Podcasts about uav

Hermeus just became the first company to fly a privately-developed supersonic UAV. But that's just a milepost on the way to a much bigger goal. Founder and executive chairman A.J. Piplica joins us to illuminate their future. With the week's airpower headlines. Powered by GE Aerospace!

This Week In Startups is made possible by:Deel https://deel.com/twistQuo https://quo.com/TWiSTLinkedIn Jobs https://LinkedIn.com/twistToday's show:Cortical Labs is the world's first company selling biological computers. Their CL1 fuses lab-grown human neurons (derived from stem cells, not actual folks) with silicon hardware to create Synthetic Biological Intelligence (SBI).Founder Dr. Hon Weng Chong walks us through how the system works and why neurons are more efficient than GPUs at reinforcement learning. (Also… is this computer alive?)PLUS Pyka co-founder and CEO Michael Norcia explains the various uses for his autonomous aircraft, from crop-spraying drones in Brazil to a a hybrid-electric defense UAV for the military.Guests:Cortical Labs: ****https://corticallabs.com/Dr. Hon Weng Chong on X: https://x.com/dr1337Pyka: https://www.flypyka.com/Pyka on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flypyka/?hl=enFurther Reading:2022 Pong paper in Neuron: https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(22)00806-62017 Paper: “Attention is All You Need”; https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762The “Barista Test” for Artificial Intelligence: Chris Rourk: https://medium.com/predict/the-turing-test-is-so-last-century-the-barista-test-for-artificial-general-intelligence-faf91034fa8cNotable Links:Playing “DOOM” on CL1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRV8fSw6HaEDayOne Data Center: https://dayonedc.com/NeurIPS 2026 Conference: https://neurips.cc/Neuralink: https://neuralink.com/CliniCloud Digital Stethoscope and Thermometer: https://www.design-industry.com.au/clinicloudAir Force Research Laboratory (AFWERX): https://afwerx.com/Joby Aviation: https://www.jobyaviation.com/Prime Movers Lab: https://www.primemoverslab.com/Timestamps:0:00 What is "biological computing"?2:49 Cortical's new $30 million raise4:15 The world's first biological data center9:48 Deel - Founders scale faster on Deel. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit https://deel.com/twist to learn more.10:51 Biological computers have a learning advantage19:43 Quo (formerly OpenPhone) - Quo gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at https://quo.com/TWiST29:15 LinkedIn Jobs - Hire right, the first time. Post your first job and get $100 off towards your job post at https://LinkedIn.com/twist38:46 From paper airplanes to Group 4 UAVs52:20 Introducing the DropShip defense drone58:28 How regulations block US drones1:00:40 Why Pyka builds everything in-houseSubscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.comCheck out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.comSubscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Alex:X: https://x.com/alexLinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelmFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandCheck out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanisFollow TWiST:Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartupsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartupsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartupsSubstack: https://twistartups.substack.com

VOV1 - Vệ binh Cách mạng Hồi giáo Iran hôm nay tuyên bố đã bắn hạ thêm một chiếc máy bay trinh sát quân sự trị giá triệu USD của quân đội Mỹ trên không phận nước này. Đây là chiếc UAV thứ 3 của không quân Mỹ bị Iran tuyên bố bắn hạ chỉ trong tuần này.Theo hãng thông tấn IRNA, chiếc máy bay trinh sát quân sự mà Vệ binh Cách mạng Hồi giáo Iran (IRGC) bắn hạ hồi sáng nay là MQ-1 Predator, dòng máy bay không người lái được không quân Mỹ sử dụng phổ biến từ năm 1997. Mỗi chiếc MQ-1 Predator có giá khoảng 4,5 triệu USD tại thời điểm sản xuất. Vệ binh Cách mạng Hồi giáo Iran khẳng định chiếc UAV Mỹ đã xâm phạm không phận phía trên vùng biển của Iran trong một hành vi thù địch. Tuy nhiên, bối cảnh và địa điểm chính xác chiếc máy bay bị bắn hạ, chưa được công bố. Quân đội Mỹ cũng chưa đưa ra bình luận.Đây là lần thứ 3 trong tuần này, Iran tuyên bố bắn hạ máy bay không người lái hiện đại của không quân Mỹ. Hai chiếc UAV mà Iran khẳng định đã bắn hạ trước đó, đều là MQ-9 Reaper, có giá lên tới 30 triệu USD mỗi chiếc.    Liên quan tiến trình đàm phán Mỹ-Iran, truyền hình nhà nước Iran đêm qua đưa tin dự thảo thỏa thuận mà hai bên đang tiến tới, bao gồm điều khoản giải phóng số tài sản bị đóng băng trị giá 12 tỷ USD của Tehran. Theo nguồn tin, Mỹ cam kết để Iran tiếp cận 12 tỷ USD tài sản bị đóng băng trong vòng 60 ngày. Số tiền này có thể được chuyển đến tài khoản ngân hàng do Iran chỉ định và tùy ý sử dụng mà không chịu bất kỳ hạn chế nào.Giải phóng tài sản bị đóng băng là một trong những yêu cầu mà Iran liên tục nhấn mạnh phải có trong các thỏa thuận tiềm năng với Mỹ, bên cạnh các yêu cầu về chấm dứt hoàn toàn chiến tranh trên tất cả các mặt trận và đảm bảo quyền lợi của Tehran đối với eo biển Hormuz./. Bá Thi/ VOV Ai CậpẢnh minh họa

The Russian state monopoly on violence is officially cracking. While the Kremlin legalises private corporate militaries for Gazprom and Rosatom to defend against systemic Ukrainian drone dominance, the regular troops are left stranded in a neo-feudal logistics nightmare.In this episode, we dissect the absolute breakdown of the Mariupol-Crimea "Highway of Life" under autonomous, AI-targeted UAV strikes—and how the Russian military brass responded by executing their own tech talent in frontline meat assaults. Meanwhile, the home front is facing an economic and physical infrastructure heart attack: VCIOM polling data is bleeding out despite intimidation tactics, the middle-class concrete housing market has entered a terminal Japanese-style zombie coma with 25% mortgage rates, and local authorities admit to an 85% wear-and-tear rate on utility grids.We cap it off with the ultimate "raspil"—the multi-billion-rouble grift to reopen an obsolete Soviet tank academy in Chelyabinsk in an era where drones cause 90% of casualties—and look at the dark, ultra-violent "Black Redistribution" civil war that the Z-patriots themselves are now predicting once the central authority collapses.Support the show, keep the digital bunker running, and get vital gear to the front lines:Become our patron:https://www.patreon.com/theeasternborderMerch store + another option for memberships:https://theeasternborder-shop.fourthwall.com/Follow what's going on here in the very border of Eastern Europe:https://bsky.app/profile/theeasternborder.lvDownload all episodes for free on our website; pictures accompanying certain episodes can be found there as well!http://theeasternborder.lv/Car4Ukraine Eastern Border Summer Campaign!https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/summer-sunshine-trucks-2026-eastern-borderSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/theeasternborder. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Memorial Day morning can reset your sense of what “service” really means. We begin with Chief Anthony Sizemore reflecting on the Coral Ridge Memorial Day Ceremony and the way fallen heroes are remembered not just in speeches, but in the families who return every year. When the Eggers family is honored in Washington, DC, it hits home here in Cape Coral, especially as the next generation steps forward to continue a military legacy.Then the tone shifts hard into the work: an early-morning call about a vehicle burglary in progress escalates into a coordinated response that leads to five arrests, including juveniles and young adults connected to a wider pattern of crime. We walk through what it looks like when policing is both fast and precise, from UAV drones with thermal imaging to K9 tracking, plus support from Lee County Sheriffs' Office Aviation and real-time intelligence that helps connect suspects to warrants and prior cases.We also dig into the question we hear all the time: where do public safety dollars actually go? Staffing, training, supervision, and law enforcement technology are not competing ideas, they are a system that has to work together while the rest of the city still needs help. 

Rob Lee dials in from Ukraine for a long-form WarTalk on what the front line actually looks like in year four — where infantry sit underground for six months without seeing the sun, where 2% of casualties come from small arms, and where the "forward line of troops" has been quietly replaced by a forward line of UAV teams. Rob Lee is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and one of the most-read analysts of the Russia-Ukraine war; he's joined on the show by WarTalk regulars Bryan Clark, Tony Stark, and Justin. We discuss… The six-month infantry rotation and what isolation, drone threat, and zero-line resupply do to a human being Why Ukraine has reclaimed the drone edge — and what the Hornet, Bumblebee, and FP2 are doing to Russian logistics Ukraine's new corps structure, where the brigade-only model broke down, and what the Azov-derived elite corps look like Why 2% of Ukrainian casualties come from small arms and what infantry are actually doing on the zero line Starlink as the indispensable game-changer — and Russia's increasingly serious attempt to jam it Combat casualty care when CASEVAC takes 12 hours, the golden hour is dead, and tourniquets sit on for a month What the Marine Corps should steal from Ukraine — pushing Hornets to the battalion, Bumblebees to the company, and giving up something to make room this ep's a little too dark for a suno song Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rob Lee dials in from Ukraine for a long-form WarTalk on what the front line actually looks like in year four — where infantry sit underground for six months without seeing the sun, where 2% of casualties come from small arms, and where the "forward line of troops" has been quietly replaced by a forward line of UAV teams. Rob Lee is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and one of the most-read analysts of the Russia-Ukraine war; he's joined on the show by WarTalk regulars Bryan Clark, Tony Stark, and Justin. We discuss… The six-month infantry rotation and what isolation, drone threat, and zero-line resupply do to a human being Why Ukraine has reclaimed the drone edge — and what the Hornet, Bumblebee, and FP2 are doing to Russian logistics Ukraine's new corps structure, where the brigade-only model broke down, and what the Azov-derived elite corps look like Why 2% of Ukrainian casualties come from small arms and what infantry are actually doing on the zero line Starlink as the indispensable game-changer — and Russia's increasingly serious attempt to jam it Combat casualty care when CASEVAC takes 12 hours, the golden hour is dead, and tourniquets sit on for a month What the Marine Corps should steal from Ukraine — pushing Hornets to the battalion, Bumblebees to the company, and giving up something to make room this ep's a little too dark for a suno song Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

VOV1 - Tổng cục trang bị quốc phòng Hàn Quốc cho biết vừa cho khởi động dự án phát triển một loại thiết bị bay không người lái (UAV) chuyên dụng để đối phó với những thay đổi nhanh chóng của chiến tranh hiện đại.  Dự án này là mô hình phát triển và ứng dụng khẩn cấp một loại thiết bị bay không người lái (UAV) dành riêng cho việc đánh chặn các UAV cảm tử hạng trung có thể tránh được các lưới phòng không tầm thấp của đối phương. Dự án này cũng nhằm ứng dụng nhanh chóng các kỹ thuật mới từ khu vực tư nhân cho mục tiêu quân sự và kiểm chứng tính năng kỹ thuật thông qua việc sử dụng thực chiến các UAV kiểu mới. Loại UAV được thiết kế, chế tạo trong khuôn khổ dự án này mang tính “bầy đàn”, có khả năng phát hiện UAV cảm tử đang tiếp cận các mục tiêu cần bảo vệ, sau đó sẽ va chạm trực tiếp để phá hủy UAV của đối phương. Sau khi kết quả đánh chặn được xác định thông qua kỹ thuật quang học và hồng ngoại, nếu thất bại, sẽ tiếp tục có các UAV khác tham chiến cho tới khi UAV cảm tử của đối phương bị tiêu diệt.Dự án đặc biệt này được một đơn vị trực thuộc Viện nghiên cứu khoa học quốc phòng Hàn Quốc đầu tư 17 tỷ KRW (tương đương khoảng 11,7 triệu USD) để thực hiện quá trình nghiên cứu – phát triển trong 2 năm. Sau khi những sản phẩm đầu tiên được quân đội Hàn Quốc ứng dụng thử nghiệm và xác định đầy đủ tính năng, nhược điểm… loại UAV này sẽ được sản xuất đại trà trên quy mô lớn để triển khai thực chiến.Liên quan đến loại UAV đánh chặn nêu trên, Tổng cục trang bị quốc phòng Hàn Quốc cho biết đây sẽ là lưới phòng không kiểu mới để bảo vệ các mục tiêu như các căn cứ quân sự, trụ sở quốc phòng, nhà máy điện, cảng biển, sân bay…, đồng thời có thể góp phần vừa nâng cao sức mạnh quân sự, vừa giảm chi phí quốc phòng, khi có thể thay thế hệ thống phòng không hiện nay với những tên lửa đắt tiền bằng loại khí tài hiệu quả cao, nhưng chi phí thấp.Tuấn Nhật/VOV-JapanLực lượng UAV Hàn Quốc luôn sẵn sàng chiến đấu. Ảnh Lục quân Hàn Quốc  Một cuộc huấn luyện phối hợp UAV và robot của binh chủng UAV Hàn Quốc. Ảnh Lục quân Hàn Quốc

An interview with Mat Rowe — Founding Parter and Executive Director of Outset Ventures, New Zealand's leading deep-tech incubator and investment platform.Mat has spent more than two decades working at the intersection of science, engineering, and commercialization, helping turn breakthrough technologies into globally significant companies. Before founding Outset Ventures, he was part of the founding team at LanzaTech, contributing to the scale-up of one of the world's most recognized industrial biotech companies across the US, Europe, and Asia.He has also co-founded and supported multiple deep-tech ventures including Dotterel Technologies, focused on UAV audio systems and drone noise reduction, and Mint Innovation, which recovers precious metals from e-waste using biometallurgy. Through Outset Ventures, Mat has helped build an ecosystem supporting some of New Zealand's most ambitious science and engineering founders — including companies connected to aerospace, climate tech, advanced materials, biotech, and robotics.Mat is known for his hands-on approach with technical founders and his passion for helping breakthrough ideas move from prototype to global impact.Hosts:  SpaceBase Founder Emeline Paat-DahlstromResources:Outset Ventures - NZ incubator and investment platformWhat Founder's Want - resources platform for startup FoundersY Combinator - US based startup accelerator and venture capital firmSupport the show

VOV1 - Kết hợp công tác kiểm tra lưới điện truyền tải bằng mắt thường, ống nhòm, kết hợp với bay UAV để phát hiện và xử lý kịp thời các bất thường có nguy cơ gây sự cố… nhiều giải pháp được PTC3 thực hiện để vận hành an toàn hệ thống truyền tải điện Quốc gia trên địa bàn quản lý.Cao điểm mùa khô năm nay được dự báo diễn ra sớm hơn, nắng nóng gay gắt và kéo dài hơn thường lệ, vì thế, Công ty Truyền tải điện 3 (PTC3) - đơn vị quản lý vận hành hơn 6.000 km đường dây truyền tải và 28 trạm biến áp 220kV và 500kV khu vực Nam miền Trung - Tây Nguyên đã chủ động triển khai nhiều giải pháp nhằm bảo đảm vận hành an toàn, liên tục hệ thống truyền tải điện Quốc gia, huy động tối đa nguồn điện trên địa bàn, trong đó có nguồn điện năng lượng tái tạo rất lớn. 

Von Klemens Patek. Was hat es mit den neuen Drohnenfähigkeiten der Ukraine auf sich? Was macht die Ukraine derzeit anders oder besser als in den letzten vier Jahren? Und wie wird Russland reagieren? Ein Podcast-Gespräch mit Militäranalyst Markus Reisner vom österreichischen Bundesheer.

