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Zipline drone venture is on a medical mission

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Zipline’s fixed-wing Zip drone airplane makes a flyover. (Credit: Zipline)

A drone delivery venture called Zipline International is coming out of stealth mode with backing from big-name investors and a humanitarian mission in mind.

During a Bay Area demo broadcast via Periscope, Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo and other executives showed how they plan to use mini-planes launched with compressed air to deliver blood and medical supplies in Rwanda starting in July.

Zipline has been working on a fleet of 15 electric-powered, GPS-guided Zip drones for a couple of years, but the startup has been flying under the radar (so to speak) until this month.

Rinaudo says the San Francisco startup has raised $18 million in funding from investors including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang, Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures and Stanford University. (Much of that investment came during Zipline’s previous incarnation as Romotive.) Zipline’s employees are said to include aerospace engineers from NASA, SpaceX, the Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin.

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Scott Kelly brings space into Microsoft spotlight

Image: Scott Kelly and Satya Nadella
Astronaut Scott Kelly recounts his space experience at the Microsoft Envision conference while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella looks on. (GeekWire photo by Kevin Lisota)

Just days after retiring from NASA, astronaut Scott Kelly gave HoloLens mixed-reality technology a boost today at the Microsoft Envision conference in New Orleans – and promised to get the International Space Station upgraded to Windows 10.

It’s been a busy time for Kelly: Last month, he finished up a nearly yearlong stint on the station, which was aimed at learning what will be required for long-duration missions to Mars and other deep-space destinations. Soon afterward, he announced he was retiring from NASA on April 1.

Today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella brought Kelly on stage to help inspire hundreds of developers attending this week’s Envision conference. “It’s the stories like Captain Kelly and NASA that inspire us in everything we do at Microsoft,” Nadella said. “Our mission is to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more.”

Kelly recalled that when he went over from the U.S. Navy to join NASA’s astronaut corps in 1996, the space shuttle program relied on the 486 computer processing chip and on-paper checklists. “The Internet was something new that I didn’t have a whole lot of experience with,” he said.

“Fast forward 20 years … and the space station is basically operated with a bunch of laptop computers using different types of software. Some of them use Microsoft Windows 7, actually. We’re a little behind there,” Kelly said.

“We’ve got to get the Windows 10 upgrade going into space,” Nadella joked.

“I’m going to call NASA right when we get out of here,” Kelly replied.

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Alaska Air is buying Virgin America for $2.6B

Virgin America and Alaska Airlines jet tails
Virgin America and Alaska Air Group confirmed their merger plans. (Credit: Alaska Air)

Alaska Air Group confirmed reaching a $2.6 billion deal to buy Virgin America after a bidding war with JetBlue Airways.

“This was a hard-fought competition, and we were very happy to come away as the successful bidder,” Alaska Air CEO Brad Tilden told reporters today.

Virgin America President and CEO David Kush said he was also pleased with the deal. “The price paid is a big win for our shareholders,” he said.

The deal involves a cash purchase of Virgin America’s shares at $57 each, which is a 47 percent premium over Friday’s closing price. The merger was approved by the boards of both airlines, but still must face U.S. regulatory approval. That’s expected to be worked out by the end of the year.

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Alaska Air closes in on Virgin America deal

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A smiling Eskimo graces the tail of an Alaska Airlines jet. (Credit: Alaska Air)

Seattle-based Alaska Air Group is close to a $2 billion deal to purchase Virgin America, beating out a rival bid from Jet Blue Airways, The Wall Street Journal reported April 2.

The Journal’s report was based on information from unnamed sources said to be familiar with the matter. Those sources stressed that there was no guarantee Alaska would clinch the deal. An announcement could come as early as April 4, they told the Journal.

U.S.-based Virgin America is separate from Virgin Atlantic, a larger airline owned by British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. Branson’s holding company owns less than 25 percent of Virgin America, in accordance with federal law. Cyrus Aviation Holdings is the largest investor with about 28 percent of the voting stock.

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Tesla Model 3 electric car gets a 5-star reveal

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The Model 3 electric car will become Tesla Motors’ most affordable model. (Credit: Tesla Motors)

Tesla Motors’ Model 3 electric sedan may be geared for mass-market affordability, but CEO Elon Musk made it clear at tonight’s unveiling that he doesn’t intend it to be a third-rate car.

“It will be five-star in every category,” Musk told a standing-room-only, occasionally raucous crowd at Tesla’s warehouse-sized design studio at Hawthorne, Calif.

The $35,000 Model 3’s promised capabilities were arguably the biggest surprise of the evening: Musk said the scaled-down sedan would still have ample room for five people, thanks to a design that moves the instrument panel farther forward than the panel in the $70,000 Model S.

Even the base model will go from zero to 60 mph in less than 6 seconds, Musk said. And the driving range will be at least 215 miles on a charge.

“These are minimum numbers,” Musk said. “We hope to exceed them.”

