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Countries across the continent are experimenting with this 21st century technology as a way to leapfrog decades of neglect of 20th century infrastructure.
Over the last two years, San Francisco-based startup Zipline launched a national UAV delivery program in East Africa; South Africa passed commercial drone legislation to train and license pilots; and Malawi even opened a Drone Test Corridor to African and its global partners.
In Rwanda, the country's government became one of the first adopters of performance-based regulations for all drones earlier this year. The country's progressive UAV programs drew special attention from the White House and two U.S. Secretaries of Transportation.
[...] After several test rounds, Zipline went live with the program in October, becoming the world's first national drone delivery program at scale.
"We've since completed over 6000 deliveries and logged 500,000 flight kilometers," Zipline co-founder Keenan Wyrobek told TechCrunch. "We're planning to go live in Tanzania soon and talking to some other African countries."
[...] In a non-delivery commercial use case, South Africa's Rocketmine has built out a UAV survey business in 5 countries. The company looks to book $2 million in revenue in 2018 for its "aerial data solutions" services in mining, agriculture, forestry, and civil engineering.
[...] The continent's test programs — and Rwanda's performance-based drone regulations in particular — could advance beyond visual line of sight UAV technology at a quicker pace. This could set the stage for faster development of automated drone fleets for remote internet access, commercial and medical delivery, and even give Africa a lead in testing flying autonomous taxis.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by shortscreen on Monday September 24 2018, @09:56PM (3 children)
Lenin and Mao installed themselves. I'm not sure who you're trying to blame for that. Russia supports Assad vs. Al Qaeda. You favor Al Qaeda?
Kim says he is willing to negotiate. But that's not good enough for some. His country may be a shithole but you can blame US-led sanctions and military threats for that. The US "opposes" NK, tries to sabotage it, and wants to keep the area as a playground for the military. Is there some kind of alternative that they support? Do they think NK is going to surrender en masse and become a US colony?
The US backed people that Russia doesn't like in Ukraine with or without elections (remember "Yats is the guy") that was the whole point. Aside from Gulf state monarchs the US is running short on friendly dictators, so they have to fund and arm opposition groups, or create them. Even if they are Al Qaeda. That is how the US handles people it doesn't like. Throw on some sanctions too. Then the next move is to start bombing (but only when Russia isn't looking)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:48AM (2 children)
Mao had Soviet support and Lenin was Russian. Read the post otherwise.
I favor neither. Assad created the mess in the first place. Al Qaeda is not an improvement.
And that is as positive a statement as we'll ever get about the man.
You can blame Moon Nazis too because they're withholding precious Moon cheese from the starving North Koreans. There's not much point to fantasy-based blame. There are many countries in the world. Only North Korea has these peculiar issues. Maybe we ought to look for rational reasons for why the country is a shithole rather than automatically assume the US is somehow to blame.
So what? Is the US supposed to subordinate its interests to those of Russia?
You're apparently the first person to complain about that state of affairs. The US fortunately isn't running short on friendly democracies.
I think I've made it clear by now that I believe the USSR deserved all the shit it caught over the decades (mostly created by itself). Creating Al Qaeda is a pretty minor price for tossing the USSR on the garbage pile of history.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Tuesday September 25 2018, @08:08AM (1 child)
If the US acts like it's more important than everybody else and not accountable for anything, then it shouldn't expect to be taken seriously when it sheds crocodile tears over what other governments are doing. It's as simple as that.
We may agree to disagree.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 25 2018, @01:13PM
"If."
Except of course, when getting along with some of the hypocrites of the world means you can save thousands or millions of lives, right?
What's true of a country can be true of an individual. Why should I take you seriously?