Thistle Resources Inc. CEO Patrick Cruikshank joined Steve Darling from Proactive to provide additional details on the company's strategic focus on precious metals and critical minerals exploration within New Brunswick's historic Bathurst Mining Camp. The company is pursuing a multi-project exploration strategy with the objective of advancing five key assets, including Middle River Gold, Brunswick Antimony, Middle River VMS, Alba Forks Gold, and Celtic Highland Gold. Cruikshank highlighted the company's flagship projects, particularly the Middle River Gold and Brunswick Antimony properties, which are expected to play central roles in Thistle's long-term development plans. The Bathurst Mining Camp has long been recognized as one of Canada's most significant mining regions, known for hosting major mineral deposits and attracting exploration activity over several decades. Particular attention is being placed on the Brunswick Antimony Project, which sits adjacent to the world-famous Brunswick No. 12 Mine, historically one of the largest underground zinc mines globally and recognized as a major volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposit. The proximity to this established mining district provides important geological context and could enhance exploration potential. Cruikshank explained that drilling and historical work at the property have identified encouraging antimony mineralization. Results indicate the presence of antimony associated with sediment-hosted structures and high-grade mineralized zones. Certified trench assay data returned values of up to 10.3% antimony, along with 1,300 g/t silver and 2.32 g/t gold. The company noted that multiple styles of mineralization have been identified, including disseminations, crystal formations, and mineralized veins associated with silver-rich systems. Looking ahead, the next phase of exploration is expected to involve the company's proprietary UAV drone magnetic survey technology. The initiative is designed to identify and confirm additional mineralized structures before expanding trenching and follow-up exploration work. Cruikshank noted that the required trenching and UAV permits have already been secured, with geophysical survey work expected to begin in the near term. Antimony continues to attract increasing attention globally as a strategically important critical mineral. It is currently recognized as one of Canada's 37 critical minerals and plays an important role across multiple industries, including military applications, batteries, semiconductors, and advanced energy storage technologies. Growing supply concerns and demand for secure domestic critical mineral sources continue to elevate interest in antimony-focused exploration projects. #proactiveinvestors #thistleressources #tsxv #trcg #MiningIssuer #PublicMarkets #MiningFinance #JuniorMining #Exploration #CriticalMinerals #PreciousMetals #NewBrunswickMining #NovaScotiaMining #BathurstCamp #CapeBreton #ResourceDevelopment #AtlanticCanada #Antimony #CriticalMinerals #Mining #GoldExploration #Silver #ResourceInvesting #MineralExploration #BatteryTechnology #CanadianMining

This week on the NK News Podcast, Data Correspondent Anton Sokolin talks about the expanding North Korea-Russia relationship — from military pageantry in Moscow to drone training in Russia's Far East and a mysterious shipwreck off Spain's coast. Anton breaks down the significance of North Korean soldiers marching through Red Square for the first time during Russia's Victory Day parade, what their appearance says about Moscow's shifting alliances and why Kim Jong Un skipped the event despite expectations that he may eventually visit Russia again. The discussion also covers a DPRK delegation's visit to a Russian drone training facility, where officials observed UAV operations amid growing North Korean interest in battlefield drones and potential lessons from the war in Ukraine. Later, the episode turns to North Korean pharmaceutical exports to Russia, including Kumdang-5, a ginseng-based pill marketed as a cure-all remedy, and the sanctions questions raised by DPRK-made traditional medicines appearing on Russian online marketplaces. Finally, Anton walks through the still-unresolved mystery of the Ursa Major, a Russian military-linked vessel that sank off Spain in late 2024.  About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Alannah Hill exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.

VOV1 - Qua công tác nghiệp vụ, Cục C04 và Công an tỉnh Điện Biên phát hiện đường dây buôn lậu caffeine quy mô đặc biệt lớn, hoạt động có tổ chức, xuyên quốc gia, caffeine được vận chuyển từ nước ngoài vào Việt Nam, qua Lào đi Myanmar để sản xuất các loại ma túy tổng hợp. C04 cho biết: Từ vỏ bọc doanh nghiệp dược và các hợp đồng mua bán giả, cựu Trưởng khoa dược Bệnh viện Y học cổ truyền trung ương Trần Phi Hùng bị cáo buộc cầm đầu đường dây buôn lậu hơn 50 tấn caffeine xuyên quốc gia. Kết quả Ban chuyên án đã thu giữ 50,7 tấn caffeine; khởi tố 10 bị can.Hiện Cục Cảnh sát điều tra tội phạm về ma túy tiếp tục điều tra, làm rõ các cá nhân, doanh nghiệp có liên quan để xử lý triệt để theo quy định của pháp luật.Ghi nhận thành tích, Bộ Công an đã thưởng nóng cho 26 tập thể với tổng số tiền hơn 300 triệu đồng.Đỗ Minh, Như Trang/VOV1Xem trên các nền tảng khác22:39Thời sự 21h30 19/5/2026: “Sáng mãi tên Người” khắc họa hành trình cách mạng của Chủ tịch Hồ Chí Minh  22:38Trao giải Cuộc thi viết “Bảo vệ nền tảng tư tưởng của Đảng trong tình hình mới” lần thứ 5(2025-2026) 21:58Hà Nội thông tin chính thức về Dự án Trục Đại lộ cảnh quan sông Hồng 21:57Thái Nguyên đẩy mạnh chuyển đổi số trong công tác kỹ thuật hình sự 21:56Xung đột tại Trung Đông có thể khiến hơn 40 triệu người thất nghiệp Đài Tiếng nói Việt NamPhó Trưởng Ban: Nguyễn Mạnh Thắng - Nguyễn Thị Tuyết Mai - Lê Thị Hằng - Hoàng Trung Dũng.2024. Toàn bộ bản quyền thuộc VOV1. Phát triển và vận hành bởi SolidTechPauseUnmuteRemaining Time -3:23Picture-in-PictureFullscreenTải vềTag: Tiến sĩ dược cầm đầu đường dây buôn lậu caffeineBình luậnMới nhấtĐọc nhiều1Chợ dữ liệu livestream bán hàng - Tiềm ẩn rủi ro mất thông tin cá nhân và lừa đảo trực tuyến  2Dự báo thời tiết 5/5/2026: Bắc Bộ hửng nắng, Nam Bộ đề phòng mưa dông 3Tổng thống Donald Trump bày tỏ mong đợi gặp Chủ tịch Trung Quốc Tập Cận Bình 4UAE bị tập kích dữ dội bằng tên lửa và UAV; Hải quân Mỹ bắn chìm 6 tàu Iran  5Nhóm 7 nước OPEC+ nhất trí điều chỉnh sản lượng dầu trong tháng 6/2026 THỜI SỰTrưởng Ban: Lê Văn Phúc.Liên hệ 024 3936 5888 - 3825 5765. 43 Bà Triệu, Hà Nội.Theo dõi VOV1 tại:Giới thiệuThời sựChính trịThế giớiKinh tếNông nghiệp & Biển đảoXã hộiKhoa học & Công nghệVăn hoá & Du lịchMultimediaPodcastGóc nhìn VOV1VOV1 đặc biệt

