable solution to help researchers explore enormous historical archives that are similarly inaccessible.

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Watch the SureFly two-person hybrid-electric copter make its maiden hover

While it just missed its goal of making its maiden manned voyage at January’s CES event, Ohio-based company Workhorse’s SureFly hybrid-electric helicopter has finally lifted off for its first untethered flight. Well, it got a few feet off the ground, at least.

“A five-foot hover might not seem like a big deal, but what it does is to answer the question: Will it fly, yes or no?” CEO Steve Burns told Digital Trends.

The answer, as Burns is quick to point out, is a resounding yes. That’s exciting because the SureFly octocopter is a new kind of vehicle. It’s essentially a human-sized vertical-take-off-and-landing (VTOL) drone designed for up to two people. Its creators hope that it will both broaden and corner the market when it comes to personal flying machines.

The futuristic-looking SureFly vehicle is driven by eight separate propellers, and powered by a hybrid system that combines a gas combustion engine with a parallel battery pack. It can carry up to 400 pounds, too, which should make this a useful runaround vehicle for transporting a couple of ordinary-sized folks and their belongings. We can’t wait to turn up to the office in one!

SureFly

“It’s designed to be less expensive, safer, and easier to fly than a helicopter,” Burns said. “The reason that everyone doesn’t currently have a helicopter in their garage is because of those three issues. We think that if you can have something moderately priced, easy enough that anyone can fly, and that people will feel safe in, there are tons of applications. It could be a farmer checking on his cattle; it could be an emergency responder able to get to the scene of an accident faster than a road ambulance; it could be military, an air taxi, or just someone wanting to avoid traffic in the city. There are a lot of uses for a short-hop electric flying machine.”

The all-important liftoff demo takes SureFly one step closer to hitting the market. While there’s still work to be done on both the technical and regulatory side of things (how much training will you need to fly one, for instance?), it’s definitely an exciting milestone. The finished model will retail for around $200,000. That doesn’t make it cheap, by any means, but it’s certainly a whole lot more affordable than the private helicopters that it’s competing with.

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Google News to be revamped with elements from Play Newsstand and YouTube

The new app may be announced at I/O next week.

Amidst all of the Android P talk at Google I/O next week, one topic that’s said to come up is Google News.

Google News works fine in its current state, but Google’s apparently working on a massive overhaul that’ll incorporate parts of YouTube and Play Newsstand.

AdAge says it’s spoken to people familiar with these plans, with one publishing executive who’s aware of the Google News revamp saying –

It’s a consolidation of all the ways you can interact with news on Google. There are a lot of Google services where you find news, and what they’re trying to do is bring it all under one brand.

With the new Google News, Google will feature digital newspapers and magazines like it currently does with Play Newsstand in addition to YouTube’s news feature – incorporating text and video news under one umbrella.

The current Google News & Weather app will reportedly get an all-new look, as will its mobile and desktop sites. Unfortunately, since all things must come to an end, this Google News update will also see Play Newsstand get shut down.

As someone who’s never felt compelled to use Google News or Play Newsstand in their current forms, this seems like a good move for Google to make. AdAge notes that we should hear more about these plans at I/O on Tuesday, so we won’t have to wait too much longer for all the official details.

Google I/O 2018 preview: All of the big announcements you can expect

12 Great Star Wars Gifts in 2018

These are the Star Wars gifts that are actually worth buying.

It’s a glorious time to be a Star Wars fan! We get a new movie every year, new books spanning so many different aspects of the universe, and an actual mountain of themed swag around every corner. So much Star Wars swag. In fact, it’s a little too much if you’re trying to buy something good for the Star Wars fan in your life. You can reach out in just about any direction of every store right now and find something with the Star Wars logo stamped on it — including, weirdly enough, oranges — but if you’re looking for the good stuff it can be a little intimidating.

This list should get you started down the right path. Everything here is stuff I’ve found worthy of the Force-sensitive people in your life, and there’s a little something in here for everyone.

Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar

If you’ve got someone younger in your life who enjoys counting down the days until Christmas, you can’t do better than this Lego Star Wars setup. It’s a new Lego Star Wars bit every day, including popular minifigs like BB-8.

It’s a cute way to get kids ready for the holiday, and at $50 you know you’re getting lots of Legos.

See at Amazon

R2-D2 Measuring Cup Set

Who says an Astreomech Droid can’t be helpful around the kitchen? This kit is meant to sit out on the counter and look exactly like everyone’s favorite helper, right until you need a cup of sugar. When that happens, you can disassemble this Droid into a whole bunch of different measuring utensils.

Aside from being a very reasonably priced $18 when you consider how many measuring cups and spoons you get, it’s a practical way to show off your Star Wars love in the kitchen.

Oh, and for those who prefer the shiny newness of BB-8, there’s a kit for you too.

See at Amazon

Jedi Challenges AR

Start your Jedi training virtually! Only, unlike a VR headset, this AR headset lets you see the real world while you interact with a training hologram. This program splits your training up into multiple games, including lightsaber battles with famous Star Wars villains and actually HoloChess!

