Chinese car company Geely announced on March 23rd it will complete new online deliveries using delivery drones to ensure human-to-human contact is avoided. New owners will be able to receive their car keys via a delivery drone that will drop them off right your door.
The Chinese government is using surveying, mapping, and delivery drones to enforce the world’s largest quarantine in order to try to contain the coronavirus. Industrial drones have been modified by government agencies and drone manufacturers to try to keep an estimated 50 million residents indoors across a dozen Chinese cities.
We already reported that drones were being used to stop the virus from spreading, but now DJI published an article that informs us that DJI pledged $1,5M on February 4th and uses DJI Agras T16 drones to fight Coronavirus in China.
We just learned and confirmed through two different sources that today DJI reopens their offices in China and that the company has resumed shipping, after having closed its offices because of the Coronavirus outbreak.
Drones in China are being used to make contact with people spotted walking outside without a face mask on due to the recent outbreak of coronavirus. Coronavirus is spreading through China and slowly around the world so using drones is a safer option than officials talking directly to the people.
While many countries celebrate New Year’s Eve with fireworks, a few are changing it up with drone light shows. Chinese broadcast company CCTV shared a video of what looked like drones on New Year’s Eve, displaying cool graphics and welcoming everyone into 2020. But there was a catch.
Here’s a new and dishonest way to use drones. According to the SUPChina, Chinese gangsters use drones to spread African swine fever to scare farmers into selling their animals at a discount before trafficking the sick pigs across province lines and selling them in “clean” areas.
Fast-food giant KFC is delivering its finger-licking good chicken by an autonomous drone system. KFC has teamed up with Chinese tech company, Antwork to bring drone delivery to the people of China. Drone delivery in China is nothing new with various companies already delivering food.
DJI is getting drawn into the U.S – China trade war as more U.S. government officials are increasingly concerned that DJI drones might be sending sensitive surveillance data back to mainland China. Earlier today, in an effort to stem the tide, DJI released two statements. The drone maker is introducing the DJI Government Edition and has sent a letter to the Senate Subcommittee to set the record straight “on incorrect claims presented during a hearing last week.” Furthermore, DJI is repurposing one of their warehouses in California to start building government drones right here in the United States. This is part 3 of 3.
Researchers in China are using drones as nodes in the development of an airborne quantum communications network. The article describes how such a network, using a quantum drone would be nigh unhackable.
On Monday, the U. S. Department of Homeland Security expressed ‘strong concerns’ that Chinese-made drones, including DJI’s aircraft, could potentially be sending sensitive flight information to their China-based manufacturers, where it could be accessed by the Chinese government. The warnings from DHS follow the executive order from President Trump against Huawei and are the latest development in the escalating trade war between the United States and China.
The China Helicopter Research and Development Institute (CHRDI) announced earlier this week that China has developed the X-M20 “Crane”, a small drone that has a ceiling of more than 16,000 feet. A distinctive pitch control technology makes the electric drone unique according to CRHDI, China’s leading helicopter research organ of Avicopter under the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC).
China weaponizes drones and has developed both large stealth drones as well as smaller unmanned aircraft that can be armed with AK-47s or any other weapon of choice. Earlier this week during the China air show in the city of Zhuhai, China unveiled the drones to challenge the US dominance of the UAV market. One of the unmanned aircraft that got a lot of attention during the air show is the new CH-7 or Caihong-7 stealth combat drone. It has a wingspan of 72 feet and is larger than most combat jets. It is said to be capable of traveling at speeds of over 500 miles an hour and after altitudes of over 46,000 feet. The first test flights are scheduled for next year.
Last Friday, the 2018 World Drone Congress and the Third Shenzhen International UAV Expo 2018 kicked off, displaying hundreds of different types of drones. The three-day event showed highlighted the booming drone industry in China and how the various types of drones might impact our day to day lives at some point.
DJI released a short film, called: The Teacher. The film is almost 15 minutes long and it seems as if no expenses were spared in the making of this Chinese martial arts ‘movie’. Presumingly, DJI products were used in the making of the video even though it is not specifically mentioned. It would make sense however that DJI products, such as a Ronin Gimbal, Inspire 2 drone, Zenmuse X7 camera and maybe even the DJI Master Wheels were used. There is a lot of action-packed martial arts fighting going on and if you have 15 minutes to spare the film is definitely worth watching.
The Chinese police are investigating a situation in which a Chinese toddler incurred facial injuries from an ‘out-of-control’ drone ‘flown by expat teen’. After the young boy was hit by the unmanned aerial vehicle, the drone pilot, a 14-year-old expat with blond hair according to eyewitnesses, grabbed the aircraft and fled the scene.
The architectural design firm, Foster + Partners unveiled the new head offices for Chinese drone-maker, DJI that is currently being built in Shenzhen. The new building consists of two towers connected by a sky bridge from which drones can be launched directly. The idea behind the design is to move away from a traditional office space and instead build a creative community in the sky. The building is currently under construction.
Last Monday, we wrote about the Kivu report’s findings. Today we are taking a closer look as DJI has sent us a copy of the full report. Because of competitive reasons the Chinese drone maker has requested us not to post the entire report online or share any of the images. However, we are free to share segments of the text with you. The 27-page document is the result of Kivu Consulting’s forensic investigation of DJI’s UAV Data Transmission & Storage practices and contains information about Kivu’s methodology, analysis, findings, and explains up to a degree what information is collected and to which servers it is going. For their investigation, Kivu independently bought a DJI Spark, Mavic Pro, Phantom 4 Pro and Inspire 2 model drones as well as a Huawei Honor 5x smartphone with the Android operating system and an iPhone SE running iOS. We went through the entire report to see if any new information came to light and to see where your information might be going to.
Last year DJI dealt with a number of cybersecurity-related issues, including a hot-patch mechanism in their DJI Go 4 app, a researcher who found sensitive user data accessible on Amazon Web Services servers, the U.S. Army declaring to no longer use DJI drones, a claim from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that DJI drones could perform facial recognition and U.S. officials who wondered whether DJI was sending sensitive information back to China. Today, DJI released the summarized findings of an independent report, but paid for by DJI, from Kivu Consulting, Inc. in a response to these allegations. Kivu concluded that “users have control over the types of data DJI drones collect, store, and transmit.”
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, has begun to lay the groundworks of what will become a low-altitude traffic management guidance for domestic unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). In September this year, the organization will host their second Drone Enable/2 Symposium to facilitate a global approach to safely integrate UAS traffic management systems into the existing manned airspace. Drone industry experts, innovators, and academia are invited to submit their proposals ahead of this year’s event in Chengdu, China.
The largest courier company in China, SF Holding Co. was granted a government license to operate drones, opening up the possibility for parcel deliveries by drone. More than 40 billion packages were shipped around China in 2017 and that number is expected to rise to 49 billion in 2018 according to the State Post Bureau, China’s delivery-industry watchdog.
A few weeks ago, during a press event in China, Shenzhen-based DJI Technology Co. Ltd. announced three new agricultural drones: the MG-1S Advanced, the MG-1P, and the MG-1P RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) version. These drones can be used for monitoring crops as well as spraying pesticides. DJI will price these new unmanned aerial vehicles 12% less expensive than their previous models launched in November 2016. These new low prices have drawn the attention from competitors who have stated that the Chinese drone maker is “disturbing the industry.”
The first ever FAI World Fly-In Expo was held from November 4 to 7, in Wuhan, China. The show featured hundreds of aircraft, including jets, helicopters, hot air balloons and of course drones. According to an article in the NY Times, the drones were actually the stars of the event.