The future of war has been evolving before our eyes in Ukraine, yet the west still plans to fight the last war. In this special episode, guest host Noah Smith (@noahpinion) and Brandon Anderson sit down with Yaroslav Azhnyuk (@YaroslavAzhnyuk), a serial tech founder who went from building PetCube to founding The Fourth Law, one of the world's most advanced AI-guided drone companies. Over two hours we cover the technology, tactics, and geopolitics of drone warfare, and why the modern battlefield has already left the West behind:* Yaroslav's personal history and the Ukraine war [00:01:04 – 00:14:01]* The modern drone tech stack: why FPV drones are the new god of war, the future of the rifleman, fiber optic vs. AI, five levels of autonomy, and the eight dimensions of the autonomous battlefield [00:14:01 – 01:05:13]* The geopolitics and economics of drones: China's manufacturing advantage, the drone race, Western defense readiness, countermeasures, and why the gap is widening [01:05:13 – 01:58:57]For those looking for Noah Smith's commentary, it really gets going around the 00:51:31 mark.Yaroslav Azhnyuk / The Fourth Law:* X: https://x.com/YaroslavAzhnyuk* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaroslavazhnyuk/* The Fourth Law: https://thefourthlaw.aiNoah Smith:* Substack: Noah Smith * X: https://x.com/noahpinionTimestamps00:00:00 Cold Open: China's 4 Billion Drones and the Cameras-to-Explosives Pipeline00:01:04 Introduction: Brandon, Noah Smith, and Yaroslav Azhnyuk00:05:41 From Tech Entrepreneur to Defense: PetCube, Brave One, and the D3 Fund00:10:42 The Ethics of Building Weapons: Dual-Use Technology and the Wolf at the Door00:14:01 The Tech Stack: Cameras, Autonomy Modules, Interceptors, and a Semiconductor Fab00:18:47 Fiber Optic vs. AI: The Radio Horizon Problem and $32/km Cable00:25:32 FPV Drones: The New God of War — 70–80% of Frontline Casualties00:28:28 The Five Levels of Drone Autonomy: From Terminal Guidance to Full Autonomy00:41:37 The Eight Dimensions of the Autonomous Battlefield00:45:32 AI Safety and the Morality of Autonomous Weapons00:51:31 The End of the Rifleman? Noah's 2013 Prediction vs. Battlefield Reality01:05:13 China's Manufacturing Advantage and Western Vulnerabilities01:24:21 Policy Advice for Western Defense: Defense Valley and the Widening Gap01:32:54 The Drone Race: Who's Ahead, Category by Category01:41:57 Countermeasures: Shotguns, Jammers, Lasers, and Fishnets01:58:19 The Wedding and Final Takeaway: Be Prepared for WarTranscriptCold Open: China, FPV Drones, and the New Warning SignYaroslav [00:00:00]: Think about this. Last year, Ukraine produced 4 million FPV drones. Ukraine is not the most industrious nation in the world. China can produce 4 billion of these FPV drones.Noah [00:00:10]: Would you say that right now China is now the supreme conventional military power on Earth, given its ability to manufacture and deploy drones in the quantity and quality that you just described?Yaroslav [00:00:20]: I don't think we have all the information to claim that but we cannot count it out, and that alone should be a big warning sign. As I say, at some point in my life I went from making cameras that fling treats to pets to cameras that fling explosives to the occupiers. So that's the short story. And when you think about what your nation, what your patriots are going through, you realize that's the only morally right thing to do is to fight back, and it is immoral not to fight back, and then the choice becomes very clear.Introduction: Yaroslav Azhnyuk, Petcube, and the Last Flight into KyivBrandon [00:01:04]: Welcome to Latent Space. I'm Brandon. I normally do science podcasts, but today we're going to do something a little bit different. I'm joined by Noah Smith of Noahpinion on Substack and Twitter. And he has lots of interesting things to say about drones. And as a guest, we have Yaroslav Azhnyuk, founder of The Fourth Law and several other, drone-related startups. To get started, it is February 23rd, 2022. You are running a pet startup. You're connecting pets with their owners. Let's go in just a little bit of background. How did you get started in tech, and what were you working on before the Ukrainian war started?Yaroslav [00:01:50]: Good to be here. Thank you. On February 23rd, late in the evening, 11:00 PM Kyiv time, my wife and I landed in Kyiv. Actually, then she was a fiance. We came from Lviv, where we were looking at a church, where our wedding should have taken place. And we got into this cab ride from the airport to our home, and the driver was like, “You crazy. Like, everyone's leaving Kyiv. Why do you come?” We're like, “What? Nothing's going to happen. Dude, chill.” And then obviously, eight minutes later, or eight hours later, the bombs fell in the city. It was quite surreal. We probably landed on the last flight that landed in Kyiv, or one of those last flights. My background, I'm a tech guy. Studied applied mathematics in Kyiv Polytechnics, born and raised in Kyiv. My parents are old PhDs from academia, and grandparents too. Like, everything, from linguistics to nuclear physics. And I'm an entrepreneur, so I've built a bunch of companies. Petcube is the one you were referencing. So I lived in San Francisco 2014 to 2020, building Petcube, which is one of the leading, pet device companies in the world, selling lots of pet cameras. And then, yeah, as I say, at some point in my life I went from making cameras that fling treats to pets to cameras that fling explosives to the occupiers. So that's the short story.February 24th: Leaving Kyiv as the Invasion BeginsNoah [00:03:28]: February 24th, I guess a few hours after you, go to check out your wedding chapel, what do you do?Yaroslav [00:03:37]: We had a plan for this situation. So my parents and family live in Kyiv, and we're like, “Okay, this has actually started. The worst has, come true.” And so we basically packed our belongings and got in the car and spent 17 hours driving west. And that was pretty sure most people in our audience watched at least one apocalyptic movie in their life, so that was exactly like that. Like, felt exactly like that. Missiles are falling. Like, there was smoke in Kyiv. Like, my dad and I went, like, to central part of the cities. It's probably, likeYaroslav [00:04:20]: 800 meters from presidential office, to pick some stuff up at his workplace. Because he's, like, the head of an academic institution, so he had to get some of the things with him. And super surreal. Like, the streets are empty. Like, the gas stations are out of gas. Like, we found some gas station. We didn't have, like, spare canisters with us, so we're like, We figured out, like, the car was diesel, so like, we figured out, if it's diesel, you can actually store it in plastic, canisters, and we bought some window wash for the cars. We poured it out of the canisters, and we poured the diesel into that. Yeah, so it was like that. And then, like, helping friends get out, like my friend and his dog. Like, we found Like, my brother was also, like, riding in a separate car. We found a place for my friend who didn't have a car. It was like, yeah, it was like, totally surreal. And we didn't know of course, and you didn't know this will last for so long. You didn't know whether Ukraine will be able to defend Kyiv. And it was like, yeah, very little information and very little insight into future.From Pet Cameras to Defense Tech: Building for Ukraine and the Free WorldNoah [00:05:42]: What are your thoughts with regards to how do you, defend, Ukraine? So you eventually start building drones Like, what is the process to get from there from where you were building, devices that connect owners with pets to building drones, and what other things did you do to help the war effort in the process?Yaroslav [00:06:07]: It's definitely non-trivial, right? Like, I didn't go, to I didn't get any, like, military education when I was a student. Like, normally, in Ukraine, you would, you would go to like, this military school even if you're getting higher education in any other, sphere. I decided to skip that which is like, an unusual way to go. And I never thought that I will be somehow engaged in a war effort. Like, what is war? Of course, wars are over. It's the end of history. So one thing you got to understand about, like, many Ukrainians and like, I guess, it's also true about most of the people I met here in the US, that your who you are in terms of your nationality is a big part of your identity. So when that gets under attack, it's something deeper than just the country you live in gets under attack, right? And I Day one, I figured I'm going to I'm going to fight back with everything I can, right? But I didn't think on day one that I'm actually going to do, weapons. And a bunch of things. We were reaching out to a number of American, congresspeople and senators, and basically advocating for support of Ukraine, for voting for lend lease, which has happened in May 2022, but didn't actually work as expected. We helped start, Brave One, which is now a very important defense innovation cluster, sort of like a DIU here in the US. We helped start, a fund called D3. It's like, it was started or co-started by Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google. So a bunch of these odd things, but then eventually I was like, “Okay,”by 2023 it was obvious this thing, A is going to last a lot more time, and B, that the whole world is shifting and that there's going to be a new arms race, that the warfare is redefined by drones as platforms. And for the first time in history, you have a platform that is software defined, that can increase your battlefield capabilities, in a in a step change just overnight. So it's like if you were able to push a software update and get all of your Roman legionnaires a new helmet? That has never been possible before. It's the first time in the history of war this is possible. So all of that and many other things like, supply chain fragilization, and the impact that AI is going to have on all of this all these things have become evident to me in 2023, and it's like, “Okay, I should do what I do best, or what I know how to do best, start a tech company, and sort of leverage the global techno capitalist machine, to provide, defensibility to Ukraine and the free world.” So that's literally the mission of the company, increase defensibility of Ukraine and the free world. And then there was some sort of soul-searching and like, asking yourself. It's like, “Okay, am I Actually, I know nothing about weapons. Am I actually, like, ready to make, things that other people use to kill other bad people?”Yaroslav [00:09:36]: When you think about what your nation, what your Compatriots are going through And think about all the terror of places like Bucha, the occupied cities in the east and south, the abducted children, the raped women, all the economic damage that's being done, and the intention to destroy a whole nation, to genocide the people of Ukraine, you realize that's the only morally right thing to do is to fight back, and it is immoral not to fight back. And then the choice becomes very clear. And look, we're just passing the ammunition. We're not doing the actual job. The actual fighters and defenders and heroes are people in the armed forces. We're just support.The Moral Question: Weapons, Responsibility, and Fighting BackNoah [00:10:33]: I have so many questions. Actually, I know you seem to have a question. Do you want to ask anything?Yaroslav [00:10:38]: No, I'm just listening. Go ahead.Noah [00:10:40]: I do want to talk about, some of let's say, the moral issues, like you just said. You endYaroslav [00:10:50]: I think there are no issues there.Yaroslav [00:10:52]: What would an example of a moral question be in this case?Noah [00:10:55]: No, I mean Okay. As you just said, you are creating the tools, but others are using them.Noah [00:11:05]: I was maybe thinking of having this conversation later, but one of the questions is like, is it actually you are going to be building them for your homeland, which you are building it for your homeland, which is I think, very a strong morally defensible position, but this technology is not going to stay with you, right?Noah [00:11:26]: This you will probably be selling these to other people Yeah. So the future is really where the moral issues may come into playYaroslav [00:11:38]: The this question becomes, easier and more complete if we ask this not about a particular technology or particular weapon, if we think that this question actually applies to any kind of technology Right? So -Knife or fire. You can use knife to do surgery and save people's lives, or you can use it as a weapon to take people's lives.Noah [00:12:06]: Cut tomatoes, too.Yaroslav [00:12:08]: Cut tomatoes too.Noah [00:12:09]: Yes, knife.Yaroslav [00:12:09]: That's helpful.Noah [00:12:10]: In Japan, sword and knife, they, call the same word.Yaroslav [00:12:14]: It's like, it's with any technology. Large language models, right? Look at how powerful they are and yet they're available to anyone in North Korea or in Russia.Yaroslav [00:12:29]: That's one side of the argument. The other side is As a maker, what is your responsibility for how the tools you're creating, will be used? There's definitely some responsibility, right? Then How should the decision process look like? Should you, like, try to calculate all the possible scenarios before starting to work on something? Or do you create something that is needed now to save people's lives, and then think about, addressing the unwanted edge cases later? In ideal world where there's like, or okay, it's not ideal world. In a mythical world where there is some one governing party and it gets to decide everything, and there is no other country, that can, decide on their own, you could say, “Well, we need to calculate for all the consequences, and only then, maybe build this building, by replacing this park because, maybe we need this park in the city,”right? So that kind of situation. But when you're in a situation where you're in a forest, in front of a wolf, you first going to deal with the wolf that wants to eat you, and then you're going to go consult Greenpeace. So that's kind of situation that Ukraine is in.The Fourth Law, Odd Systems, and Ukraine's Drone StackNoah [00:13:59]: Enough. Because this is a tech podcast, I did want to spend some time talking about, sort of the tech in that you've developed and what you've been working on. So can you explain, I guess, first of all, like, the problem that you were trying to solve from a technical standpoint? And I think, and then maybe, like, go into some of the solutions and some of the design process that led you from designing, little laser-guided, guiding lasers with a with an iPhone versus Having drones.Yaroslav [00:14:34]: Like, it so happened, that my partners and I, we sort of So I started one company called The Fourth Law, and its goal was and is to Make, massively scalable on-drone autonomy. And then In parallel with that together with my, Petcube co-founders, partners, and friends, we started another company called Odd Systems Which, was focused on making thermal cameras. Cameras, thermal cameras are seeing thermal radiation and are used to see at night. And we're now sort of those companies are getting closer and closer together and we're probably going to merge them. And this group of companies is currently the leading, team in on-drone AI and thermal imaging on the Ukrainian battlefield, and Likely one of the leading, if not the leading in the world. So We have these, like, three sort of business units, which are cameras, drone autonomy, and drones. So the cameras and drone autonomy sell daytime and nighttime cameras and different types of drone autonomous modules to other drone manufacturers, over 200 drone manufacturers in Ukraine. And then the UAV, business unit sells the drones themselves to the armed forces of Ukraine, Ukrainian government. And there are different types of drones. Those are sort of front strike, as we call them, so those are sort of FPV strike drones and the bombers, and then interceptors. And there are different kinds of interceptors. We do Shahed interceptors and we do ISR interceptors. We don't do the deep strike-FPV Drones, Interceptors, and Battery-Powered WarfareNoah [00:16:32]: What's an ISR interceptor?Yaroslav [00:16:33]: ISR is stands for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and those are basically drones which are which, Russians are using to watch over positions and then communicate where, the targets are coming.Noah [00:16:48]: It's a reconnaissance.Yaroslav [00:16:48]: That's, the ISR is sort of a classical term for a for a reconnaissance drone.Noah [00:16:53]: Are all of these battery-powered drones that you just described? ‘Cause I know that the sort of deep strike drones still have, like Some sort ofYaroslav [00:17:01]: Internal combustion engine?Noah [00:17:02]: Internal combustion engine. Are all the things you're talking about battery-powered?Yaroslav [00:17:06]: What we're working on is all battery-powered, right? We don't do the deep strikes, right? And then in terms of autonomy-Noah [00:17:12]: You can catch a Shahed with a battery-powered thing. It's not Fast to catch.Yaroslav [00:17:17]: No, absolutely. Look, Shahed interceptor, like ours, it's called Zero, it goes up to 326 kilometers per hour.Noah [00:17:26]: For reference, how fast is a Shahed?Yaroslav [00:17:28]: Eight, like, in internal phase it could be 280, but in cruise phase it's, like, 220-ish.Yaroslav [00:17:36]: Yeah. And sorry, I'm not like you can convert that into miles if you're interested.Noah [00:17:41]: No, that's fine.Noah [00:17:41]: Multiply by two thirds or point six or something.Yaroslav [00:17:44]: That's easy. Yeah, I was saying that for autonomy modules, right, we, -We make systems, autonomous systems for frontline, for interceptors and some for deep strikes as well, and then different levels of autonomy. So from terminal guidance, which is like lasts 500 meters, give or take, to autonomous bombing, to autonomous target detection, to autonomous navigation and all of that across day and night, different terrains, different time of the year, different platforms like quadcopters and fixed wing, and maybe some other platforms. So it's quite a wide variety of products. We also have like our own simulation. We have our own training school for the war fighters. And we're about to start construction of two, semiconductor plants to make, sensors for thermal cameras. So that's super exciting for me as a computer science guy is Doing semiconductors. Super cool.Noah [00:18:49]: Like in terms of kind of core drone technologies, you basically are one is an FPV replacement without fiber optics, and the other isYaroslav [00:18:59]: YouNoah [00:18:59]: Signal tracking with interceptorsYaroslav [00:19:00]: With or without fiber optics. Fiber optics Is just like, sort of a communication module.Yaroslav [00:19:05]: You can, you can use classical analog, video link and radio link. Those would be two separate radios. You can do digital, or you can do fiber optic, and then fiber optic Has its own advantages but also adds weight and decreases, the distance and decreases, how fast you can, sort of turn and With a drone. Yeah.Noah [00:19:33]: Do you need AI for fiber optic drones?Yaroslav [00:19:36]: Like you can use AI for fiber optic drones. AI replaces a human, right? Fiber optic is making your communication link more resilient. So those are slightly different goals. Like if you want, you can have, AI controlling hundreds of fiber optic drones instead of having 100 operators for each.Fiber Optics, Radio Horizons, and Terminal GuidanceNoah [00:20:03]: I guess I thought that the key reason that people moved to fiber optic drones was for like electronic, countermeasures. Or I guess to counter those.Yaroslav [00:20:13]: I think that's a correct assessment from sort of a public awareness standpoint. In practice it's somewhat more difficult Because besides electronic countermeasures, you have these issues of a radio horizon For FPV drones, which means that asYaroslav [00:20:36]: I believe Earth is round Some people disagree. But basically if you fly a drone and you have a land station over here and a drone flying over hereYaroslav [00:20:49]: If your drone is flying high, you have good direct radio visibility. If your drone goes low, and usually, Russian infantry and vehicles, they're on the ground and you want to hit them, you need to go low. Lower you go, maybe you'll get behind a hill or behind a forest, and if you're far enough, you'll just get behind the curvature of the earth. You get into what's called a radio shadow. And then That is a real bummer because for the last, be it 60 or 20 meters, you won't be able to see anything and it will be very difficult to hit the target. So to counter that what-- And then the distances that these FPV drones, act on they're, they can be quite large. So for example, here in the US there was this drone dominance program competition, and in drone dominance the furthest distance was about 10 kilometers.Noah [00:21:44]: What was drone dominance? What was that competition?Yaroslav [00:21:47]: Drone, the drone dominance is a is a program started, by the US government, to accelerate the development of drone technology here in the US.Noah [00:21:57]: Got it. And the longest range thing they were using was 10 kilometers.Yaroslav [00:22:00]: Was 10 kilometers, right. In Ukraine, like if your drone doesn't fly at least 20, 25, it just, no one's interested in it, and the usual hits are happening. It was like, okay, many hits are happening between 30 and 40 kilometers, and that's what expected from a regular 10-inch, FPV drone. So at that distance, even at altitudes of like 60 to 100 meters, you might start losing, the link. So some of the earlier AI technology that was fielded in FPV drone was this terminal guidance technology. That was the first product that we ever, launched that helped you as an operator, once you see the target from two, three, 500 meters, you lock onto the target and then, it just, drives the drone towards the target no matter what, even after you lost the visual connection. So optic fiber solves that. However, if you want to go like 20 kilometers with optic fiber, that will add an extra three kilos, of useful weight to your drone. SoNoah [00:23:12]: ‘Cause the cable that you have to unspool as you go weighs.Noah [00:23:15]: It is heavy.Yaroslav [00:23:15]: At first, like the spool is about 800 grams, so a bit less than a kilo, and then, and then think about 10, 10 kilometer optic fiber is another kilo, something like that. That takes away from your useful mass and then now you have like, you need a 15-inch drone and it can only carry maybe one or two kilos of explosives if you want to go, 20 kilometers. If you want to go to 30 or 40, like 30 is probably max. 40 is like very problem problematic on optic fiber. And then the problem with optic fiber is it's actually getting super expensive. So and why? Because of all the data centers for AI. That's literally the same optic fiber-Noah [00:24:01]: We're running out of centersYaroslav [00:24:02]: That's being used there.Yaroslav [00:24:02]: Like when Ukrainians and Russians come to Chinese factories to buy the optic fiber, they're like, “We're out. We sold it out to the Americans.”? That's the craziest thing. So optic fiber went up in price from like, $4 per, kilometer to like, $32 per kilometer in a few months in the beginning of this year. And I'veBrandon [00:24:26]: Claude Code is stopping the Russian drone effort here.Yaroslav [00:24:30]: Ukrainian as well. Yeah.Brandon [00:24:31]: Ukrainian. But I read somewhere that the Russians had grown more dependent on fiber optic drones relative to the Ukrainians, and that's one reason why the Ukrainians have sort of regained the initiative in drones recently.Brandon [00:24:42]: How accurate's that?Yaroslav [00:24:43]: The Russians were the first ones to scale that. I think by as of now, Ukraine has caught up. I think, like, as of maybe three months ago, Ukraine is mostly caught up on fiber optic. Yeah.Brandon [00:24:57]: What percent of damage would you say is in terms of FPV drone damage would you say is now fiber optic versus, like autonomous?FPVs as the New God of War: Tanks, Artillery, and Cost per KillYaroslav [00:25:07]: For our, for our audience, I actually, I cannot answer that question. Like, it's like I know the answer, but I would not disclose that. But for our audience, I think another interesting fact is out of all the casualties on the front line Between 70 and 80% are done by FPV drones.Brandon [00:25:30]: FPV drones are the new weapon of universal weapon of warfare.Yaroslav [00:25:34]: It'sBrandon [00:25:35]: Land warfare, anywayYaroslav [00:25:35]: They used to say that artillery is a god of war because artillery used to cause, like 80% of casualties, and now On that ranking-Brandon [00:25:46]: FPVYaroslav [00:25:47]: FPV drones rule.Brandon [00:25:48]: FPV drones are the god of war.Yaroslav [00:25:51]: Sort of. Dethroned artillery. But it's not to say that artillery is not useful, is not needed. Like, all of these systems are needed. Maybe except cavalry, although Russians still use it. I know, have you seen the videos of Russians using mules and horses?Brandon [00:26:09]: What is the usefulness-Yaroslav [00:26:10]: It'Brandon [00:26:10]: Of a tank in the in the modern-Yaroslav [00:26:11]: That's where we need Greenpeace to say a word, but they're silent. Yeah.Brandon [00:26:15]: What's the use of a tank on the modern battlefield?Yaroslav [00:26:21]: It's diminishing.Brandon [00:26:22]: Diminishing.Yaroslav [00:26:22]: However, I think there might be technologies which will, revive the tank. Look, tank still provides you armor, and armor is important. Like, you still need to armor and firepower, right? Like, you can be an armor personal carrier that provides you, armor. The challenge that currently exists is armor is not very well protected against incoming drones. However, there are ways to do to protect it. We were previously talking about this before the podcast. The CEO of Rheinmetall, recently sort of ridiculed, Ukrainian drone industry, saying that like, there is nothing interesting there, no real innovation, no to stand Compared to like, Rheinmetall or Boeing, and it's all made by housewives. There was like, obviously a ton of memes about this people ridiculing the CEO of Rheinmetall. And one of the best quotes, I heard on this topic is from my friend, Alexey Babenko, who's, the head of and founder of VIARI Drone, which is one of the largest manufacturers of FPV drones. They're our partner. They're using our autonomy. So he said that the drones we manufacture in one day will be more than enough to destroy all the tanks Rheinmetall manufactures in a year.Yaroslav [00:27:52]: Then, yeah, cost-wise, of course, a drone is like, $500 and a Rheinmetall tank is what, probably 5 million-ish or maybe more.Brandon [00:28:00]: Don't mess with those housewives.Yaroslav [00:28:03]: Drone wives.Brandon [00:28:04]: Drone wives.Yaroslav [00:28:06]: That's it.Noah [00:28:06]: There's a classic saying that everyone always fights the last war.Noah [00:28:12]: Yet do How did So from your standpoint, how did we get to the point where tanks became irrelevant in at least for now In a matter of just a few years?Yaroslav [00:28:24]: Look, I think it's the same way, how do we get to the point that calculators become irrelevant?Yaroslav [00:28:31]: Now we have iPhones. Like, why would you need a calculator? Technology progresses and its influence grows non-linearly. It's all exponential. So I can tell you that full autonomy, when you put it on a drone Look, so if you, if you think about a tank and a like, it's not a direct comparison, but even, like, a drone and a artillery shell or like, sort of cost per kill, an artillery shell for 155 caliber, which is a standard NATO caliber Currently market price is about $4,000 per piece. So compare that to say, $400 per drone. That's 10 times more expensive. Account for the amortization of the artillery gun and for how vulnerable it is and what is the sort of tactical, capabilities it gives you as compared to a drone. You'll figure out that an FPV drone is maybe three orders of magnitude, more versatile, more useful, more capable than artillery and many of than a classic artillery. Many of Because there are different types of artillery. Not just, like, one 155. You have mortars, you have all that. But give or take, roughly three orders of magnitude maybe. Again, it doesn't have that firepower. It's not one-to-one comparison still.Yaroslav [00:29:53]: Now, take that FPV drone. When you put full autonomy on that FPV drone, which can be not very expensive, like systems that we're, producing are like, in hundreds of dollars of pure bombFull Autonomy: From Human Pilots to Smartphone-Directed Drone MissionsNoah [00:30:06]: Just interrupt. You said full autonomy Just a second ago you were saying that the autonomy here is guidance, right? It's not decision-making.Yaroslav [00:30:14]: No, I was I was saying that's the f-First and sort of easiest pieces of autonomy that was fielded by us. But if you, if you add full autonomy to a droneBrandon [00:30:24]: He, I think he's asking what does it can you, for the listeners, can you explain What the term full autonomy means?Yaroslav [00:30:29]: Basically, I think a good way to think about an FPV drone is like an iPhone of warfare. It's, like, very inexpensive, very mass producible, very versatile. You don't need a bunch of other things when you have a iPhone in your pocket. You don't have, need an MP3 player, you don't need a calculator, don't need other things. All right? So FPV drone is an iPhone. Or like, okay, Apple please don't sue me, is a smartphone. And then, when you add autonomy to it sort of becomes like Uber or ride sharing. Okay? So what it means is instead of actually being a trained pilot who has this complex remote controller device which requires a couple months of training to actually pilot the drone, and then having to pilot it for 30 minutes, flying towards the target, et cetera, et cetera, now you basically, you have your smartphone, you have a drone, you pick your smartphone, you say, “We are here. The bad guys are here. Go and get them.” And the drone goes up, flies in a given direction, localizes itself on the map, finds the dedicated area where they, the bad guys are supposed to be sees the bad guys, bombs them, return, like, watches, so does a damage assessment, returns back, sits down, and then you can pick it up and watch the video if you didn't have the radio link, right?Noah [00:31:59]: That's a bomber drone.Yaroslav [00:32:00]: That's full autonomy for a bomber drone, right?Noah [00:32:03]: You're saying that no human decision is made in this entire process?Brandon [00:32:06]: That's not, that's not what he's saying.Yaroslav [00:32:07]: A human decision was made at the beginning of the process-Noah [00:32:09]: I get it. I get itYaroslav [00:32:09]: The same way as you would fire an artillery.Yaroslav [00:32:12]: When you fire an artillery, you don't stop at like, 500 meters away from a target and ask it whether, you want to strike or not. That's exactly, a human decision is always made at some point. So when you do that's full autonomy, and such full autonomy is happening as we speak. And such full autonomy increases the capabilities of an FPV drone, which is already, like, three orders more powerful than an artillery shell. Full autonomy increases its capabilities by four orders of magnitude because now you can have 100 times as many people who can use it, because you don't need to train those people, and this is important. You can have 10 times, mission success rate, and you can have 10 times utility per drone because now instead of being one-way kamikaze, it's, it can be a bomber.Brandon [00:33:05]: Now wait, let's, you said 10 times mission success rate, which means that fully autonomous bomber drones succeed in their missions 10 times more often than human piloted bomber drones do. That's an important thing to know.Noah [00:33:17]: Maybe, to push back onBrandon [00:33:19]: They're super, they're superhuman. They're, they' 10X superhuman.Yaroslav [00:33:22]: They're not vulnerable to electronic warfare. They don't care about the radio horizon. They don't lose track during navigation. They are not susceptible to human error when, an artillery shell or other drone blows up besides you and you're like, “Hell no,”like, “I'm getting out of here.” Right? That doesn't happen to an autonomous drone. Like, all of those things. Like, we have, like, one of the brigades that's using our drones with just first level autonomy They literally said that their success rates-Brandon [00:33:53]: What's first level autonomy?Yaroslav [00:33:54]: First level autonomy is just the terminal guidance.Yaroslav [00:33:57]: By the way, we have video of that. We can watch that.Brandon [00:33:59]: Terminal guidance means a human gets it nearby and then the AI takes over.Yaroslav [00:34:03]: The human flies it all the way, like 30 kilometers towards the target, and obviously the target was probably given to that human by someone who's flying some ISR drone, some reconnaissance drone, right? So all the way to the target, and once you see the target from a distance of 500 meters, you do target lock, and from there drone flies autonomous. So just that feature alone, it has increased the guy's, his call sign is Grom, so it has increased his, mission success rate, like precision of mission, yeah, mission success rate from 20% to 71%, and it also increased his kill zone from three kilometers to 10 kilometers, which means there's certain area around the front line which is designated kill zone. Whenever enemy goes into that area, it's almost guaranteed to be to be destroyed by a drone. And then obviously the drones are not launched from like, the zero line. They're usually launched from like, minus 10 kilometer-Mission Success, Failure Modes, and the Five Levels of AutonomyBrandon [00:35:03]: What is a zero line?Yaroslav [00:35:05]: Zero line is sort of an imaginary line of control, of two conflicting forces.Brandon [00:35:14]: It's important to explain these things to a lot of the listeners who areYaroslav [00:35:17]: Thank you for askingBrandon [00:35:18]: Familiar with warfare.Noah [00:35:20]: Myself.Noah [00:35:20]: I'm one of those listeners.Brandon [00:35:20]: You said that level one autonomy, in other words just terminal guidance, just, like, human gets it to the finish line and then it goes over the finish line, increases mission success from 20 something percent to 71%, or something like that.Yaroslav [00:35:33]: Increases the kill zoneBrandon [00:35:34]: Increases the kill zoneYaroslav [00:35:34]: Three kilometers to 10 kilometers.Brandon [00:35:36]: Got it.Yaroslav [00:35:36]: On both parameters-Brandon [00:35:37]: What is full autonomy, dude? AndNoah [00:35:38]: Actually on real quick, can we define mission success and like, maybe in a way, what are the failure modes of missions?Brandon [00:35:44]: I have a guess what mission success is.Noah [00:35:46]: But I couldBrandon [00:35:47]: Get ‘em.Yaroslav [00:35:49]: No, but that's a very good question, in fact, because, even if you fly into the target, well, first the target can be damaged or destroyed. Those are two different modes. Then there can be different targets. A sole infantryman is one kind of target. A dugout where supposed there are some, enemies there is another kind of target, and a some mechanical equipment is another type of target. Radio emitting equipment, which, like, often, like, the targets that the military want to get more than anything else is the some enemy radio tower or something like that or some small radio dish that really makes life difficult in that area, in that combat area. So those are different targets, right? It can be destroyed, can be damaged.Then sometimes, the drone hits but doesn't explode. Like, that happens. And then, there are other failure modes. You didn't even reach the target because you were A jammed by electronic warfare; B, you lost the control over drone because of the radio horizon; C, you were jammed by a different type of electronic warfare that happens way before You hit the target area. It's, impacting your, video receiver. So like jamming on video or jamming on control are two different types of jamming. Then something malfunctioned on a drone, just a mechanical malfunction, maybe like a motor broke or like, whatever. So all of those are different failure modes. Yeah, or maybe you got lost, you're navigate navigating to your, to your target. That happens, too.Noah [00:37:41]: The Level one autonomy, basically you manage to point in a direction.Noah [00:37:49]: You go there, and then the last mile The drone taking over.Yaroslav [00:37:52]: We define this like, I define that but it sort of got picked up by the industry. We define five levels of autonomy. So level one is terminal guidance. It's what we just discussed. Level two is bombing. Level three is autonomous target detection and engagement decision. Level four is autonomous navigation. And level five is autonomous takeoff and landing.Noah [00:38:15]: Those are good things to knowYaroslav [00:38:16]: Those are five levels of autonomy. Now, if youNoah [00:38:19]: I have a question for you.Yaroslav [00:38:19]: Sorry. Like, let me finish withNoah [00:38:21]: SorryYaroslav [00:38:21]: Theoretical part.Noah [00:38:23]: What is Tesla running at right now?Yaroslav [00:38:25]: Tesla?Noah [00:38:25]: No, sorry.Yaroslav [00:38:26]: That's very good point. Like, it's exactly, it was inspired by the levels of self-driving autonomy.Noah [00:38:32]: Waymo's level five, right?Noah [00:38:35]: You just tell it where you want to go, it picks you up, and then you go there.Yaroslav [00:38:36]: I think, like, if you, if you look at the classic definitions of self-driving cars, Waymo is still, like, level four because it still requires even remote, but still, like, human control. It's like if Waymo gets in trouble, there is an operator who takes over and resolves this. So that would still be a level four. It doesn't map directly, but it's also five levels.Brandon [00:38:58]: Can I, can I interject a question here? In terms of an FPV drone that's like a suicide drone that'll just blow itself up killing something, how do what it hit? Like, does it, just transmit back, or do you sort of like, lose track of it and hope it hit? Like, what happens to that?Yaroslav [00:39:16]: That's a great question. SoBrandon [00:39:18]: You need another droneYaroslav [00:39:19]: Like, the current battlefield in Ukraine is saturated with different types of drones. So obviously you have all the FPV drones and last year alone, Ukraine manufactured about 4 million of these, and then Russia's maybe, like, 20% less than that. And for this year, the publicly voiced target was 7 million on Ukrainian side. So it's, like, serious numbers. We're getting in serious numbers here. And then besides those, there are different, reconnaissance drones, ISR as we call them, and there are sort of tactical level ISR where we, both Ukrainians and Russians usually use, Mavic, drone by DJI. And then there are a bunch of locally produced drones, which are sort of fixed wing drones that can stay in the air for much longer than Mavic, maybe, like, half an hour. And then, there are drones that can stay for many hours or even up to a day. And those drones have, are more expensive, have more expensive cameras, et cetera, et cetera. We hunt those drones that Russians launch. The Russians hunt our drones, and so on. But ideally, when you, are a group of soldiers operating an FPV, you'll have someone in your, company, or someone in your platoon who has an ISR asset that will do target designation for you. They'll say, “Oh, like, there's a Russian vehicle over there. Go and get him.”and you go there, you get it, and they're like, “Okay, confirmed.”Battlefield Surveillance and the Eight Dimensions of AutonomyBrandon [00:40:57]: Those guys are watching. They have their own drones in the sky.Yaroslav [00:40:59]: Target destroyed. They have, like, a carousel of drones because One Mavic cannot stay more than 30 minutes. ItBrandon [00:41:06]: They're constantly surveilling the battlefield.Yaroslav [00:41:07]: Almost every spot on the battlefield.Yaroslav [00:41:11]: It's not always the case. Sometimes you will not have a surveillance asset, so then you would launch another FPV just to confirm that there was a hit. Then if you see there was a hit and you're not sure if it completely destroyed, you maybe hit again for good measure.Brandon [00:41:26]: You double tap.Yaroslav [00:41:28]: That's how it works. But I was about to give you another sort of piece of taxonomy. So you have five levels of autonomy, right? Then you have sort of eight dimensions of autonomous battlefield. So what is eight dimensions? It's crucial to understand how autonomy evolves in a modern, battlefield environment. So dimension number one is level of autonomy. What are the capabilities that your asset has? Dimension number two is the platform you're operating on. So it can be a quadcopter, a fixed wing drone, different types of maybe, like, a long range drone or short range drone, but it can also be a missile. You can have autonomy even on an artillery shell or a ground vehicle or a sea vehicle. So all of those are different platforms. Level three would be domain. So it's ground to ground or ground to air as an intersection, or ground to sea or sea to air. They're all, like, all the nuances with different domains. Then level four, would be higher levels of autonomy, such as swarming, drone carriers, drone nests, et cetera.Brandon [00:42:39]: Now when you're saying level, you're talking about dimensions, not about-Yaroslav [00:42:42]: Sorry. YeahBrandon [00:42:43]: Autonomy levels. So dimension four.Yaroslav [00:42:43]: The dimension. Yeah, I used to say I was supposed to say dimension. I say dimension because each of them works with another, right? So you might have, like third level autonomy, fixed wing drone operating in land to air, and stuff like that right? And then operating in a swarm or operating from a nest. Right? Then you have, sort of dimension number five is environment. So is it day or night? Is it summer or winter? Is it, humid, cold, dry? What kind of target is it? Is your target hiding in a forest, or is it, behind a hill or within buildings? So all of that is environment. Then you have, dimension number six is command and control. How are you dealing with or like, tens of thousands of those assets around the battlefield? How are you coordinating that on the higher levels of command? How are you collecting data? All that.Yaroslav [00:43:44]: Dimension number seven would be infrastructure, so things like simulation, data collection tools, security, deployment mechanisms, et cetera. So all those systems have to be developed separately and integrate with all the others. And finally, dimension number eight is sort of distribution. Have you deployed 100 of these systems or 100,000 of these systems? Because those are two very different ballgames. So that now gives you a more broad overview of how autonomy propagates across the battle space.Targeting, Human Responsibility, and Rules of EngagementNoah [00:44:23]: As someone who has done machine learning and had gone out of distribution and had things, go horribly wrong, you were talking several of these, kind of axes of thinking about drone warfare seem like they could be very susceptible to some sort of distribution shift if you start making things autonomous.Yaroslav [00:44:41]: Like what?Noah [00:44:41]: I mean Well, first ofYaroslav [00:44:43]: If the I'm very interested Sort of sort of kinds of scenarios that you're thinking about.Noah [00:44:48]: Like the most obvious one is you, if I assume these are computer vision guided systems for at least the last mile, how do you ensure that oh, well, like you now have some fog roll in or something, and you, the drones just attack the wrong thing? Or maybe, it probably will not turn around and fly back and attack you, but youYaroslav [00:45:10]: Same, the same, the same question, how do you ensure that your mortar fire hits the right thing? Well, it's like mortar fire, give or take half a kilometer could be plus or minus. So maybe you fire one, and then you fire another. So drones are actually, much better in being precise in those scenarios. And I think, to your point, I think five to 10 years from now it will be immoral to use weapons without AI.Yaroslav [00:45:44]: ‘Cause weapons without AI will be more likely to cause, collateral damage or unwanted damage. Same way, it will be immoral to drive your own car manually on a public road because it's more likely to cause, unwanted damage.Noah [00:46:02]: Wow, I never considered that mightBrandon [00:46:04]: Really? That's definitely coming.Yaroslav [00:46:07]: Anyway.Brandon [00:46:07]: No, but that' I don't know, it's an obvious, an obvious thought. I agree with you.Brandon [00:46:12]: I, No, they, obviously they're not going to let you drive once most of the cars on the road are autonomous.Noah [00:46:17]: No, that one, don't I believe.Yaroslav [00:46:19]: No, I think you were you were talking about drones, right?Brandon [00:46:21]: The drones, right. Cool.Yaroslav [00:46:22]: The weapons, right?Brandon [00:46:23]: Friendly fire and collateral damage and stuff like that is all minimized with AI.Brandon [00:46:27]: Here's my question. Take all let's go to level six autonomy. Let's take all of the target selection. Let's take all the battlefield data, integrate it into one big AI, and have that big AI basically be in command of the battlefield And agentically do target selection.Yaroslav [00:46:44]: Be the general, right?Brandon [00:46:44]: It's a general. It's, you've cut humans out of the loop except maybe as dexterous robots, repairing drones and fastening things to drones or maybe something like that because you don't have those robots yet. How soon are we there? AI general.Yaroslav [00:46:58]: The most important thing to ask ourselves is who will be faster to that us or our adversaries?Brandon [00:47:07]: I assume us, but how fast will we be to that? I hope us.Yaroslav [00:47:11]: I hope so too.Brandon [00:47:12]: How fast can we Like when are we looking at that in terms of like horizons years?Yaroslav [00:47:18]: Like technically, it could be done now. The question is of course, there's, some engineering work to be done. The bigger challenge is deployment. Right? So okay, technically Like operation in Iran, right? They, the publicly, it was claimed that I think Palantir system was used for target designation, et cetera, et cetera. So it is not exactly as you say, the AI makes all the decisions, but basically AI goes through all the data you have, gives you these 1,027 different targets and says, “You-- To confirm, please press Okay.” And you look at the targets and you're like, “Yeah, sounds right. Press Okay.”so that's, I think that's where we are now already, or we were a couple weeks ago as we're recording this on April 10th. Another question is how massively deployable it is. Is it, like, every decision being made like that or is it, like, just some of the decisions made like that? And then different levels of command and control. There you have, like, the platoon, the company level, the battalion, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But the tricky thing here when we get into that territory, the tricky thing is If your enemy is getting advantage of being Thousand times faster than yourself by deploying such systems What do you do?Yaroslav [00:49:10]: You got to-Brandon [00:49:12]: The if the enemy is a thousand times faster than you at deploying those systems?Yaroslav [00:49:16]: Like, if enemy starts deploying level six autonomy, as you call And you have not started doingBrandon [00:49:22]: You're in troubleYaroslav [00:49:23]: Yes, exactly. So you have to catch up. So my point is that it is very important to think about the safety of these systems, but that thinking should not slow you down in developing them because they are critical for your existential, survival, right? And like, one person who doesn't think, doesn't get to think about the ethics of the war is a dead person. That person surely doesn't get to think about that.Brandon [00:49:52]: What would be the safety risk of such a system?Yaroslav [00:49:55]: Of course-Brandon [00:49:56]: Friendly fire?Yaroslav [00:49:56]: Just wrong decisions, right?Brandon [00:49:59]: I see.Yaroslav [00:49:59]: Maybe, these decisions-AI Command Decisions, Dead Zones, and Complex BattlefieldsBrandon [00:50:06]: Skynet AI decides it's going to useYaroslav [00:50:08]: No, these-Brandon [00:50:08]: Drone army to kill usYaroslav [00:50:09]: Decisions will not only be made about drones. They are likely to made about what the humans should do on your side as well. Then obviously some environments are more like Ukrainian-Russian war, where you haveBrandon [00:50:26]: It will have to choose to risk lives. It will have to choose to sacrifice human lives-Yaroslav [00:50:28]: Of courseBrandon [00:50:29]: On your side.Yaroslav [00:50:29]: Of course. And then some environments are just, like, dead, like, dead zones and there are no civilians there, or virtually no civilians close to the front line because, like, super dangerous. Everyone has evacuated from there. But there are other environments which are more like, okay, there's a counterterrorist operation. There's, like, a group of terrorists or a group of civilians. Or like, it's like the recent operations in Iran, I imagine that the US and Israeli forces do not want to harm civilians. They only targeted the military targets there, right? So in those situations, it's a different level of responsibility for that decision-making as well. And then there is just such a big variety of those military missions, and I'm not even, like, well-informed or well-educated in military science to tell you about all those scenarios. We would need to put some general besides me, and maybe a Ukraine general and American general would have told you very different stories about these things.Brandon [00:51:34]: Got it. Can I ask a few more questions? All right. So in 2013, I wrote one of my first, paid articles ever was about how the era of drones will change human society. I was just sitting around bored thinking about things.Yaroslav [00:51:54]: You were way ahead of your time.Brandon [00:51:55]: I said, I said, “The following will happen.”Yaroslav [00:51:57]: It's, this article is real. I've read it.Yaroslav [00:51:58]: It's actually-Brandon [00:51:59]: I said small autonomous, suicide drones, will cleanse the battlefield of human infantry. Human infantry will not be able to stand against swarms of AI-powered, suicide drones. That was I didn't even know about, like, AlexNet at the time, I think.Yaroslav [00:52:19]: You're just an avid sci-fi reader.Brandon [00:52:23]: I'm an avid sci-fi reader, but also, like, it's not Like, there will be a way to do that. It's a it's a nonlinear multidimensional search problem, and you get enough compute, you'll find some search algorithm that will get you there. And soBrandon [00:52:38]: I, yeah, I think that one sentence describes the bitter lesson right there.Brandon [00:52:41]: It's just like it's a multidimensional search space. You search it somehow. I don't know. Figure out some get a grad student-Yaroslav [00:52:47]: Sooner or laterBrandon [00:52:47]: To make a search algorithm.Brandon [00:52:48]: It's not that hard. Anyway, so but then, but I guess the point is The point is that human infantry on the battlefield will be will be gone at the end. I wrote that in 2013. Many people on social media laughed at me for that called me hysterical, said things like, “Electronic warfare will knock all the drones out of the sky.”like, “You need humans to hold ground.”that's something you still hear from a lot of people on social media today. I feel that this article that I've written has never been directionally wrong. It has gotten more and more right steadily over time, and that we're very reading the battlefield reports from Ukraine, where, human infantry are basically guy, like a few guys hiding in dugouts for months, and I'm not sure what they're doing.Yaroslav [00:53:35]: That's on Ukraine's side. On the Russian side, that's just like a zerg rush.Brandon [00:53:38]: The zerg rush, and then they just die. Then, but they have some guys in dugouts too, right? Like hiding in dugouts for months.Yaroslav [00:53:45]: They have. Yeah.Brandon [00:53:45]: Like, but that like, what are those guys doing in the dugouts? Are providing, like, frontline, like, reconnaissance? Like, what are they doing?Yaroslav [00:53:54]: If there is a guy in a dugout with some bullets and automatic weapon, the other guy cannot come and take the that dugout. That'Brandon [00:54:07]: I seeYaroslav [00:54:08]: They are they're establishing control over territory.Brandon [00:54:10]: I see. So that is so there still is a use for human infantry on the battlefield as of today.Yaroslav [00:54:15]: LikeBrandon [00:54:15]: How long will that last?Yaroslav [00:54:17]: I think it will last for a while. This is funny. There's this whole Layer of the modern culture, a modern Ukraine culture built around the war-related stuff. So there is this -Punk rock band, that is called SZC, I guess in English that would be. Which stands short for like a deserter or something like that. So anyhow, this band has a song titled “2030.” It's basically about the year 2030, and the war still goes on as like the whatever, third world war or whatever. And they basically, they, sang about the AI and like cyborgs and everything, but the simple infantry is still needed, and we're still, like, getting cold in those dugouts, and we're still doing our job. That's sort of the theme of the song. And it seems like that's actually what's going to happen. There areGround Robots, Simulation, and the Limits of World ModelsBrandon [00:55:30]: Ground robots will not replace humans in the dugouts soon.Yaroslav [00:55:34]: I'm very much interested in following the whole humanoid robot theme andBrandon [00:55:39]: What about like a dog robot?Noah [00:55:41]: Or just mobile controlled platforms or something.Brandon [00:55:44]: Spider robot, yeah.Brandon [00:55:45]: Everything evolves into a crab.Brandon [00:55:46]: You build a crab robot.Yaroslav [00:55:47]: A humanoid-Noah [00:55:48]: The carcinization of warfare.Yaroslav [00:55:51]: There is a lot of utility in humanoid robots because the world is designed around humanoids. So I would not, like, 100% disqualify the possibility that sometimes 10 years in the future, humanoid robots, will be actually fighting. So that's an actual Terminator kind of scenario.Brandon [00:56:14]: Yeah, in the first Terminator movie, you look at what they've got on the battlefield, they've got flying bomber drones and humanoid robots.Yaroslav [00:56:20]: Look, the cost of large language models of running them is getting so low, you can have basically an inexpensive computer running, what was a state-of-the-art model a year and a half ago, running it locally on a device with an open source model, which also means that the Chinese can have it, the Russians can have it, the North Koreans can have it, et cetera. So that is already possible. And with when we're looking at the acceleration of the neural nets, I would've, if not the acceleration of the large language models, I would've said that I don't think that humanoid robots will be able to be useful in the battlefield earlier than in 10 years. But if you account for the exponential, it might be five years or so. The problem with all of the autonomous systems, and it's like starts with self-driving cars and even with all the AI, like modern day AI agents, to make them really, useful, you have to solve such a long tail of edge cases, that it's really difficult to make them useful. Like we were promised, self-driving cars, what, like 2007, Sebastian Thrun and Google, and even before that all the challenges, everything. And Elon of course told us it's going to be one year from 2014, and now we still don't have self-driving Teslas everywhere. We have Waymos in SF and some other places, but they're still, like, not perfect. So I think, I expect something similar from self-flying drones and fully autonomous drones, and we saw that firsthand as with each level of autonomy that we're adding, there is a very wide distance between a prototype and something that is ready to be scaled to millions of units and something that has been scaled to millions of units. But the race with like AI coding tools is just insane. So things might accelerate very fast, faster than we can imagine.Noah [00:58:46]: I think your point is that with due to this long tail behavior Level one autonomy as you've defined it, is actually very natural. Like you basically are just solving an image recognition and tracking system.Yaroslav [00:59:02]: It's actually interesting that you say it that way, and I thought about this the very same way, and we have this joke that there are like 200 companies in Ukraine which are trying to solve last mile, targeting or terminal guidance. It seems like we're like the only company that actually solved that because even that problem-Noah [00:59:22]: I'm not saying it's, I'm not saying it's trivial, but it's at least something that you imagine given our current state.Yaroslav [00:59:26]: Like us and Eric Schmidt, like Eric Schmidt's companies are pretty good.Yaroslav [00:59:29]: Like, I actually have lots of respect to what they're doing, and they're, they have been practically influential and helpful on the battlefield, and they have good engineering.Noah [00:59:38]: I wasn't, I wasn't saying it's trivial. I'm just saying this is a something naturally adaptive based upon things that we know work, well. But some of the other domains that where you do have to make decisions and you have a long tail become much harder, and you worry about edge cases more.Yaroslav [00:59:57]: Like the more, the more complex behavior you're trying to simulate, the more edge cases there are right? The more ways to do it wrong there are. And then there are different approaches. It's like if you think about, if you read academic papers about robotics, right? You sort of the robot is represented as something that has the sort of sensor input, and then you have three, levels of sort of logics or decision-making, which are perception, planning, and control, and then you have actuators as output.So pre-neural nets, you would do perception output and control all with classic logics, right? Then, with AlexNet and computer vision, you could do perception with neural nets and the rest with logic. You cannot currently do each of those separately with neural nets, each of those separately with logics, or you can just have one huge neural net that just takes lots of sensory data. It's not just pixels. Could be sound, could be accelerometer, could be everything, as input, and just outputs the controls. And some of the self-driving car companies are doing that or like, experimenting between different ways of doing that. So you can also, like, think about that and the way you implement those features, also influences how much degrees of freedom the system would have, right? Like control, you can do it classical algorithmic control with common filters and PAD filter, PAD controllers, et cetera, or you can do a neural net, that was trained in a gym with a reinforcement learning, et cetera. And those would be two different behaviors of a system.Noah [01:01:53]: I-- Maybe my point was just much more high level. It'Yaroslav [01:01:56]: Or you can If you go even like, if you go high level, you can, you can like train to like have whatever, like Feifei Li and folks who are doing like physical, sortBrandon [01:02:08]: World modelsYaroslav [01:02:08]: World models, right, physical intelligence, they're trying to make these big models and sort of understand the world and then supposedly you have such model and you can tell a drone, “Okay, like, go over that hill and like, find the bad guys and then get them,”or “Make me a video, make me a photo of the guy smiling and get back to me.” Right? That's one way. Another way you have like these subsystems, like one is navigation, another is finding the person, another is like getting to them to take a photo. And those are again, very different behaviors. And then it's not that one is necessarily better than the other, and we might have more technological ability to do one or another. But all of those systems will exist. And then again, you should always keep in mind that it's only the not only the good guys that are developing these systems, the bad guys are developing these systems as well.China's Drone Supply Chain and the West's Manufacturing GapNoah [01:03:00]: I guess where I'm going with this back to Noah's original thought with the end of the end of the soldier. And so in order to replace-Brandon [01:03:10]: Or at least the end of the rifleman.Noah [01:03:11]: Or the end of the rifleman, yeah.Yaroslav [01:03:13]: I'm not seeing that very close, and it was like I'm, as much as I'm a lover of sci-fi and all of that and a technologist, the more I try to beYaroslav [01:03:27]: Like the I try to have certain humility about these things, and like the military, domain and there was just so much human history and blood and tears, dedicated to sort of understanding this art of war and perfecting it and so on. There is so much knowledge in there that I don't feel like I even started to comprehend, a lot of that. But one thing that I really understood is that even though drones are now making eighty percent of the casualties, you go to the actual officers, you talk to the actual, like, brigade commanders, corps commanders, and they explain to you, how all of it fits together, how when you're thinking about an operation that involves a couple thousand people to get this piece of land, out of the enemy's hands, deoccu deoccupy it, how it is so complex, it involves, dozens of different types of drones and then land operations and reconnaissance operations, psychological operations and then aviations and tanks and logistics and all kinds of these different assets. So modern warfare is really very complex, and the fact that the drones are the latest, coolest thing, and then the AI is latest, coolest thing, doesn't mean that now it's that and only that right? So yeah. Whoever's looking into that I think should realize that it's not just what the press talks about, that the reality is much more difficult, much more complex.Brandon [01:05:17]: Let's talk about China and China's manufacturing capabilities. So suppose that someone, like suppose the United States went to war with China. AndYaroslav [01:05:26]: I hope not.Brandon [01:05:27]: I hope not as well. And then but suppose that drones were very essential to that war of all the types of drones that we're talking about here, and that suppose that China said, “All right, well, you need X and Y and Z, to make those drones to fight us, and we control the production of X and Y and Z, so we're just going to cut you right off, and now you have no drones.”Brandon [01:05:47]: I know that a number of countries, including Ukraine and Taiwan, have been making moves to China-proof their drone productions that China couldn't do that. Examples of things they might be able to cut off might include rare earths, fiber optic cable that you were talking about before, various other things that where even if they don't control one hundred percent of the production, they control enough of the production that would be extremely expensive to produce it without relying on Chinese sources. Or the market's fragmented enough, et cetera. What do you see as China's key bottlenecks, and how easy are those to overcome in terms of China-proofing drone production in case of a war against China?Yaroslav [01:06:30]: Let me start with a saying that -Although China does not sell directly to Ukraine and it does sell directly to Russia, a lot of Ukrainian supply chains, they start in China, right?Yaroslav [01:06:49]: We're not in a conflict with China, and we would not want to be in a conflict with China. And we'd hope that China stays a neutral power between Ukraine and Russia and the US as well. That said, the scenario that you're describing, everything is much worse.Yaroslav [01:07:11]: Think about this. Last year, Ukraine produced four million FPV drones. Ukraine is not the most industrious nation in the world.Yaroslav [01:07:19]: China can produce four billion of these FPV drones.Yaroslav [01:07:23]: China can make them not drones with propellers, but fixed-wing drones, which go not forty kilometers far, but maybe two to three hundred kilometers inland.

