Accel invested $75 million into DJI this month, sparking this new partnership. Skyfund will make $250,000-plus investments in early stage drone startups through convertible notes or traditional seed and Series A rounds. DJI and Accel will have the option to make follow-on investments. Continue reading
US Drone Down in Iraq
A U.S. military drone crashed in southern Iraq on Wednesday while it was conducting a surveillance mission against Islamic State fighters, military officials have confirmed. Continue reading
Google’s Solar-Fueled UAV Crashes in New Mexico Test
A prototype of the massive solar-powered drone Google Inc. plans to build as a platform for delivering Internet service from the sky was destroyed in a crash at a New Mexico test site. Continue reading
New York-Bound Passenger Jet Reports Near-Miss
A commercial airliner narrowly missed colliding midair with a drone at 2,700 feet as it neared New York’s LaGuardia Airport Friday morning, just hours after a string of incidents involving lasers pointed at planes, according to federal officials. Continue reading
GoPro to Launch Virtual Reality Option
GoPro CEO Nick Woodman joined Recode’s Kara Swisher at the Code Conference to talk about the company’s foray into the new categories, and introduced a couple of future products.
UAS-Friendly GPS Backup System
The comment period on the US Federal Register is about to close on a potential navigation backup system for GPS that could be very useful for unmanned systems.
General Atomics Gets $72M US Air Force Contract for 8 Reapers
General Atomics – Aeronautical Systems Inc., Poway, California, has been awarded a fixed-price incentive firm and firm-fixed-price $72,068,072 modification (01) to order 077 on the basic ordering agreement FA8620-10-G-3038.
Ducted Fan Quadcopter
Pasadena, California-based Polyhelo created the Nano Tornado quadcopter, but instead of open props it utilizes four ducted fans.