Check out the Jedi Challenges review to learn more!

This $200 kit comes with an incredibly detailed replica of Rey’s lightsaber as the controller, and is hands down the best Star Wars game you can guy this year.

See at Best Buy

Propel Drones

Remote control toys that look like Star Wars vehicles aren’t a new thing by any stretch, and that includes flying toys that look like popular ships. Drones that can actually engage in combat with one another? That’s new, and Propel brought them to life in spectacular fashion this year.

Check out the review for more details!

For $99 you can choose between Vader’s Tie Advanced or the classic X-Wing, and these ships can actually play laser tag that ends in the loser “crashing” to the ground when it has taken the right number of hits. If you’d rather something a little closer to the ground, you can also grab one that looks like a Speeder Bike.

See at Amazon

Sphero Droids

Sphero took the world be storm last year with its BB-8 droid that could putter around your room on its own when you weren’t remote controlling it. This year, there are several more to choose from and a lot of new features. BB-9E, a droid from The Last Jedi, is available alongside R2-D2 and R2-Q5. Among the new features, all of these droids will sit with you and watch the Star Wars movies, reacting to everything exciting or scary in the movies.

For $130, these droids offer a ton of fun and the designs are just plain great.

See at Amazon

littleBits Inventor Kit

Toys are great, but creating something is an amazing feeling for any age. The littleBits Star Wars kit is designed to teach you how to make your own R2-D2, by helping you understand the tech inside and what it all does. When the kit is all assembed, you can use the littleBits app to teach R2-D2 new skills and send it out on missions.

There’s a lot of tech in here for $99, and it’s a fantastic start into the educational world of littleBits tech.

See at Amazon

Boba Fett Laptop Backpack

There are a ton of Star Wars backpacks out there, and unfortunately a lot of them are not very good at being a durable backpack. This Bioworld backpack has plenty of pockets, includes a nice padded section for keeping a laptop safe, and is rocking an amazing Boba Fett theme.

This is a decent backpack for $50 and looks nice enough to hand one out to each of your Dad’s clones.

See at Amazon

BB-8 Car Charger

If you’re ok with a car charger taking up a cupholder in your front console, this $30 kit will give you two USB ports providing 2.1a each and features an adorably animated BB-8.

The little Droid will twist and turn around as you drive, clearly keeping an eye out for anything that may be in need of repairs. You couldn’t ask for a better co-pilot.

See at Amazon

Lego Death Star

It doesn’t matter what age you are, the Lego Death Star is one of those things every geek covets. This $500 kit is massive, even by Lego standards, and is absolutely the kind of thing you will spend weeks working on.

It’s clearly only for the most hardcore of Lego Star Wars fans, but the grin on their face when they open this gift from you will stretch from ear to ear.

See at Amazon

Star Wars From a Certain Point of View

There are a lot of great Star Wars books out there, but this one is unlike all the others. If you’ve never read any of the From a Certain Point of View books, you should make this the first one. This is a collection of short stories from the Star Wars universe where the main themes we all know and remember are retold from the perspective of someone who is not the main character.

The paperback is only going to set you back $20, and this really should be on every Star Wars fans bookshelf.

See at Amazon

Star Wars Battlefront II PlayStation 4 Pro

You don’t have to be a hardcore Star Wars fan to enjoy the new Battlefront II game, but if you know a fan who has been looking to upgrade their PlayStation 4 you might consider this as a gift. It’s a standard PlayStation 4 Pro on the inside, but the outside includes three beautiful graphics on the top of the console and matching symbols on the included controller.

This $450 bundle is already a decent price for the nice theme, and getting the copy of Battlefront II in the box with it is a nice addition. Just, you know, keep an eye out for loot boxes.

See at Amazon

Millennium Falcon Multi-Tool

While not actually practical as a multi-tool you carry around and use every day — nothing replaces my Leatherman, sorry — this $30 kit will put a smile on the face of any Star Wars fan that is even the least bit handy.

The Falcon comes out the box looking like it has seen better days, and all of the included tools are actually functional. It’s cute, and you’ll probably try to use it a few times, but really this is something you’d rather have sitting on your workbench to bring a little geek into the shop.

See at Amazon

Did we miss something? Shout out in the comments!

Here’s what we’re reading, watching, playing, and listening to this week

How we’re spending our leisure time.

Everyone has a bit of quiet downtime once in a while. Whether you’re sitting quietly at home or trying to relax on a plane or just giving your busy mind and hands a break, it’s important to relax.

A good way to do that is to read a book, listen to some music or watch a movie or show. See what’s caught our attention for the week of May 4th.

Ara Wagoner

I am a two-program Disney College Program alumni, so safe to say I’m a Disney Parks Fan with a capital F. I’ve never been lucky enough to get the time and resources for an international park trip, but when a new parade for Tokyo Disneyland drops, I drop everything and listen to it. Dreaming Up is Tokyo Disneyland’s 35th anniversary parade and it replaces my favorite parade of all time, Happiness is Here. The new model is bright, peppy, and I just want to dance through the whole thing, which is the perfect music to keep my energy up in a week of testing before weekend elections.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get Carried Away again, and see if I can’t Dream Up a new home screen theme.