VOV1 - Việc nghiên cứu – phát triển, sản xuất – kinh doanh và ứng dụng các thiết bị bay không người lái (UAV) cho mục tiêu quân sự tiếp tục là lĩnh vực tập trung sự hợp tác của Hàn Quốc và Mỹ, với nhiều thỏa thuận mới. Bộ Quốc phòng Hàn Quốc cho hay cơ quan này vừa ký một văn bản thỏa thuận với Bộ Chiến tranh Mỹ về hợp tác liên quan các thiết bị bay không người lái (UAV) và linh kiện – phụ tùng có liên quan, cùng việc thâm nhập sâu vào thị trường đầy tiềm năng này.Theo thỏa thuận nêu trên, hai bên sẽ chung sức xây dựng một chuỗi cung ứng UAV và linh kiện – phụ tùng, khởi đầu bằng việc Lầu Năm Góc đưa các sản phẩm của Hàn Quốc vào nền tảng giao dịch mua bán UAV do Mỹ thiết lập và sẽ đưa vào vận hành trong năm nay.Với bước đi này, các UAV cùng linh kiện – phụ tùng do Mỹ và Hàn Quốc nghiên cứu – phát triển – chế tạo sẽ được mua bán, sử dụng tại thị trường của cả hai nước, đồng thời góp phần nâng cao tính tương thích của các UAV, cũng như giảm giá thành sản phẩm và chi phí vận chuyển…Đặc biệt, cũng theo thỏa thuận này, Hàn Quốc và Mỹ sẽ thúc đẩy hợp tác hướng tới xác lập một tiêu chuẩn chung cho UAV và hệ thống chống UAV do hai nước sản xuất, nhằm nâng cao sức mạnh và khả năng hợp đồng tác chiến của binh chủng mới này.Trong bối cảnh các thiết bị bay không người lái đang được sử dụng rộng rãi trong tác chiến và chiến tranh hiện đại, việc Hàn – Mỹ bắt tay nhau được đánh giá là sẽ góp phần nâng cao sức cạnh tranh về mặt kinh tế trên thị trường công nghiệp quốc phòng thế giới, đồng thời cũng là bước nâng cao sức mạnh quân sự của cả hai bên./.Tuấn Nhật/ VOV Nhật BảnUAV tự sát Rotem-L của quân đội Hàn Quốc. Ảnh: Rotem

