GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Over the past few weeks, concerned New Jersey residents have craned their heads skyward to track the movements of what appeared to be mysterious drones overhead, formulate theories about their origins and strategize about how to get rid of them. A few thousand miles away, just west of Phoenix, Amazon is on an ambitious quest to convince people that the 80-pound drones whirring over their houses not only are harmless but also represent the exciting future of online shopping. You may have heard about Amazon’s drones before. The company first teased them more than a decade ago, when Jeff Bezos went on “60 Minutes” to declare the start of Prime Air, an experimental drone delivery service that the company hoped would one day deliver millions of packages to customers in 30 minutes or less. For Amazon addicts, the pitch was irresistible. Need a phone charger? Forgot your toothpaste on a work trip? Tap a button, Bezos said, and an autonomous drone would zoom through the sky to deliver it to you, in less time than it would take you to drive to the store. That future didn’t arrive on schedule, however, and Bezos is now more focused on sending rockets to space. But Amazon hasn’t given up on drones. This week, I was invited along with my “Hard Fork” co-host, Casey Newton, to tour the facility where Amazon just launched the newest iteration of Prime Air and see its new drones in action. Our tour was awkwardly timed — smack-dab in the middle of a national panic over the drones hovering over New Jersey. (For what it’s worth, Amazon officials say the mystery drones aren’t theirs. Federal officials said this week that most of the reported sightings had turned out to be piloted planes and hobby drones, although some remain unexplained.) But Amazon is undeterred. The company believes that the convenience of drone delivery will outweigh any concerns people have about the drones themselves. “Any form of technology needs to have utility,” said David Carbon, Amazon’s vice president and general manager of Prime Air, who served as our tour guide for the day. “If it doesn’t have utility for the general populace, it’s a nuisance.” We tested that theory by ordering a drone delivery of something called Brazilian Bum Bum Cream to a house in the Phoenix suburbs that Amazon had rented for the day. The cream is one of about 60,000 products that can be ordered for drone delivery, all of which weigh 5 pounds or less and fit into a standard-size Prime Air box. (Despite the suggestive name, Brazilian Bum Bum Cream is used on many body parts.) Our delivery went smoothly. It also inspired a visit from a neighbor, whose reaction proved that the public may not be as excited as Amazon is about a drone-filled future. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Related Articles A drone dream, deferred Back in 2013, when Bezos made his pitch on “60 Minutes,” Amazon’s drones weren’t really ready for prime time. For starters, the company had yet to receive regulatory approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate a drone delivery program. (That approval didn’t come until 2020, when the agency authorized Prime Air to operate as an airline and deliver small packages via drone. The approval was expanded to include deliveries “beyond visual line of sight” this year.) The drones themselves also had issues: They had limited range and carrying capacity, couldn’t fly in heavy rain or wind and made a ton of noise. They were also inefficient as a delivery vehicle. Unlike vans and trucks packed wall to wall with boxes, a Prime Air drone could deliver only one package at a time. There were safety concerns, too. In 2022, Bloomberg reported that an Amazon drone testing facility in Pendleton, Oregon, had recorded five drone crashes in a four-month period, including one involving a drone that burst into flames and ignited a 25-acre brush fire. (No one was hurt, and the company characterized the incidents as part of routine testing.) In 2020, Amazon hired Carbon, a longtime aviation executive, to overhaul Prime Air and turn its original vision into reality. (Carbon left Boeing, where he oversaw the company’s 787 Dreamliner factory in South Carolina, after a New York Times article detailed rushed production practices and weak oversight there.) In 2022, Prime Air started drone delivery with real customers in College Station, Texas. The program proved that the company’s drones could fly safely, but it wasn’t a hit with customers, in part because signing up for drone deliveries was so cumbersome. Before sending drones to customers’ houses, Amazon employees had to visit the houses to find a clear spot for dropping packages. Customers were given printed cards with QR codes on them, which they’d place in their yards or driveways to help guide the drones to the right spot. The whole thing felt more like an elaborate marketing stunt than a preview of an inevitable future. (Around that time, my colleague David Streitfeld memorably described Prime Air as “a program that flies Listerine Cool Mint Breath Strips or a can of Campbell’s Chunky Minestrone With Italian Sausage — but not both at once — to customers as gifts.”) Recently, Amazon has developed a new drone — known as the MK-30 — that it claims solves many of the problems with previous models. The new drones fly twice as far, and the company says they are significantly quieter. The drones can