Daniel Bader

Mad Men. I’ve just finished my second run-through of the show about drunks and the people they hurt during the golden age of advertising, and my goodness is it still one of the most stunning dramas of all time. I was much younger when I first watched it, and though the feeling of desperation remained long after the seventh season finale, I remembered little of the pointed dialogue and intense silences.

Though it took place between 1962 and 1970, there is so much about the tragedy of its characters that still reverberates today. Office harassment, sexism, racism, and the naivety of youth — these are characters for which you build tremendous affection despite their flaws, and often because of them. They’re bad people doing bad things written really well.

If you’ve never watched Mad Men, it’s seven seasons of 13 or so episodes, and it’s worth every moment.

Joe Maring

I’m not sure how, but I somehow missed out on Community when it first aired a few years back. Thanks to Hulu, I’m now making my way through the entire series and dying with laughter at just about every turn.

The entire cast of Community works incredibly together and the chemistry between all of the actors and actresses is some of the best I’ve seen since The Office and Parks and Rec. The show’s representation of the community college life is far from accurate, but that’s probably for the best. There’s plenty of jokes, heart, and excellent writing to be found here, and I can’t wait to keep watching more.

Also, like the rest of planet Earth, I watched Infinity War last Thursday but won’t say a word. Remember, Thanos demands your silence.

Hayato Huseman

I’m way behind on the Marvel Cinematic Universe — the last Marvel movie I’d seen before this week was the first Guardians of the Galaxy — but a friend of mine was in town and bought tickets to see the new Avengers movie. I barely recognized ANY of the characters that weren’t in the first Avengers, but boy was that movie badass anyway. Without going into too much detail, it has enormous battle scenes, incredible CGI, and a surprisingly dark ending that I really wasn’t expecting.

Oh, and the Infinity Wars memes are already making their rounds, if you’re into that sort of thing. I know I am.

As far as music goes, I’ve been revisiting Paramore’s latest album After Laughter, which I dismissed as “mostly forgettable” when it dropped last year. After giving it a few more listens, it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite non-metal albums, with dynamic vocals and great new wave-style composition. If you’re in the mood to feel sad, put on 26 and let the floodgates open.

Tom Westrick

Like any good person, I saw Avengers: Infinity War this past weekend. Also, like any good person, I cried at the end. A lot. I’m amazed that the Russo Brothers were able to pull the movie off: it was incredibly well paced — I never felt like any scenes were rushed or dragging on. It also just felt like a comic book crossover; the way the film focused on different characters and transitioned between locations felt exactly like I was moving through a giant comic event, only on the big screen.

Elsewhere, I’m fully caught up on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and it has become one of my regular shows each week. I also purchased vinyl copies of Ruins by First Aid Kit and Fumes by Lily and Madeleine. I’ve talked about Ruins in this column before, but it’s still my absolute favorite album so far this year. I already owned a vinyl copy of Fumes, but it was heavily damaged when all of my albums fell off my wall one night. I already own both albums digitally, so the vinyl copies will become decorations once I get some screws put in my walls and buy more frames.

Your turn

What are YOU reading, watching, or listening to this week? Let us know in the comments!

Update, May 4th, 2018: This is a weekly series where we tell you what we’re into, so check back every Friday or Saturday!

Today’s best deals you won’t want to miss

Whether you’re looking for new tech gear or household items, we’ve got you covered.

Today you can get big discounts on Star Wars gear, TP-Link smart plugs, portable Bluetooth speakers, and more! Don’t pass these up.

View the rest of the deals

If you want to know about the deals as soon as they are happening, you’ll want to follow Thrifter on Twitter, and sign up for the newsletter, because missing out on a great deal stinks!

Google Assistant can now help you order movie tickets

Available as part of a partnership with Fandango.

Although it’s now easier than ever to order movie tickets, having to download an app, search for a showtime, and enter your credit card info can still prove to be a royal pain. To help make buying tickets to the movies as easy as can be, Google’s partnering with Fandango so you can do so by just talking to the Assistant.

Beginning today, you can now purchase tickets through Google Assistant by either using your voice or typing to it.

After finding something you’d like, you can tell the Assistant to buy tickets for your desired movie and time. You’ll then be asked how many adult and/or kid tickets you want to buy, and if it’s your first time making a purchase, you’ll be asked to accept Fandango’s terms of service.

Once accepted, the Assistant will read out your total and you’ll complete the purchase using Google Pay. You can also ask speakers like Google Home to buy tickets, and once you’ve selected a showtime, it’ll send a prompt to your phone so you can complete the order. As for the Assistant app on iOS, it won’t be available there until later in the year.

The whole process is pretty sleek, and it’s launching just in time for pre-sales of Solo: A Star Wars Story.