“We all realize that we need a lot more mineral resources in the next two decades. And we realized that geophysics can play a critical role.” Sarah Devriese and Jiajia Sun explain why demand for critical minerals is rising fast while new discoveries are getting harder to make. They show how geophysics now supports the full mining life cycle, from early airborne surveys to advanced 3D modeling and decision making. New ideas like AI, UAV surveys, and smarter sampling are quietly changing how exploration works and who succeeds. This moment creates a rare mix of urgency and opportunity for geophysicists and students entering the field. Read the November 2025 special section, "Geophysics for mineral exploration," at https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/tle/issue/44/11. KEY TAKEAWAYS > Critical minerals demand is surging while discovery is declining: This gap creates urgency and makes geophysics more valuable than ever in exploration workflows. > Integration is the real advantage: Combining geophysics with remote sensing, geology, and AI helps reduce uncertainty and leads to better decisions. > Career timing is unusually strong: The industry needs new talent now, creating a rare window where skills directly translate into jobs and impact. ABOUT SEISMIC SOUNDOFF Seismic Soundoff showcases conversations addressing the challenges of energy, water, and climate. Produced by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and hosted by Andrew Geary of 51 features, these episodes celebrate and inspire the geophysicists of today and tomorrow. Three new episodes monthly. See the full archive at https://seg.org/resources/podcast/.