also identify where to drop packages with the help of cameras and sensors, which means no more yard surveys or QR codes. This year, Amazon began offering drone delivery from a facility in Tolleson, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix — where, as in Texas, the skies are typically sunny and clear, making for optimal flying conditions. Its drones now deliver dozens of packages a day to real, paying customers in the West Valley Phoenix Metro area — a tiny fraction of what even one Amazon van could do, but a step toward fulfilling Bezos’ original vision. The blades of progress Once we arrived in Tolleson, Carbon gave us safety vests and took us on a tour of the Prime Air facility. The facility is housed in a back corner of an Amazon warehouse that I would be tempted to describe as “huge,” except that a company press official said it was smaller than a typical fulfillment center. Outside, in a fenced area known as the PADDC, for Prime Air Drone Delivery Center, a fleet of roughly a dozen MK-30 drones sat ready for takeoff. They were tear-shaped and gleaming white, with big blue Amazon logos and six, three-blade rotors surrounding the delivery compartment. These custom-designed drones are bigger and heavier than anything you’d see on the shelf at Best Buy; each MK-30 weighs 80 pounds and is roughly the size and shape of a Labrador retriever. And they fly at speeds of up to 73 mph. As soon as a Prime Air order comes in, a worker inside the warehouse packs it in a special, cushioned box and sends it down a conveyor belt. Another worker walks the package outside to the drone delivery area, drops it into a size checker and slides it through a chute to a worker inside the fence. That worker then loads the box into a compartment inside the drone. A 30-second countdown begins. When it reaches zero, the drone’s blades start whirring, and the drone ascends to roughly 400 feet and makes a beeline to the customer’s house. Getting these drones off the ground has required making some compromises. Today, Amazon can launch only seven drones per hour from the Tolleson facility, and each can carry only one package, with a single item inside. That will change next year, when customers will have the option of adding multiple items to a box, Carbon said. Amazon charges Prime members an extra $9.99 for a drone delivery (nonmembers pay $14.99), and the drones don’t deliver at night. The company also has had to walk back Bezos’ original promise of 30-minute deliveries; it now tells customers their Prime Air packages will arrive in an hour or less. And drone delivery, for now, appears to be deeply unprofitable. Carbon wouldn’t say how much Amazon lost on each delivery, but Business Insider reported in 2022 that the company projected that drone deliveries would cost the company $63 per package by 2025, according to internal documents. Carbon, an upbeat Australian, is optimistic that all of this will change soon as Amazon’s technology keeps improving and the service expands to more areas. His goal is to deliver 500 million packages a year in 30 minutes or less via drone by 2029 — which would still amount to a small fraction of the company’s overall package volume but would be a huge success for Prime Air. (Amazon says Prime Air has made “thousands” of deliveries in Arizona and Texas so far but declined to provide more specific numbers.) Amazon isn’t the only company betting on drones. Companies like Wing (Google’s drone delivery unit) and Zipline are teaming up with retailers like Walmart to test their own drone delivery programs. And outfits like DroneUp and Matternet are building technology that could allow for smoother operation of large, autonomous drone fleets. As for the question you may be asking about all of this — do people want drones dropping packages in their yards? — Carbon has an answer: Yes, at least some people, some of the time. He conceded that not every customer would want all purchases delivered right away. But he said there were plenty of instances when you wanted something as soon as possible. (He gave the example of a child who spills something on his or her shirt; with Prime Air, a parent could order a bar of soap and receive it from a drone in minutes, before the stain sets.) “No one can ever tell me speed doesn’t matter,” he said. It’s hard to argue with Carbon on this point: In America, it’s never a good idea to bet against convenience. We live in a world of instant gratification: DoorDash dinners and Uber rides at the push of a button. And historically, every time Amazon has sped up its deliveries — first to two-day shipping, then to next-day, then to same-day — customers have responded by ordering more stuff and demanding that it be delivered even faster. Even so, I wondered, isn’t using state-of-the-art drones to deliver USB cables and individual bottles of Tylenol a little ... crazy? On our tour of the Prime Air facility, we saw drones being loaded with packages containing items as small as a single gift card. Even if these drones (which are all-electric) are better for the environment than a typical delivery truck, it’s an awful lot of trouble for a last-minute present. I asked Carbon if he thought that some of what customers were ordering from Prime Air was less than essential. He responded, basically, that what customers wanted was none of Amazon’s business. “The beauty of America is that people decide what they want and when they