Altec

caltech | May 28, 2019

Landing multi-rotor drones smoothly is difficult. Complex turbulence is created by the airflow from each rotor bouncing off the ground as the ground grows ever closer during a descent. This turbulence is not well understood nor is it easy to compensate for, particularly for autonomous drones. That is why takeoff and landing are often the two trickiest parts of a drone flight. Drones typically wobble and inch slowly toward a landing until power is finally cut, and they drop the remaining distance...

ZDnet | January 14, 2020

A group of tech companies and organisations have come forth with support for Google in its legal stoush against Oracle, a case that could determine the outlook of software development's future. The Google-Oracle legal battle dates back over a decade, with the core issue being whether copyright laws bar the commonplace practice of software reimplementation -- the "process of writing new software to perform certain functions of a legacy product". It was also...

CNN International | January 14, 2020

Amazon will ask a federal court to temporarily block Microsoft (MSFT) from working on a $10 billion cloud computing contract for the military, according to a court filing Monday. Microsoft is scheduled to begin its work on the contract on Feb. 11. But Amazon's cloud computing division will seek a preliminary injunction to "prevent the issuance of substantive task orders under the contract," the filing said. Amazon's request will be submitted by Jan. 24. The request is part of A...

VentureBeat | January 13, 2020

Google hopes to tap AI and machine learning to make speedy local weather predictions. In a paper and accompanying blog post, the tech giant detailed an AI system that uses satellite images to produce “nearly instantaneous” and high-resolution forecasts — on average, with a roughly one kilometer resolution and a latency of only 5-10 minutes. The researchers behind it say it outperforms traditional models “even at these early stages of development.” The system takes a...