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How androids will become part of our lives

Image: Albert Hubo and David Hanson
Roboticist David Hanson faces the camera with a robot named Albert Hubo, which was developed with the assistance of South Korean scientists. Hanson is the one on the right. (Credit: Hanson Robotics)

Artificial intelligence and robots are hot topics right now, but will we ever get to the stage we saw 50 years ago on “The Jetsons,” where your typical household could have a robotic maid named Rosie?

Robotics pioneer David Hanson says yes, and he thinks it’ll take less than 50 more years. That’s the prediction he delivered on Wednesday during a Skype-enabled panel presentation on the future of AI and robotics in Seattle, sponsored by the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Northwest.

A veteran of Disney’s imagineering operation, Hanson has produced custom-made robot heads that are capable of eerily humanlike expressions. Now Hanson has relocated to Hong Kong, where he’s gearing up to unveil a line of production-model robots that take advantage of recent AI advances as well as the toymaking prowess of the Pearl River Delta.

He’s not yet ready to say how much those robots will cost. That will come later this year. But he foresees a day when humanoid robots will cost as much as cars.

“It is possible that we can get the cost down to tens of thousands of dollars for walking, humanoid robots that can grasp and manipulate,” he said from Hong Kong. “They can perform as well as the robots like the KAIST DARPA Robotics Challenge grand prize winner.”

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Microsoft, NASA create HoloLens Mars tour

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Erisa Hines, a driver for the Mars Curiosity rover, talks to participants during the “Destination: Mars” mixed-reality tour. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Microsoft)

Microsoft and NASA are bringing HoloLens to the masses – and bringing the masses to Mars – with a mixed-reality experience that will make its debut this summer.

“Destination: Mars,” an exhibit opening at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida this summer, takes regular folks on a virtual guided tour to sites visited by the Curiosity rover on the Red Planet.

Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin serves as one of the “holographic tour guides,” along with Curiosity rover driver Erisa Hines of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“The experience lets the public explore Mars in an entirely new way,” JPL visualization producer Doug Ellison said March 30 in a news release. “To walk through the exact landscape that Curiosity is roving across puts its achievements and discoveries into beautiful context.”

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Boeing will trim 4,000 jobs, and maybe more

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A Boeing 777 jet is assembled at the company’s plant in Everett, Wash. (Credit: Boeing)

Boeing Commercial Airplanes says it’s following through on its job reduction plan with the target of reducing its workforce by 4,000 positions by midyear.

So far, there have been no involuntary layoffs, company spokesman Doug Alder told GeekWire in an email today. But he said that may have to come as a “last resort” in order to reduce costs and remain competitive with Airbus, Boeing’s European rival.

In addition to the workforce reduction, Boeing has been trying to save on non-labor costs and supply chain expenses, Alder said.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes employs about 82,000 people worldwide, accounting for more than half of the Boeing Co.’s total job count. Boeing’s employment in Washington state, including employees in the company’s defense and administrative units as well as commercial airplanes, amounts to about 78,000.

The Seattle Times, which first reported the numbers behind the company’s job reduction plan, cited Boeing documents suggesting that the reductions could total 8,000 jobs, or 10 percent, by the end of the year.

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Microsoft shows off ‘Star Wars’ holoportation

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Microsoft Research’s Shahram Izadi shows how a clip of his HoloLens-facilitated interactions with his daughter in a remote environment can be played back in 3-D. (Credit: Microsoft Research)

As Microsoft gets set to ship its HoloLens development kit, it’s previewing a “Star Wars” application called holoportation that takes full advantage of the mixed-reality headset.

The effect is like that scene in the original Star Wars movie, where Princess Leia pops up in a hologram and tells Obi-Wan Kenobi he’s her “only hope.” (The same concept is behind other holo-conferences sprinkled throughout the sequels and prequels.)

In a demo video, Microsoft Research’s Shahram Izadi shows how it works.

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Flirtey makes a milestone urban drone delivery

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Flirtey’s hexacopter hovers over Nevada during a drone delivery test. (Credit: Flirtey)

A startup named Flirtey says it’s executed the first FAA-approved urban drone delivery in the United States, in a test that could blaze a trail for Amazon and other companies that want to do the same thing.

The GPS-guided drop-off to an unoccupied house took place on March 10 in Hawthorne, Nev. The package of supplies, including bottled water, emergency food supply and a first-aid kit, was lowered by a rope to the house’s front porch from a hovering hexacopter. A drone pilot and several visual observers were on standby in case something went wrong, but they weren’t needed, the company said.

“Conducting the first drone delivery in an urban setting is a major achievement, taking us closer to the day that drones make regular deliveries to your front doorstep,” Flirtey CEO Matt Sweeny said today in a news release about the test.

Flirtey has already used drones to deliver textbooks in Australia and auto parts inNew Zealand, but its grand plan is to crack the market in the United States. That’s why it’s been participating in limited tests sanctioned by the Federal Aviation Administration at specified sites. Last July, Flirtey conducted a similar test for rural drone delivery in Virginia.

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