drones

A dramatized fictional video of micro drones with facial recognition and swarm AI used as autonomous killer weapons. It is a Slaughterbots-style warning about lethal autonomous weapons.

Real Engineering explains how Zipline built a drone delivery network for medical supplies in Rwanda. It covers the fixed-wing drones, catapult launch, parachute drop and the logistics behind the service.

Novelist Daniel Suarez warns in a TED talk about autonomous robotic weapons and drones. He argues that taking the decision to kill out of human hands threatens democratic accountability and calls for a ban.

A Wendover Productions documentary-style video on how Zipline delivers blood and medical supplies by drone in Rwanda. It covers the catapult launch, parachute drop and the logistics behind it.

An 8-minute fictional short film, made by campaigners for a ban on autonomous weapons, depicting swarms of cheap AI-guided micro-drones used to kill targeted people. It ends with a call to action against autonomous weapons.

Slaughterbots, a short dystopian film in which swarms of small autonomous drones are programmed to kill targets matching a profile. It opens as a slick product launch before turning into a terror scenario.

Wendover Productions explains why drone delivery has not become the future once promised. It covers no-fly zones, costs and the difficulty of the final drop-off.

Red Bull and the Dutch Drone Gods follow Max Verstappen's RB20 F1 car around Silverstone in a single FPV shot using a custom drone that accelerates to 300 km/h in about four seconds. The video also covers the year of development behind the drone.

Nature video showing MIT researchers flying the first plane with no moving parts, powered by an ion drive that creates an ionic wind from high-powered electrodes. The 5m-wide craft flies across a sports hall.

A short clip about DARPA's ARGUS-IS, a 1.8 gigapixel wide-area camera array flown on a Boeing unmanned helicopter. It produces a huge mosaic video that can watch a city-sized area from 20,000 feet.

In a TEDGlobal talk, Raffaello D'Andrea demonstrates quadcopters that play catch, balance, learn and coordinate, using algorithms that treat them like athletes. It includes Kinect-controlled quads.

Slaughterbots is a fictional short film, backed by Stuart Russell, depicting swarms of cheap autonomous drones that use facial recognition to assassinate targets. It was made to argue for banning autonomous weapons.

Slaughterbots is a short sci-fi film in which swarms of cheap autonomous drones are programmed to kill targets by profile. It was made as arms-control advocacy against autonomous weapons.

A vlog in which Tucker Gott flies a paramotor to a McDonald's for lunch, showing everyday powered paraglider flying.

CGP Grey's video "Humans Need Not Apply" argues that automation will make a large part of the workforce economically obsolete, much as engines did for horses. It surveys robots and software replacing both physical and mental labor.

Wendover Productions explains how airlines make money from different cabin classes and why premium seats matter so much to profits. It also touches on how this shaped decisions such as the decline of supersonic travel.

CGP Grey compares airplane boarding methods, based on an arXiv paper, and shows why the intuitive back-to-front approach is slow while random or outside-in boarding does better.

Wendover Productions explains why Boeing's efficient 787 beat Airbus's giant A380, contrasting hub-and-spoke with point-to-point routes. It covers the economics of long-haul flights.

Destin Sandlin of Smarter Every Day undergoes hypoxia training and experiences his own impaired thinking as oxygen is withdrawn. The video shows how quickly and unnoticeably oxygen deprivation degrades judgment, illustrating why you put your own mask on first.

NASA JPL engineers explain the final minutes of the Curiosity rover's entry, descent and landing on Mars, which combined aerobraking, a parachute and a skycrane. It lays out the tight sequence of events that all had to work automatically.

A short video on the US Sprint anti-ballistic missile, which accelerated to around Mach 10 in seconds under extreme g-forces and heat. It includes striking launch footage and a brief development history.

Veritasium's Derek Muller visits NASA JPL to see the Mars helicopter Ingenuity before it was mounted on the rover. He explains how it can fly in Mars's thin atmosphere with large, fast-spinning contra-rotating rotors and low mass, and covers power and cold.

Real Engineering analyzes whether electric planes are feasible, focusing on battery energy density limits compared with jet fuel. It concludes electric flight works mainly for short ranges.

Wendover Productions explains how overnight shipping works, covering the hub-and-spoke logistics of companies like FedEx and UPS and the use of cargo aircraft. It touches on the economics that make next-day delivery possible.

The first installment of a hobbyist's video diary documenting his build of a giant walking spider-like vehicle. The footage is casual and self-shot, following the early stages of the project.

A short Wendover Productions explainer on ETOPS, the rules that let twin-engine jets fly long routes over oceans. It covers the economics that favored twinjets like the 787 over four-engine aircraft like the A380 and 747.

NASA's animated explanation of the Curiosity rover's Mars landing, which relied on a complex automated sequence taking about seven minutes. It features NASA engineers discussing the risks before the 2012 landing.

A Wendover Productions explainer arguing that major airlines make much of their profit from loyalty programs and co-branded credit cards rather than flying. It frames airlines as quasi-banks that sell points in bulk, using United's pandemic-era loan as a hook.

Wendover Productions explains why modern airliners fly no faster than they did decades ago, covering the economics of speed and fuel efficiency, and why supersonic travel faded.

Cockpit footage of a Swiss Airbus A340 crew dealing with rising oil temperature in one engine on a Zurich to Shanghai flight, ending with a safety landing. It shows the pilots' procedures through the emergency.

AVweb's Paul Bertorelli explains why general aviation has failed to replace leaded avgas, blaming industry inertia, bureaucratic delay and an exemption that removes the incentive. This is part one of two.

AVweb's Paul Bertorelli explains in part two of a series why general aviation has not replaced leaded avgas. He covers industry inertia, bureaucratic delays and the exemption that lets the industry keep using lead.

A Wendover Productions explainer on the political agreements, from the Chicago Convention onward, that determine which airlines can fly where. It lays out the five freedoms of the air.

Mark Rober shows an automatic bullseye dartboard that tracks a thrown dart with motion capture and moves in real time so it always hits the center. He spent over three years on the project.

A Wendover Productions explainer on how airport security is designed, covering screening layers, x-ray scanning, and the contrast with Israel's profiling-based approach. It walks through the logic behind why security works the way it does.

Johns Hopkins APL shows Les Baugh, a bilateral shoulder-level amputee, controlling two Modular Prosthetic Limbs by thought after a short training period. Nerves rerouted to his chest drive the arms.

Vox explainer arguing the two Boeing 737 Max crashes were not just a software bug but the result of a company's drive to beat its rival, with a flawed MCAS design.

Bret Copeland, in an astronaut costume, gives an energetic talk on how the Space Shuttle landed from orbit, including reentry and the unpowered glide. It includes real-time landing footage with HUD and audio.

This Place argues that the uncanny valley is a flawed concept, since 'human likeness' is too broad and the supporting evidence is cherry-picked. It proposes that the creepiness really comes from how animated characters and robots move.

A Wendover Productions explainer on how budget airlines can sell tickets for under 10 euros. It covers the costs airlines face and how low-cost carriers structure their business.