Day: March 26, 2015

Engineering, TechnologyLeave a comment

#AmazonPrime Air delivery #drones cleared for take-off, almost – an annotated infographic

E&T magazine

Amazon, the largest e-commerce company in the US, wants to use autonomous drones to deliver packages to customers. However, it is being frustrated at the slow pace of drone legislation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), so is now testing its Prime Air system in countries more favourable to drones. As E&T News reported recently, while the FAA has issued an experimental airworthiness certificate to an Amazon business unit and its prototype drone, allowing test flights over private rural land in the state of Washington, a British delivery firm has already beaten Amazon to complete the UK’s first test delivery … Continue reading #AmazonPrime Air delivery #drones cleared for take-off, almost – an annotated infographic

Engineering, TechnologyLeave a comment

Germanwings #Flight4U9525 – the final moments – an annotated infographic

E&T magazine

In spite of 2014 apparently being the safest year yet for aviation, planes do seem to be dropping out of the skies at an alarming rate. The latest tragedy is the Germanwings Airbus A320 Flight 4U 9525, which crashed in the French Alps en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf. The plane crashed in a remote area of the French Alps, killing 150 people including 16 school students. Germanwings said the plane started descending one minute after reaching its cruising height and continued losing altitude for eight minutes. Click on the graphic for an expanded view. Continue reading Germanwings #Flight4U9525 – the final moments – an annotated infographic

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New book blog: Tales to stretch your credibility in in ‘Too Good to be True’ by Jan Harold Brunvand

E&T magazine

However rational you might consider yourself to be, there’s still likely to be one urban legend that sounds just plausible enough to believe. After all, these are stories are usually grounded in the truth and have evolved, often over decades, being fine-tuned with very re-telling to make them just about plausible. In ‘Too Good to be True’, American folklorist and academic Jan Harold Brunvand analyses some of the best that he’s collected over the years. It’s one of the more entertaining books that’s arrived in the E&T inbox recently and we asked 14-year-old Anya Vitaliev, who’s been interning with us, … Continue reading New book blog: Tales to stretch your credibility in in ‘Too Good to be True’ by Jan Harold Brunvand