VOV1 - Ngày 29/4, Tòa án cấp cao thủ đô Seoul - Hàn Quốc đã bắt đầu mở phiên phúc thẩm đối với cựu Tổng thống Yoon Suk Yeol ở nhóm tội danh thứ nhất, với nhiều tình tiết phức tạp. Đây là phiên phúc thẩm đầu tiên đối với Tổng thống bị phế truất của Hàn Quốc Yoon Suk Yeol trong vụ án đặc biệt liên quan lệnh thiết quân luật do ông Yoon ban bố và thu hồi đêm 3/12/2024, nhằm xem xét lại phán quyết của Tòa án trung ương thủ đô Seoul về tội danh “cản trở thi hành công vụ đặc biệt”, do cựu Tổng thống đã chống lại việc các cơ quan chức năng bắt giữ ông trong quá trình điều tra. Đây là 1 trong 8 nhóm tội danh mà ông Yoon Suk Yeol đang bị cáo buộc.Trong phiên xét xử sơ thẩm, được tiến hành hôm 16/1, về tội danh nêu trên, Nhóm kiểm sát viên đặc biệt của Hàn Quốc đã đề nghị mức án 10 năm tù khổ sai, trong đó có 5 năm tù dành cho tội danh cản trở thi hành công vụ đặc biệt, 3 năm dành cho hành vi cản trở thực thi quyền nghị quyết liên quan đến lệnh thiết quân luật, cung cấp thông tin trái với sự thật cho truyền thông nước ngoài và ra lệnh cho các quan chức quân sự tiêu hủy chứng cứ trong một điện thoại chống nghe trộm, 2 năm dành cho hành vi soạn thảo nhiều văn bản sai sự thật. Tuy nhiên, Tòa án trung ương thủ đô Seoul chỉ tuyên mức án 5 năm tù khổ sai dành cho ông Yoon Suk Yeol.Trước những diễn biến phức tạp và quyết liệt của phiên sơ thẩm, giới quan sát dự báo phiên xét xử phúc thẩm cũng sẽ căng thẳng và việc Tòa án cấp cao có thay đổi bản án sơ thẩm hay không, sẽ là tâm điểm chú ý của dư luận trong những ngày tới.Vào hôm 24/4 vừa qua, Tòa án trung ương thủ đô Seoul cũng đã bắt đầu xét xử cựu Tổng thống về cáo buộc đưa thiết bị bay không người lái (UAV) xâm nhập không phận CHDCND Triều Tiên nhằm khiêu khích để tạo lý do ban bố lệnh thiết quân luật. Tại tòa, phía kiểm sát đã đề nghị mức án 30 năm tù khổ sai dành cho ông Yoon.Tuy nhiên, nghiêm trọng nhất trong 8 nhóm tội danh mà ông Yoon đang phải đối diện là cáo buộc “chủ mưu gây nội loạn”. Vào hôm 19/2, Tòa án trung ương thủ đô Seoul đã tiến hành phiên xét xử sơ thẩm bị cáo Yoon Suk Yeol về tội danh này và đã tuyên mức án “tù khổ sai chung thân” dành cho cựu Tổng thống, trong khi phía kiểm sát đề nghị mức án “tử hình”.Tuấn Nhật/VOV- Đông Bắc ÁCựu Tổng thống Hàn Quốc Yoon Suk Yeol hầu tòa (Ảnh: Jiji Press)

VOV1 - Ngày 28/4, Tòa án cấp cao thủ đô Seoul bắt đầu phiên xét xử phúc thẩm đối với bà Kim Keon Hee - phu nhân của Tổng thống bị phế truất Yoon Suk Yeol, với nhiều tội danh nghiêm trọng.Tại phiên sơ thẩm, đại diện cơ quan kiểm sát Hàn Quốc cáo buộc bà Kim Keon Hee vi phạm Luật quỹ chính trị và Luật thị trường vốn do các hành vi nhận hối lộ, thao túng giá chứng khoán… và đã đề nghị mức án 15 năm tù khổ sai dành cho bà Kim. Tuy nhiên, phía tòa án xác định cựu đệ nhất phu nhân chỉ có hành vi vi phạm khi nhận một số món quà có giá trị lớn và đã tuyên phạt bị cáo 20 tháng tù khổ sai.Sau khi tiếp nhận đơn kháng án từ phía bà Kim Keon Hee, hôm nay, Tòa án cấp cao thủ đô Seoul đã mở phiên phúc thẩm để xem xét lại án sơ thẩm và các cáo buộc về hành vi thao túng cổ phiếu của một doanh nghiệp nhập khẩu ô tô, đồng mưu với phu quân là cựu Tổng thống Yoon Suk Yeol thu nhận lợi ích bất chính từ những người có ảnh hưởng trên mạng xã hội thông qua các cuộc thăm dò dư luận và nhận hối lộ…Trong một số diễn biến có liên quan, trong những ngày gần đây, tòa án Hàn Quốc đã tiến hành xét xử nhiều bị cáo trong vụ án liên quan lệnh thiết quân luật do ông Yoon Suk Yeol ban bố và thu hồi đêm 03/12/2024. Gần đây nhất là vào hôm qua 27/4, Tòa án trung ương thủ đô Seoul đã mở phiên xét xử Cựu Bộ trưởng Tư pháp Hàn Quốc Park Sung-jae. Tại đây, Nhóm kiểm sát viên đặc biệt đã đề nghị mức án 20 năm tù khổ sai dành cho bị cáo.Vào hôm 24/4, cũng tại Tòa án trung ương thủ đô Seoul, cựu Tổng thống Yoon Suk Yeol và Cựu Bộ trưởng Quốc phòng Kim Yong Hyun bị xét xử về cáo buộc đưa thiết bị bay không người lái (UAV) xâm nhập không phận CHDCND Triều Tiên nhằm khiêu khích để tạo lý do ban bố lệnh thiết quân luật. Tại tòa, phía kiểm sát đã đề nghị mức án 30 năm tù khổ sai dành cho ông Yoon.Trước đó, vào hôm 19/2 vừa qua, Tòa án trung ương thủ đô Seoul đã tiến hành phiên xét xử sơ thẩm bị cáo Yoon Suk Yeol với cáo buộc “chủ mưu gây nội loạn” và đã tuyên mức án “tù khổ sai chung thân” dành cho cựu Tổng thống, trong khi phía kiểm sát đề nghị mức án “tử hình”./. Tuấn Nhật/ VOV Nhật BảnCựu Đệ nhất phu nhân Hàn Quốc Kim Keon Hee hầu tòa. Ảnh: Yonhap News

Thiết bị bay không người lái (UAV) được xác định là một trong các công nghệ chiến lược theo Quyết định 1131/QĐ-TTg của Thủ tướng Chính phủ góp phần phát triển kinh tế tầm thấp. Theo các chuyên gia, tiềm năng của kinh tế tầm thấp Việt Nam lên tới khoảng 10 tỷ USD trong vòng 15 năm tới, đồng thời Việt Nam hoàn toàn có thể trở thành trung tâm công nghiệp tầm thấp của khu vực và thế giới. Để đạt được mục tiêu này, Việt Nam cần chuẩn bị gì về cơ sở pháp lý, về nhân lực, hay công nghệ để đón đầu xu thế phát triển?

VOV1 - Các nguồn tin khu vực cho biết, tối nay (24/4), Ngoại trưởng Iran có thể tới Pakistan để đàm phán vòng mới với Mỹ, trong bối cảnh Washington được cho là đang chuẩn bị phương án quân sự nhằm vào năng lực của Iran tại eo Hormuz - tuyến hàng hải chiến lược đã bị phong tỏa gần 2 tháng qua.Thông tin về việc Ngoại trưởng Iran Abbas Araghchi đến Pakistan hôm nay được một nguồn tin của Chính phủ Pakistan tiết lộ. Nguồn tin cho biết, ông Araghchi đến Islamabad cùng một nhóm nhỏ các nhà đàm phán Iran, nhiều khả năng để chuẩn bị đàm phán với đại diện Mỹ. Tuy nhiên, thời gian cũng như thành phần các bên tham gia cuộc đàm phán, chưa được công bố.Trước đó, tại vòng đàm phán thứ nhất ngày 11/4, phái đoàn đàm phán Iran do Chủ tịch Quốc hội Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf dẫn dắt. Trong khi đó, phái đoàn thương lượng Mỹ do Phó Tổng thống Mỹ JD Vance đứng đầu. Ít ngày trước, một số nguồn tin khu vực cho biết, Chủ tịch Quốc hội Qalibaf đã rút khỏi vị trí trưởng đoàn đàm phán Iran.Về phía Pakistan, Bộ Ngoại giao nước này cho hay, Ngoại trưởng Pakistan Ishaq Dar và Thống tướng Asim Munir, Tổng tham mưu trưởng quân đội Pakistan, sáng nay đã có các cuộc điện đàm với Ngoại trưởng Iran Araghchi. Nội dung thảo luận tập trung vào các diễn biến mới tại khu vực và vấn đề ngừng bắn. Tại điện đàm, Ngoại trưởng Pakistan tiếp tục nhấn mạnh sự cần thiết phải duy trì đối thoại và tiến hành giao thiệp để xử lý các vấn đề nổi cộm.   Về vấn đề eo biển Hormuz, một trong những trở ngại chính trong tiến trình đàm phán Mỹ-Iran, CNN hôm nay đưa tin quân đội Mỹ đang xây dựng những kế hoạch tác chiến mới để hóa giải năng lực vũ khí của Iran xung quanh khu vực này.Hiện tại, Bộ Quốc phòng Mỹ đang cân nhắc một số phương án tác chiến, trong đó có phương án không kích các mục tiêu Iran tại khu vực eo Hormuz, phía Nam vịnh A rập và tại vịnh Oman. Các đòn không kích tập trung phá hủy các tài sản giúp cho Iran có khả năng bóp nghẹt eo Hormuz, bao gồm các xuồng cao tốc và tàu rải mìn của Vệ binh Cách mạng Hồi giáo Iran (IRGC).Trong một diễn biến thực địa đáng chú ý khác, Bộ Quốc phòng Kuwait hôm nay cho biết, 2 máy bay không người lái (UAV) xuất phát từ Iraq đã tấn công 2 đồn biên phòng của Kuwait ở khu vực biên giới phía Bắc. Đây là cuộc tấn công vũ trang đầu tiên từ Iraq nhằm vào Kuwait được ghi nhận trong nhiều ngày qua. Cuộc tấn công không gây thương vong, nhưng là dấu hiệu cho thấy an ninh khu vực vẫn tiềm ẩn nguy cơ bất ổn ở mức cao. Bá Thi/VOV-Cairo

In March 2026, somewhere between 12 and 15 drones overflew the flight line at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana — home to the B-52 bomber fleet, Global Strike Command, and the nuclear command and control communications systems that link the President to America's nuclear arsenal. These weren't hobbyist drones. According to reports they flew in close formation, spread out and conducted various maneuvers, and appeared to be jam resistant. Nobody stopped them. Air Force Officer Qualifying Test (AFOQT) Prep with AFOQT Wingman https://afoqtwingman.com/Code: AFTERBURN for 10% off

The modern battlefield isn't confined to war zones overseas, it's evolving rapidly along the U.S. border. Criminal organizations like the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels are leveraging commercial technology, decentralized networks, and real-time adaptability in ways that challenge traditional intelligence models. At the center of this shift is a growing gap between how threats evolve and how intelligence systems respond.Former military intelligence specialist, Stefano Ritondale, and current the Chief Intelligence Officer at Artorias joins the podcast to provide insights on UAV threats, OSINT, and strategic implications for the U.S. from a national security perspective. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VOV1 - Công ty Truyền tải điện 2 (PTC2) là đơn vị trực thuộc Tổng công ty Truyền tải điện quốc gia, được xem là “xương sống” trong truyền tải điện Bắc – Nam. Trước mùa nắng nóng năm nay, Công ty Truyền tải điện 2 đang triển khai đồng bộ nhiều giải pháp để bảo đảm vận hành liên tục, an toàn lưới điện.Hiện nay, để đảm bảo an toàn cho hệ thống truyền tải điện, các Đội quản lý đường dây, Công ty Truyền tải điện 2 đã sử dụng thiết bị bay không người lái (UAV)  gắn camera cảm ứng nhiệt để phát hiện hư hỏng bất thường trên tuyến, mà mắt thường không thể quan sát được, để sớm ngăn ngừa sự cố. Ngoài ra, đơn vị còn ứng dụng phần mềm quản lý đường dây, kết hợp AI tự động phát hiện hư hỏng đường truyền tải điện. Ông Nguyễn Văn Vinh, cán bộ Phòng kỹ thuật, Công ty Truyền tải điện 2, cho biết:Vận hành hệ thống phần mềm quản lý đường dây truyền tải điện về cơ bản đã tiết kiệm được rất nhiều công kiểm tra đường dây. Bằng phương pháp kiểm tra tự động UAV, giảm nặng nhọc cho công nhân, tăng độ an toàn cho quản lý vận hành. Ngoài ra hệ thống phần mềm giúp quản lý sổ sách, số hóa quy trình, quy định tất cả các công tác giao phiếu nhiệm vụ đều thực hiện trên phần mềm.