want it, not us,” he said. A smooth landing and a nosy neighbor After our tour of the facility, we drove to a house in nearby Goodyear, Arizona, that Amazon had rented for the day to show us a real drone delivery in action. When we got there, I pulled out my laptop and placed an order for Brazilian Bum Bum Cream — one of the first items that appeared on a list of Prime Air-eligible products. (Other eligible products include dog treats, dental floss and printed copies of the U.S. Constitution.) The checkout process was similar to ordering anything else from Amazon, with one extra step of selecting a spot for the drone to drop the package. Today, the drones need about 3 square meters (about 32 square feet) of open space; I chose a spot in the backyard, next to the pool. About 45 minutes after I placed my order, a drone whizzed overhead. It made a distinct humming noise — which Carbon insisted wasn’t very loud but to me sounded like an angry swarm of bees — and generated a slight breeze as it approached. Once it was over our heads, the drone descended to about 14 feet off the ground. A compartment sprang open, and the package dropped out. (The drones don’t land, Carbon said, because customers — or their dogs — might try to grab them.) Then, as speedily as it had arrived, the drone flew away. I’ll admit: It’s an impressive feat, and everything about the drone delivery was as smooth and convenient as advertised. But it also attracted some unwanted attention. Seconds after our package landed, a neighbor came over. He introduced himself as Geno and asked if we were from Amazon. He said people in the neighborhood had started to associate the whirring of drones overhead with the mystery drones in New Jersey. “You guys scared the life out of a lot of people,” he told Carbon. Changing the fear factor Today, people simply aren’t accustomed to seeing drones hovering above them, which makes them seem sinister and menacing and often leaves people grasping for paranoid explanations. (Aliens! Covert military operations! Missing radioactive material!) That may change soon. As the government pointed out during its investigation into the New Jersey drones, there are more than 1 million FAA-registered drones certified to fly in the United States today and millions more small, recreational drones that can be flown without a license. Drones are getting cheaper and more accessible, and small, lightweight quadcopters can now be purchased for under $100. In a few years, it may no longer seem notable to see a swarm of drones overhead — taking photos, dropping off packages or delivering medicine to hospitals. But technology changes faster than culture, and initial evidence suggests that drone acceptance won’t be immediate. A Florida man was arrested this year for shooting down a Walmart delivery drone that was dropping off a package in his neighborhood. (The man agreed to pay $5,000 in restitution to DroneUp, the company that owned the drone.) Referring to the recent drama of drones in New Jersey, President-elect Donald Trump suggested on social media that one solution would be to “shoot them down.” (Carbon said that none of Amazon’s drones had been shot at but that the company would prosecute anyone who tried.) Over the long term, Amazon’s job isn’t just to prove that it can deliver packages to customers in 30 minutes or less. It’s something much harder: convincing millions of Americans that when they see and hear drones overhead, their first instinct shouldn’t be to duck and cover or to reach for their guns. “Our job is to make this normal,” Carbon said. “And until it’s normal, people are always rightfully skeptical of change.” If it works, Amazon’s drone program — and others like it — will represent the biggest visible change to our skies since the advent of commercial air travel. If it doesn’t, the industry will have spent billions of dollars learning a hard lesson about our collective tolerance for flocks of flying robots. Given what’s happening in New Jersey, I’m skeptical that normalizing drones will be easy or quick, even for a company with Amazon’s resources and track record. But Carbon believes that the proof will be in the packages. “If I do my job right, no one’s going to care about the drone,” he said. “What they’re going to care about is: Did I get my package within 30 minutes?” Kevin Roose is a Times technology columnist and a host of the podcast “Hard Fork.” This article originally appeared in The New York Times .By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS NEW YORK (AP) — Sneaking a little ahead of line to get on that plane faster? American Airlines might stop you . In an apparent effort to reduce the headaches caused by airport line cutting, American has rolled out boarding technology that alerts gate agents with an audible sound if a passenger tries to scan a ticket ahead of their assigned group. This new software won’t accept a boarding pass before the group it’s assigned to is called, so customers who get to the gate prematurely will be asked to go back and wait their turn. As of Wednesday, the airline announced, the technology is now being used in more than 100 U.S. airports that American flies out of. The official expansion arrives after successful tests in three of these locations — Albuquerque International Sunport, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Tucson International Airport. The initial response from customers and