DroneDJ

The Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alliance (NUAIR) says it has gotten approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights over a vastly expanded 35-mile swath of New York’s UAS Test Site drone corridor.

Specialized Swedish drone services company Everdrone has long been an innovator in public UAV operations, but last month it actually made history when one of its craft flew an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) to a man in Sweden who’d suffered a cardiac arrest, saving his life.

This just might be pushing the convenience store concept a tad too far. According to news reports, the ubiquitous, always-open 7-Eleven chain is preparing to launch an app-facilitated drone delivery service in Japan. Soon, there may be nothing left for consumers to do but pay online, tip the old head back, and open their mouths.

While the company pulled out last minute from the CES show, Skydio still announced its refresh to its flagship drone, named the Skydio 2+. It’s not a full successor, but it improves the drone’s range and battery life.

In launching the new Skydio 2+, Redwood City-based Skydio is not limiting itself to rolling out a cool autonomous drone with groundbreaking KeyFrame filming technology, but also introducing the Skydio Care protection option to cover mishaps that eventually befall those new craft.

Skydio’s AI-equipped autonomous drones are set to get even better with the release of a new feature today: Skydio KeyFrame. This skill allows Skydio 2 and Skydio 2+ drone users to design and capture smooth, complex cinematic shots with just a few taps. And the results speak for themselves.

Have a weighty payload you need to spirit across the sky farther than other UAVs can handle? You might want to check out the Firefly heavy-lift drone, which can lug 100 lbs. of gear cargo up to two full hours.

Ras Al Khaimah, a city in the United Arab Emirates, has a new claim to fame. A drone fireworks display conducted as part of the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations has clinched two Guinness World Records titles.

DJI has finally updated its Mobile SDK to support DJI Mini 2, DJI Mini SE, and DJI Air 2S drones. This update was highly anticipated since it would enable third-party app developers to add features not natively present in these drones.

After sifting through entries from over 118 countries and regions, tech giant DJI and its social platform SkyPixel have announced the winners of the 2021 SkyPixel Creative Video Contest.

There’s already reason for hope that this year may well be better 2021. Almost impossibly, it seems, aerial arts specialist SKYMAGIC managed to put on an even more spectacular drone show for London’s 2022 New Year’s celebration than the gem it staged last year.

A UK company that had been specializing in counter-drone systems is now proposing to deploy UAVs to protect women from street assaults, using an emergency app leading craft to where calls for help were made, according to British media reports.

Drone data collection company Soaring Eagle Technologies is getting close to operating beyond line of visual sight (BVLOS) missions as a regular way of doing work. Late in December, the inspection service provider to critical infrastructure owners across the US received yet another Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) waiver to fly such missions, pushing its total to over 60.

The images are stark, tragic, and bewildering. Hundreds, perhaps even a thousand homes were completely obliterated by a wildfire that tore through Colorado subdivisions in the closing hours of last year. Watch this drone video of the Colorado wildfire devastation.

A UK Royal Navy research ship is on a mission in one of the most remote and isolated spots on the planet using camera and sensor-equipped drones to study the effects of climate change on penguin populations of Antarctica’s South Sandwich Islands.

This week on the weekly DroneDJ live stream, Yifei, Seth, and site publisher Seth Weintraub discuss this year’s biggest stories and recap what happened in the crazy year that was 2021.

This year we saw a good number of new DJI products hit the shelves, but what awaits us next year? A leaked timeline could clue us in.

Anyone who dreams of what it will be like to throw a few switches in their car that enable it to take off into the skies should probably swing by stand 3535 LVCC at next month’s CES 2022 tech conference in Las Vegas, where they can get an immersive cockpit preview of the ASKA Drive and Fly vehicle.

Leading autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV) manufacturer EHang has unveiled its new, fully integrated 5G flight center in the Chinese city Guangzhou, from which it will trial air taxi and other urban air mobility (UAM) services awaiting their commercial launch in coming months.

UAV pilots, both tested veterans and uninitiated neophytes, cannot be reminded enough that flying too close to wildlife can be tantamount to harassment when the creatures react in fear. That message was reiterated again this week after conservationists in Cornwall, England, witnessed a drone spooking a group of resting seals to bolt into the sea.

The first shipment from Autel Robotics’ new drone series, EVO Lite and EVO Nano, has finally arrived at the US warehouse and should reach distribution partners in the next few days. Unlike Autel’s previous enterprise and prosumer offerings, these drones are meant for beginners and veterans alike. As such, the drone manufacturer has released a new, easy-to-use Autel Sky app to make shooting, editing, and sharing easier at the touch of a button.

The first shipment from Autel Robotics’ new drone series, EVO Lite and EVO Nano, has finally arrived in North America today. Originally announced in September 2021, the drones will now be displayed for the first time in public at the upcoming CES technology industry trade show in Las Vegas.

Okay, any way you slice it, this story is really weird. News reports in Mississippi say a woman was struck and injured by a decorative boat anchor dropped on her by a drone in what was not an isolated incident. How could that ever be a thing?