VOV1 - Chính quyền thành phố Bắc Kinh vừa ban hành quy định mới được đánh giá là nghiêm ngặt nhất từ trước đến nay đối với máy bay không người lái, qua đó khiến thành phố này trở thành địa phương đầu tiên của Trung Quốc trên thực tế cấm cá nhân mua bán, vận chuyển và điều khiển thiết bị bay UAV. Quy định về quản lý phương tiện bay không người lái của thành phố Bắc Kinh đã được Ủy ban Thường vụ Nhân đại thành phố thông qua ngày 27/3 và sẽ chính thức có hiệu lực từ ngày 1/5.Quy định mới xác định toàn bộ địa bàn thành phố Bắc Kinh là khu vực không phận bị kiểm soát đối với phương tiện bay không người lái, đồng nghĩa mọi hoạt động bay ngoài trời đều phải được cấp phép. Với quy định này, việc sử dụng máy bay không người lái cho mục đích cá nhân gần như bị cấm hoàn toàn.Ngoài việc kiểm soát hoạt động bay, Bắc Kinh cũng cấm sản xuất, lắp ráp, cải tạo trái phép máy bay không người lái hoặc can thiệp, bẻ khóa hệ thống kỹ thuật. Các tổ chức, cá nhân không được phép bán hoặc cho thuê máy bay không người lái cũng như các bộ phận cốt lõi của thiết bị này cho người dùng tại Bắc Kinh.Đáng chú ý, quy định mới cũng cấm vận chuyển hoặc mang máy bay không người lái và các bộ phận cốt lõi vào Bắc Kinh bằng nhiều hình thức khác nhau như đường sắt, hàng không dân dụng, vận tải đường bộ, dịch vụ chuyển phát, vận tải hành khách liên tỉnh hay phương tiện cá nhân. Những trường hợp vi phạm khi mang thiết bị vào thành phố sẽ bị chuyển cho cơ quan công an xử lý.Ngoại lệ duy nhất được áp dụng đối với các máy bay không người lái đã có tại Bắc Kinh. Theo đó, sau khi hoàn tất xác minh thông tin và đăng ký danh tính, chủ sở hữu có thể mang thiết bị ra khỏi thành phố và được phép mang trở lại.Giải thích về động thái này, giới chức Bắc Kinh cho biết an ninh vùng trời tầm thấp của thủ đô đang đối mặt với nhiều thách thức, vì vậy việc tăng cường quản lý máy bay không người lái là yêu cầu cấp thiết.Một số chuyên gia nhận định quy định mới không chỉ tác động mạnh đến thị trường máy bay không người lái dân dụng tại Bắc Kinh mà còn có thể khiến các ứng dụng công nghiệp liên quan từng bước chững lại trong thời gian tới.Đây được xem là bước đi mới nhất của Bắc Kinh trong nỗ lực kiểm soát chặt chẽ các yếu tố có thể ảnh hưởng đến an ninh hàng không và an toàn tại khu vực thủ đô./. VOV Trung QuốcThành phố Bắc Kinh ban hành quy định mới về kiểm soát UAV nhằm ứng phó các thách thức về an toàn vùng trời tầm thấp tại khu vực không phận thủ đô

VOV1 - Hôm qua, ngày thứ 29 của cuộc chiến Trung Đông, Iran và các nhóm đồng minh liên tục phát động các cuộc tấn công dồn dập nhằm vào Israel cùng các quốc gia Vùng Vịnh có đặt căn cứ Mỹ. Trong đó, lực lượng Houthi ở Yemen lần đầu bắn tên lửa và UAV nhằm vào lãnh thổ Israel.Lực lượng Phòng vệ Israel (IDF) cho biết trong ngày 28/3, Iran tiến hành 7 cuộc tấn công tên lửa đạn đạo về phía lãnh thổ Israel. Trong đó, cuộc tập kích hồi chiều qua khiến 11 người ở khu vực Jerusalem bị thương, nhiều tòa nhà bị hư hại. IDF thừa nhận tên lửa Iran đã vượt lưới phòng không Israel và gây ra các thiệt hại trên.Ngoài các cuộc tập kích tên lửa đạn đạo từ Iran, quân đội Israel cũng xác nhận lực lượng Houthi ở Yemen và Phong trào Hezbollah ở Lebanon, đã mở các cuộc tấn công dồn dập nhằm Israel. Trong đó, lực lượng Houthi bắn ít nhất một tên lửa đạn đạo, một tên lửa hành trình và một máy bay không người lái về phía Israel. Toàn bộ vũ khí của Houthi đã bị đánh chặn và không gây ra bất kỳ thiệt hại nào.Tòa nhà bị phá hủy bởi một cuộc tấn công của Israel. Ảnh: Reuters

VOV1 - Hôm nay, ngày thứ 23 trong cuộc chiến ác liệt tại Trung Đông, căn cứ quân sự Mỹ ở Iraq bị tấn công dữ dội trong nhiều lần. Tuy nhiên, thương vong, mức độ mức độ và thủ phạm thực hiện các cuộc tấn công, chưa được xác định.Một nguồn tin an ninh Iraq trưa nay cho biết căn cứ không quân Mỹ ở thủ đô Baghdad đã bị tấn công 8 lần liên tiếp chỉ trong ít giờ sáng sớm nay. Vũ khí tấn công gồm cả rocket và máy bay không người lái. Một số quả rocket được nhìn thấy rơi xuống gần căn cứ và gây ra những tiếng nổ lớn. Sau các cuộc tấn công, một bệ phóng rocket đã được tìm thấy tại một quận gần sân bay quốc tế Baghdad, nơi đặt căn cứ và một cơ sở ngoại giao Mỹ. Chưa có thông tin về lực lượng đã tiến hành các cuộc tập kích.Căn cứ Victoria của Mỹ ở Baghdad, Iraq, bốc cháy dữ dội sau cuộc tấn công UAV

Conversations on Groong - March 20, 2026Topics:Iran at WarThe Northern Front: Turkey & AzerbaijanChanging Nakhijevan's ConstitutionGuest: Varuzhan GeghamyanHosts:Hovik ManucharyanAsbed BedrossianEpisode 524 | Recorded: March 19, 2026SHOW NOTES: https://podcasts.groong.org/524VIDEO: https://youtu.be/SQHD3lZxAwc#IranWar #VaruzhanGeghamyan #ZangezurCorridor #Syunik #ArmeniaGeopoliticsSubscribe and follow us everywhere you are: linktr.ee/groong

VOV1 - Trong khuôn khổ hoạt động tăng cường khả năng phòng thủ và khả năng răn đe, cũng như trong xu thế thế giới sử dụng thiết bị bay không người lái (UAV) vào chiến đấu, Nhật Bản cũng đã lên kế hoạch sử dụng khí tài này để thiết lập một hệ thống phòng thủ mới.Bộ Quốc phòng Nhật Bản cho biết đang xúc tiến các điều kiện cần và đủ để thiết lập một mạng lưới phòng thủ tại các khu vực ven biển bằng thiết bị bay không người lái (UAV). “Lá chắn UAV duyên hải” này được cấu thành bởi hàng ngàn UAV thuộc 10 chủng loại khác nhau, sử dụng cho các mục tiêu như thu thập thông tin, phát hiện sớm nguy cơ, phòng thủ ra-đa, đánh chặn chiến hạm của đối phương… “Lá chắn UAV duyên hải là để củng cố khả năng bảo vệ đất nước. Nguồn kinh phí cho hoạt động này là 100 tỷ Yên, được đưa vào dự toán ngân sách nhà nước năm 2026”.Một mẫu UAV của Nhật Bản (ảnh Học viện phòng vệ).

This week continues our tribute to Lee Gossett with his second Spycraft 101 episode. Not only did he appear on the podcast twice, but he and Justin were regularly in contact via email from 2021 and on. He was an avid listener to the podcast and on many occasions had some inside knowledge of the events that we discussed. Today's interview originally aired as episode 75. In late 2022, Lee came back to discuss life after Laos, including his time in Central America and Somalia, and his work with early UAV programs. Even with the many stories he has shared, we likely  only know a fraction of his true adventures all over the world. Rest in peace, Lee. Check out Lee's book, Smoke Jumper to Global Pilot: a True Odyssey, here. https://www.amazon.com/Smokejumper-Global-Pilot-True-Odyssey/dp/0578614715 Connect with Spycraft 101: Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here. spycraft101.com IG: @spycraft101 Shop: shop.spycraft101.com Patreon: Spycraft 101 Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here. Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here. Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here. Kruschiki The best surplus military goods delivered right to your door. Use code SPYCRAFT101 for 10% off! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

VOV1 - Hôm qua (5/2), ngày thứ 6 của cuộc xung đột vũ trang khốc liệt tại Trung Đông. Trong đó, Israel tuyên bố đã vô hiệu hóa 80% năng lực phòng không của Iran. Đáp lại, Tehran tuyên bố đã phóng hơn 2.500 tên lửa và UAV nhằm vào các mục tiêu của Mỹ và Israel.

L'apertura di giornata con le notizie e le voci dei protagonisti, tutto in meno di 30 minuti.Quella in corso in Iran è un'altra guerra in cui i droni coprono un ruolo decisivo. Questo perché l'Iran è oggi considerato uno dei leader mondiali nel settore dei sistemi aerei senza pilota (UAV), avendo sviluppato una capacità asimmetrica che bilancia la relativa debolezza della sua aeronautica convenzionale. Ne parliamo con Federico Borsari, analista esperto di aerospazio e sistemi senza pilota.

The United Stated closed its embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on Tuesday. The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh is also warning of immediate missile and UAV threats over Dhahran, a city in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, directing residents to shelter indoors. Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Gulf states hosting U.S. air bases. A drone also struck the U.S. Embassy compound in Kuwait yesterday. The embassy said today it would close until further notice, citing regional tensions.President Donald Trump will meet with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday. In an X post on Saturday, Merz said the two will discuss "the latest developments in the Middle East."

An interview with Roger Warren — an experienced aerospace design engineer, prototype specialist, and passionate community builder in the aviation and space sector.Roger brings decades of hands-on engineering experience across aerospace, medical devices, advanced product design, and human-powered flight. From working on the Airbus Zephyr stratospheric UAV program in the UK to leading research prototyping at the Surgical Engineering Lab at the University of Auckland, Roger's career reflects a deep commitment to solving complex engineering challenges through experimentation, systems thinking, and practical innovation .He currently serves as Vice Chair of the Royal Aeronautical Society – New Zealand Division, Auckland Branch, where he is helping re-energize the aerospace community and break down silos across the sector .With a background spanning fluid mechanics, human factors, lightweight structures, extreme environments, and space systems engineering , Roger combines technical depth with a strong belief in collaboration and affordability in aviation.Hosts:  SpaceBase Founder Emeline Paat-DahlstromResourcesAirbus Zephyr High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS)Auckland Bioengineering InstituteUniversity of Auckland Aeronautics ClubNew Zealand Royal Aeronautical Society Auckland BranchSupport the show

Interview with Patrick Cruickshank, Director & CEO of Nine Mile MetalsOur previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/nine-mile-metals-csenine-vms-drilling-unlocks-expansion-potential-5410Recording date: 5th February 2026Nine Miles Metals (CSE: NINE) is emerging as a significant explorer in New Brunswick's Bathurst Mining Camp, controlling 140 square kilometers of continuous land across four volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) projects. Following a transformative year of advanced geophysical work, CEO Patrick Cruickshank has outlined an aggressive 2026 exploration strategy backed by recently completed $5.5 million financing providing two years of capital.The company's flagship Nine Mile Brook project hosts what Cruickshank describes as the highest-grade lens ever recorded in Bathurst: 12% copper, 38% lead-zinc, 1,200 grams per ton silver, and 2.4 grams per ton gold over 15 meters of solid mineralization. While these exceptional grades present processing challenges—the hybrid nature requires specialized milling solutions—the company is developing a unique bulk sample processing approach with updates expected shortly.The historic Wedge mine represents a different opportunity. This past-producing deposit operated by Caminco in the 1950s-60s was abandoned when its head pillar collapsed, leaving two-thirds of known mineralization in place. Recent drilling discovered an eastern extension with intercepts up to 134 meters, while a just-completed program tested depth and southwestern extensions with assays pending. Management targets proving 7-10 million tons at Wedge to reach economic thresholds.Nine Miles Metals' competitive edge lies in systematic application of modern technology. The company flew 1,400 line kilometers of UAV drone geophysics, identifying 11 new mineralized trends. This approach delivered an 80% drill success rate at California Lake East, hitting mineralization in eight of ten holes.With 185 million shares outstanding, reduced overhead ($300,000 annual savings from office relocation), and drilling costs of just $85-100 per meter in a jurisdiction offering 30-day permitting, the company is positioned to execute multiple 2026 catalysts: pending Wedge assays, April drilling resumption at both Nine Mile Brook and Wedge, and government-funded California Lake exploration—all while maintaining optionality for strategic partnerships or sector consolidation.View Nine Mile Metals' company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/nine-mile-metalsSign up for Crux Investor: https://cruxinvestor.com

This interview is disseminated on behalf of Draganfly. Draganfly (NASDAQ: DPRO | CSE: DPRO | FSE: 3U8A) is positioning itself as a defense-focused unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) manufacturer with a 27-year operating history, deep customer integration, and a platform built for large military contracts, as global defense spending accelerates.CEO Cameron Chell discusses why military demand is the primary growth driver, the fully integrated product line, the company's trusted relationships with tier-one military customers, and its manufacturing presence in Canada and the U.S.For more details: https://draganfly.com/about-us/Watch the full YouTube interview here: https://youtu.be/ZUmo2oNtM14?si=do-_z2EveGrbKKbuAnd follow us to stay updated: https://www.youtube.com/@GlobalOneMedia

Tonight's show is all about the OTUS Project.  It's a nonprofit research mission lead by President Nelson Tucker, Drone Builder and Ops Coordinator Louis Tucker, Lead Engineer Tanner Beard, and chasing expert Eric Fox.  The OTUS Project was founded by engineering and meteorology students, and is pioneering the use of cutting edge UAV technology, software and sensor engineering to investigate tornadoes in ways never before possible.  Their goal is to protect life and property by improving our understanding of wind forces for structural resilience and collecting thermodynamic data to enhance computer models. Also, they prioritize hazard prediction through advanced drone deployment and strategic partnerships as well as real-time field work.  Thanks for joining us tonight! Our email officer Jen is continuing to handle the incoming messages from our listeners. Reach us here: email@weatherbrains.com. Meet the OTUS Team!  (05:00) How did OTUS Project start?  (11:30) Drone design development (14:30) What does an OTUS project deployment look like?  (17:30) Successful 2025 chasing season (22:00) May 2025 Arnett, OK tornado intercept (33:00) Difficulties of acquiring viable data with difficult variables during chases (43:00) Leverage controlled environments with drones for calibration activities (56:00) How an airspeed sensor works when chasing (57:30) Status on upcoming OTUS Documentary (01:09:00) Nelson shares footage of actual tornado intercept (01:12:00) 2026 National Storm Chaser Summit (01:28:00) The Astronomy Outlook with Tony Rice (01:33:15) This Week in Tornado History With Jen (01:36:00) E-Mail Segment (01:37:00) and more! Web Sites from Episode 1046:   Alabama Weather Network The OTUS Project Picks of the Week: Nelson Tucker - TornadoGenesis.Org Eric Fox - Colorado water officials plan for "exceedingly grim" low reservoir levels James Aydelott - Okie J on Facebook: Shovel Hack video Jen Narramore - SPC Data Viewer Rick Smith - SPC's Liz Leitman explains upcoming changes to SPC convective outlooks Troy Kimmel - Out Kim Klockow-McClain - Panel Discussion 10A - Informed decision-making and ethics: Developing a blueprint for ethical weather and climate communication John Gordon - Barotrophic Instability AKA Karman Vortex Street Bill Murray - Out James Spann - Adding Intensity Information to SPC Convective Outlooks The WeatherBrains crew includes your host, James Spann, plus other notable geeks like Troy Kimmel, Bill Murray, Rick Smith, James Aydelott, Jen Narramore, John Gordon, and Dr. Kim Klockow-McClain. They bring together a wealth of weather knowledge and experience for another fascinating podcast about weather.