American employees “has exceeded our expectations,” Julie Rath, American’s senior vice president of airport operations, reservations and service recovery, said in a statement. She added that the airline is “thrilled” to have the technology up and running ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday . American got lots of attention when it unveiled its gate-control testing last month. Analysts say that isn’t surprising. It’s no secret that line cutting in airports hits a nerve. Whether intentional or not, just about every air traveler has witnessed it, noted Henry Harteveldt, an airline industry analyst with Atmosphere Research Group. It can add to frustrations in what can already be a tense environment, with particular anxiety around passengers wanting to sit together or rushing for some overhead bin space. Harteveldt doesn’t see American’s recent move as “shaming” customers who cut the line. “What it is intended to do is bring order out of chaos,” he said. “And I hope it will defuse any potential flare ups of anger (from) people who simply think they’re entitled to board out of turn .... It’s just not fair.” Harteveldt added that he thinks this change will enhance the experiences of both customers and gate agents. Others say more time will tell. Seth Miller, editor and founder of air travel experience analysis site PaxEx.aero, said he can see the benefits of more orderly and universal gate-control enforcement, particularly for airlines. But he said he isn’t “100% convinced this is perfect for passengers” just yet. Families, for example, might be booked on several different reservations across more than one group, he said. Airlines typically have workarounds for that, and American noted Wednesday that customers traveling with a companion in an earlier group can simply have a gate agent “override the alert” to continue boarding. Still, Miller said, “you have to go through the extra hoops.” And a difficult customer still might choose to hold up the line and argue when they’re not allowed to board, he added. Related Articles National News | Bob Casey concedes Pa. Senate race, congratulates Dave McCormick on win National News | A Mexican cartel leader arrested in the US faked his death and assumed a phony name, prosecutors say National News | Major storm drops record rain, downs trees in Northern California after devastation further north National News | SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who led US crackdown on cryptocurrencies, to step down National News | ACLU sues government for records detailing Trump’s mass deportation plan Another question is whether customers who encounter a beep will walk away feeling embarrassed. But Harteveldt said he was happy to learn that American’s alert is “not a bellowing sound that can be heard throughout the terminal,” or accompanied by your name read over a loudspeaker, noting that this is important to avoid feelings of shame. Expanding this technology just a week before peak Thanksgiving travel could be “both good and bad,” Harteveldt adds. On one hand, the tech could help significantly improve the boarding process during such a busy time, he said, but airport employees might also have appreciated more time to prepare. Both Miller and Harteveldt said they wouldn’t be surprised if other carriers soon follow American’s lead. Headaches over airport line cutting are far from new. While maybe not to the extent of American’s new tech, Miller noted he’s seen gate agents from other airlines ask people to leave a line and wait for their group. Harteveldt added that he’s been to some airports in Asia and Europe with “sliding doors” that ensure passengers are in the right group before boarding a plane. The more than 100 airports that American is now using its gate-control technology in are all spoke, or non-hub, locations — including Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The airline says it expects to further expand to its hubs and other airports in the coming months.ph365 official website 。

Manmohan Singh's demise: Centre announces 7-day mourningEMERGENCY drivers can rush to crash scenes faster thanks to new artificial intelligence tech. Ambulances, snow plows, and public transportation have access to smarter, safer routes through a platform that cuts the number of red traffic lights they meet. LYT uses AI and cloud-based technology to communicate with traffic signals and request green lights when certain vehicles come to intersections. The traffic solution is already installed in multiple cities across America, as Laramie Bowron, LYT's vice president of sales, said the tech is "widely used" on emergency vehicles. "Our sweet spot is really using AI and being completely hardware-free," Bowron told The U.S. Sun. "So being able to give the right traffic signal to the right vehicle at any time." READ MORE ON CARS The company reports a 69% increase in how quickly the average emergency vehicle can get to a crash site. It even shaved over a half hour off the average response time in one city. Fremont Fire Department in the Bay Area of San Francisco, California , previously took 46 minutes to get from one side of the city to the other, Bowron said. Now, it only takes 14 minutes to cross town, FFD confirmed. Most read in Motors "It saves lives," Bowron said. "So that agency doesn't need to build another fire station, actually, because they can [travel] so much broader. "It's so cool to see this