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Last week, Boeing completed the first test flight of its autonomous passenger aircraft prototype in Manassas, Virginia. The prototype is 30-feet long and 28-feet wide, powered by an electric propulsion system with a flight range of about 50 miles. The flight was successful, completing a controlled takeoff, hover and landing. Boeing hopes to test forward,…

Last week, a drone pilot was arrested for flying his drone into Barclays bank building during violent winds. Steve Funes operated his drone from the balcony of his 21st floor room at The Executive Plaza Hotel on West 51st Street. The crash occurred on nearby 7th Avenue. While the Barclays bank building…

As Hurricane Florence was making landfall, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar issued HIPAA guidance that outlined when hospitals in declared state of emergency areas can qualify for a waiver of certain provisions of the HIPAA Privacy Rule, including fines and penalties.

According to the guidance, “the HIPAA Privacy Rule allows patient…

Last week, in Blacksburg, Virginia, two-year old, Jack Smith—made history. Only six minutes after a technician from Alphabet Inc.’s Wing clicked the “Confirm Order” button on a smartphone app, a drone operated by the company flew from a simulated store about a mile away, hovered over Jack’s lawn and lowered the popsicle he had ordered…

In a lawsuit against its insurance company requesting reimbursement for close to $2.4 million from two different hacking incidents, National Bank of Blacksburg detailed the intrusions, which are instructive of a sophisticated scheme against the financial services industry.

According to the lawsuit, the first theft took place on Memorial Day weekend of 2016. In that…

At test sites in 10 states –Alaska, California, Florida, Nevada, North Dakota, North Carolina, Kansas, Oklahoma, Virginia and Tennessee – the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) granted local-backed drone projects special licenses to test new ways of flying. At these test sites, drone package delivery and nighttime flights will be conducted, which are typically prohibited…

Students 16 and over who live in Virginia, Michigan, Iowa, Hawaii, Nevada, Delaware and Rhode Island—you may be eligible to participate in a new cybersecurity skills program called CyberStart. You have to have access to the Internet and a computer to participate.

CyberStart is “a forward-thinking skills program designed to supply specialist cyber security education…

Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, recently cut the ribbon on a new runway in Virginia dedicated solely to unmanned aerial systems (UAS or drones). The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s UAS Airfield is a 3,000-foot runway for UAS (of course, also capable of accommodating larger aerial vehicles, too), and is the first of its kind. After the…

Yet another piece of drone legislation is in circulation; the Safe DRONE Act of 2017 was recently introduced by U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner, John Hoeven, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Dean Heller. The Act proposes the following for unmanned aerial systems (UAS or drones) in the U.S.:

  • Develop a trained UAS workforce: Directs the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) secretary to designate a consortium of community and technical colleges to expand the capacity of those colleges to train students for career opportunities in the UAS industry.
  • Coordinate federal UAS spectrum policy: Establishes an interagency working group – with a broad array of stakeholders who will be tasked with developing a cohesive federal policy to address communications needs to facilitate safe integration of drones into the National Airspace.
  • Advance unmanned traffic management (UTM): Directs the DOT secretary, in coordination with NASA, to develop an implementation plan within one year to achieve full operational capability of UTM.
  • Enhance UAS safety and security: Establishes an interagency working group involving relevant federal security agencies to develop recommendations for enhanced safety and security of expanded small UAS operations beyond visual line of sight and over people. It requires that the FAA release rules within one year of enactment.

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Continue Reading U.S. Senators Introduce the Safe DRONE Act of 2017