in action." A Fremont Fire spokesperson told The U.S. Sun, "In the tests that have been conducted you can clearly see that LYT-AI has improved the Fremont Fire Department’s ability to respond. "The amount of time reduced during each response, as a result of LYT-AI, is dependent on the time of day and traffic." HOW IT WORKS The tech functions by connecting with GPS devices on vehicles. Everything you need to know about the latest developments in Artificial Intelligence How does Artificial Intelligence work - and is it always correct? What is the popular AI Chat GPT and how does it work? How do you use Google's latest AI chatbot Bard? What is the AI image generator Lensa AI and how can you use it How do you use Snapchat's My AI tool? What are the best things to ask Chat GPT? What are the funniest things to ask Chat GPT? Then, LYT sends messages to the traffic signals that are connected to the internet. The outcome is a consistent, reliable green light for emergency vehicles, giving them a clear and quick path to where they're needed. Plus, LYT has a route prediction tool that leads drivers to take the best path possible. "We can see where an incident is, we can see where the vehicle is, and based on historical travel patterns, we can predict the route that the vehicle will take and clear each corridor," Bowron said. "We can actually help guide the vehicle to where we think it's going to go." CONCERT CONGESTION Aside from minimizing first responders' reaction time, the tech was also used to eliminate traffic outside Taylor Swift concerts. Swift's wildly popular global Eras tour filled stadiums across the country - leading to bumper-to-bumper traffic surrounding venues. This created a perfect opportunity for LYT to clear up chaos. In addition, LYT is currently working to help snow plow drivers travel through intersections more easily. "I would say that our technology on snow most closely mirrors the technology that we give to fire police and services," Bowron said. Read More on The US Sun The company is testing LYT.snow to quickly clear roads and save money for cities with the improvements. The tech is currently implemented on a 70-mile toll road as it's piloted in major cities across America.

Deputy Senate President, Honourable Barau Jibril, on Saturday, donated 1,000 motorcycles to Kano Police Command as part of his contribution to enhancing policing in the state. This was just as he charged traditional rulers, stakeholders, and even ordinary people in the streets to complement efforts of security operatives in ensuring peace in the state. According to him, this donation aimed to enhance policing in the state and support the Nigerian Police in their constitutional responsibilities. He added that the donation is a demonstration of his commitment to supporting the Nigerian Police in their efforts to maintain law and order. Hon Jibril then emphasised that the administration of President Bola Ahmad Tinubu is dedicated to fighting all forms of insecurity across the nation. He however stated that security is a collective responsibility, requiring the collaboration of all stakeholders. He pledged to continue providing support to the Nigerian Police to enhance their operational capacity. Speaking at the occasion, the state Commissioner of police Mr Salman Dogo, commended Hon.Jibril for the gesture adding that this provision would go a long way in enhancing mobility of the police in their operation. He added ” The provision of these motorcycles symbolizes more than just a mode of transportation; it represents a tangible investment in the capabilities and morale of our dedicated police officers, enhancing their operational efficiency and response readiness. CP Dogo emphasised; “The significance of this initiative extends far beyond the motorcycles themselves; it speaks volumes to the profound impact that strategic partnerships and community support can have on the effectiveness and vitality of our law enforcement efforts. Invited Guest, ladies and gentlemen, the Deputy Senate President’s commitment to our police force and the broader community exemplifies a shared vision of public safety and security. His generosity not only reinforces the vital role that collaboration plays in achieving our common goals but also serves as a testament to his dedication to the well-being of our officers and the residents we are sworn to protect. As we embrace this new chapter of enhanced mobility and operational capacity, I urge my fellow police officers to embrace these motorcycles as tools of service excellence. Let us wield them with pride, professionalism, and a steadfast commitment to upholding the values of integrity, accountability, and respect for the rule of law. Let us also leverage this significant investment to forge even stronger bonds with the communities we serve, fostering. While the Chairman of the Eminent Persons Forum, Mukhtar Gashash, commended Alhaji Barau Jibrin for his foresight and generosity in supporting the Kano Police Command. This donation is not the first instance of Senator Barau Jibrin’s philanthropy. In 2023, he donated 22 operational vehicles to the Kano State Police, demonstrating his commitment to supporting the security agencies in the state. READ MORE FROM: NIGERIAN TRIBUNE Get real-time news updates from Tribune Online! Follow us on WhatsApp for breaking news, exclusive stories and interviews, and much more. Join our WhatsApp Channel now