In this week's episode of Uncrewed Views, Matt Collins sits down with Carla Lauter, the senior content manager for Geo Week and Geo Week News. In the conversation, Lauter talks about what the upcoming Geo Week conference and exhibition is all about, what sessions and topics will be of interest to professionals within the commercial UAV space, what's new for this year's event, and more.

In this episode of Lead-Lag Live, Melanie Schafer sits down with Michael Mo, CEO of KULR Technology Group (NYSE: KULR), to explore why energy reliability is emerging as the critical constraint behind AI, robotics, drones, telecom infrastructure, and next-generation data centers.Fresh off CES and following KULR's newly announced $30M telecom battery supply agreement, Mo explains how high-power, high-safety battery systems are becoming mission-critical as electrification accelerates. From NASA-proven thermal technologies to lithium-ion replacements for legacy lead-acid systems, KULR is positioning itself at the center of multiple multi-year secular growth trends.The conversation covers AI data center power resilience, UAV and drone electrification, telecom backup systems, and why battery safety, reliability, and domestic supply chains matter more than ever as power demand explodes.In this episode:– Why power—not chips—may be the next AI bottleneck– KULR's NASA-derived battery safety and thermal technologies– The Cooler One platform and growth across drones, robotics, and aviation– Replacing lead-acid batteries in telecom with lithium-based solutions– Energy-as-a-Service and reducing total cost of ownership– AI data center battery buffers and GPU-level power protection– Scaling execution with a debt-free balance sheet and strong cash positionLead-Lag Live brings you inside conversations with the leaders shaping markets at the intersection of technology, energy, and investing. Subscribe for insights that cut through the noise.#AIInfrastructure #EnergyStorage #BatteryTechnology #Drones #Telecom #DataCenters #Electrification #KULR #MarketOutlook #CleanEnergy #InvestingStart your adventure with TableTalk Friday: A D&D Podcast at the link below or wherever you get your podcasts!Youtube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgB6B-mAeWlPM9KzGJ2O4cU0-m5lO0lkr&si=W_-jLsiREjyAIgEsSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/75YJ921WGQqUtwxRT71UQB?si=4R6kaAYOTtO2V Support the show

In this episode of the Cape CopCast, we invited Sergeant Morgan Mills and Officer Steven Klackowicz to pull back the curtain on day shift patrol in Cape Coral—where a quiet morning can turn into a hot call in seconds, and a “slow” precinct like the Northwest becomes a laboratory for proactive policing. From the first moments of roll call to the final report, they walk us through the real workflow that keeps a city safe.You'll hear how precincts shape the job: Southeast pulses with bar traffic and back‑to‑back calls, while the Northwest's residential stretch allows targeted patrols, traffic enforcement on Burnt Store Road, and community touchpoints that prevent crime before it starts. We unpack the top daytime calls—vehicle crashes and overnight vehicle burglaries discovered at dawn—and the triage that determines who gets help first. There's practical advice here for residents too: when a phone report beats waiting on scene, why locking cars at night still matters, and how traffic visibility aims to educate, not just cite.The conversation turns inside the perimeter on a recent armed robbery response: securing the scene, setting a perimeter, spinning up UAV and aviation support, and carefully transitioning to detectives and forensics once the scene stabilizes. It's a choreography that looks static from the outside but protects lives and preserves evidence. Along the way, Sergeant Mills shares the view from the supervisor seat—approvals, mentoring, and trusting experienced officers—while Officer Klakowicz highlights a culture of problem solving that keeps the whole shift moving. The human thread ties it together: officers working overtime, parents juggling schedules, people managing stressful moments at crash scenes. When both sides bring patience and grace, service is faster, safer, and better.

VOV1 - Trong bối cảnh khoa học công nghệ, chuyển đổi số là động lực then chốt để phát triển nhanh và bền vững, Tổng công ty Điện lực miền Bắc (EVNNPC) đã và đang tích cực đẩy mạnh ứng dụng khoa học công nghệ trong quản lý, vận hành lưới điện nhằm nâng cao độ tin cậy cung cấp điện.Miền Bắc hiện là khu vực có tốc độ tăng trưởng phụ tải điện cao, tập trung nhiều trung tâm công nghiệp, khu kinh tế và đô thị lớn. Đây cũng là địa bàn chịu áp lực lớn từ quá trình công nghiệp hóa nhanh, đô thị hóa mạnh và sự dịch chuyển của chuỗi cung ứng toàn cầu. Hiện Tổng công ty Điện lực miền Bắc (EVNNPC) đang quản lý, vận hành gần 94.131 km đường dây trung, cao áp và hơn 370 trạm biến áp 110 kV, trải dài trên địa bàn 17 tỉnh, thành phố miền Bắc.Trong bối cảnh nhu cầu điện của khu vực miền Bắc tăng cao, việc đẩy mạnh ứng dụng công nghệ số trong quản lý, giám sát, điều hành lưới điện được xem là giải pháp căn cơ để nâng cao độ tin cậy cung cấp điện, giảm thiểu sự cố và tối ưu hoá chi phí vận hành. Một trong những giải pháp được EVNNPC triển khai sớm và bài bản là ứng dụng thiết bị bay không người lái (UAV) trong kiểm tra lưới điện. Đến cuối năm 2025, EVNNPC đã đưa vào sử dụng hơn 400 UAV chuyên dụng, phục vụ công tác kiểm tra đường dây, trạm biến áp và khảo sát hiện trường. Điểm khác biệt nằm ở việc UAV không chỉ thực hiện chức năng chụp ảnh, ghi hình mà còn được tích hợp các thuật toán AI để tự động nhận diện khiếm khuyết. Nhờ đó, công tác kiểm tra trở nên nhanh hơn, chính xác hơn và an toàn hơn.Nhân viên Điện lực EVNNPC điều khiển thiết bị UAV ngoài hiện trường

2026-01-10 | UPDATES #095 | Russia grey fleet transporting illicit oil to keep its war machine ticking over, is becoming the Apocalypse Fleet – a transportation route for covert intelligence operations, military equipment and gear for dictatorial regimes, and potentially illegal nuclear materials, as well as platforms for launching hybrid operations against Russia's adversaries. It must be stopped. Europe's front line is not only in the trenches of Donbas and air defence batteries around Kyiv and Odesa, Dnipro and Kharkiv. It is also sea lanes, chokepoints, and the floating junkyards we politely call Russia's “commercial shipping” lifeline, the grey fleet tankers crawling the globe. “The Apocalypse Fleet” or Russia's ‘shadow' fleet is not just a sanctions-evasion machine for illicit oil. The newest reporting and enforcement actions point to something bigger and uglier: a maritime ecosystem that can move contraband, enable hybrid operations, and — at minimum — create plausible cover for weapons shipments and sensitive technology transfers across an emerging global authoritarian network. Surely the rules of free maritime passage do not apply if Russia is at war with us, and using its fleet as floating bases to launch operations? ----------SOURCES: InformNapalm (Jan 2026): investigation alleging contraband links tied to “Vostok-Akhmat / 291st regiment” and shadow-fleet logistics Reuters (Jan 8–9, 2026): reporting on US/UK-supported seizure of the Marinera and subsequent developments The Guardian (Jan 8, 2026): tankers under US sanctions transiting the English Channel; UK framing of shadow-fleet disruption The Guardian / Lloyd's List analysis (Jan 8, 2026): shadow-fleet vessels reflagging to Russia Reuters (Jan 2, 2026): Finland cable-breach investigation update Reuters analysis (Jan 2026): Baltic maritime incidents and the hybrid-security framing EU Council (Dec 18, 2025): sanctions on additional shadow-fleet vessels; explicit reference to military-equipment transport and undersea infrastructure threats Reuters (Nov 18, 2024): EU sanctions on Iranian shipping; allegations of transporting UAV/missile-related tech and Caspian transfers Reuters (Feb 21, 2024): claims of Iranian missile shipments to Russia, including by ship via the Caspian Reuters (Jun 2023): US declassified assertion of Iranian UAVs shipped across the Caspian to Russia Reuters graphics (Apr 2025): OSINT tracking of repeated North Korea-to-Russia munitions shipments by sea Reuters (Apr 2024): satellite imagery and moorage claims re vessel tied to DPRK–Russia arms transfers ----------Silicon Curtain is a part of the Christmas Tree Trucks 2025 campaign - an ambitious fundraiser led by a group of our wonderful team of information warriors raising 110,000 EUR for the Ukrainian army. https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/christmas-tree-trucks-2025-silicon-curtainThe Goal of the Campaign for the Silicon Curtain community:- 1 armoured battle-ready pickupWe are sourcing all vehicles around 2010-2017 or newer, mainly Toyota Hilux or Mitsubishi L200, with low mileage and fully serviced. These are some of the greatest and the most reliable pickups possible to be on the frontline in Ukraine. Who will receive the vehicles?https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/christmas-tree-trucks-2025-silicon-curtain----------SILICON CURTAIN LIVE EVENTS - FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN Events in 2025 - Advocacy for a Ukrainian victory with Silicon Curtainhttps://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------

As Asia’s militaries show an increasing appetite to deploy drones – most recently during the Thai-Cambodian skirmishes and the brief India-Pakistan conflict in May, 2025, we speak to the chief executive of the company that makes lethal Unmanned Aerial Systems such as the Predator, Reaper and Sea Guardian. Synopsis: The Straits Times’ senior columnist Ravi Velloor distils 45 years of experience covering the Asian continent, with expert guests. In this wide-ranging conversation, Ravi speaks with Dr Vivek Lall, Chief Executive of General Atomics Global Corp, on trends in modern warfare, the rise of data-driven hi-tech weapons, weapons that ‘loiter’ in the air awaiting command from the ground and space as the next frontier of contestation. They also focus on UASs – in warfare and potentially for civil use – and discuss whether unmanned drones have raised the risk of warfare by not putting pilots directly in harm’s way. Highlights (click/tap above): 2:46 'The future is in unmanned systems' 5:45 ‘Hey, there’s an UAV flying right alongside me’ 7:00 Asian militaries buying Predators and eyeing EMALS: India, Japan, Taiwan, Asean 14:05 Can US go it alone in defence research? 16:43 Does unmanned raise risk of war? 20:32 ‘There will always be pilots’ Read Ravi's columns: https://str.sg/3xRP Follow Ravi on X: https://twitter.com/RaviVelloor Sign up for ST’s weekly Asian Insider newsletter: https://str.sg/sfpz Host: Ravi Velloor (velloor@sph.com.sg) Produced and edited by: Fa’izah Sani Executive producer: Ernest Luis Follow Asian Insider Podcast on Fridays here: Channel: https://str.sg/JWa7 Apple Podcasts: https://str.sg/JWa8 Spotify: https://str.sg/JWaX Feedback to: podcast@sph.com.sg SPH Awedio app: https://www.awedio.sg --- Follow more ST podcast channels: All-in-one ST Podcasts channel: https://str.sg/wvz7 Get more updates: http://str.sg/stpodcasts The Usual Place Podcast YouTube: https://str.sg/4Vwsa --- Get The Straits Times app, which has a dedicated podcast player section: The App Store: https://str.sg/icyB Google Play: https://str.sg/icyX --- #STAsianInsiderSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Asia’s militaries show an increasing appetite to deploy drones – most recently during the Thai-Cambodian skirmishes and the brief India-Pakistan conflict in May, 2025, we speak to the chief executive of the company that makes lethal Unmanned Aerial Systems such as the Predator, Reaper and Sea Guardian. Synopsis: The Straits Times’ senior columnist Ravi Velloor distils 45 years of experience covering the Asian continent, with expert guests. In this wide-ranging conversation, Ravi speaks with Dr Vivek Lall, Chief Executive of General Atomics Global Corp, on trends in modern warfare, the rise of data-driven hi-tech weapons, weapons that ‘loiter’ in the air awaiting command from the ground and space as the next frontier of contestation. They also focus on UASs – in warfare and potentially for civil use – and discuss whether unmanned drones have raised the risk of warfare by not putting pilots directly in harm’s way. Highlights (click/tap above): 2:46 'The future is in unmanned systems' 5:45 ‘Hey, there’s an UAV flying right alongside me’ 7:00 Asian militaries buying Predators and eyeing EMALS: India, Japan, Taiwan, Asean 14:05 Can US go it alone in defence research? 16:43 Does unmanned raise risk of war? 20:32 ‘There will always be pilots’ Read Ravi's columns: https://str.sg/3xRP Follow Ravi on X: https://twitter.com/RaviVelloor Sign up for ST’s weekly Asian Insider newsletter: https://str.sg/sfpz Host: Ravi Velloor (velloor@sph.com.sg) Produced and edited by: Fa’izah Sani Executive producer: Ernest Luis Follow Asian Insider Podcast on Fridays here: Channel: https://str.sg/JWa7 Apple Podcasts: https://str.sg/JWa8 Spotify: https://str.sg/JWaX Feedback to: podcast@sph.com.sg SPH Awedio app: https://www.awedio.sg --- Follow more ST podcast channels: All-in-one ST Podcasts channel: https://str.sg/wvz7 Get more updates: http://str.sg/stpodcasts The Usual Place Podcast YouTube: https://str.sg/4Vwsa --- Get The Straits Times app, which has a dedicated podcast player section: The App Store: https://str.sg/icyB Google Play: https://str.sg/icyX --- #STAsianInsiderSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Retired Fighter Pilot Lt. Col. Tammy Barlette shares how flying the A-10 prepared her for operating UAVs like the MQ-1.In this episode, she discusses the Warthog's capabilities, combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, controlling the Predator and Reaper drones, returning to jets after a spinal injury, and how she now shares lessons from the flight deck as a mental performance trainer. As air superiority continues to shift from cockpits to control rooms, we get an inside look at why the pilot's role is more complex than ever before. This one is going to be cool!Resources:Athena's Voice (Tammy's Speaking Website) Crosscheck Mental Performance (Tammy's Training Website) A-10 Fact Sheet (U.S. Air Force) MQ-1 Fact Sheet (U.S. Air Force) MQ-9 Fact Sheet (U.S. Air Force) Chapters:(00:00) - Intro (01:21) - Balancing Perfectionism (02:26) - Aviation Beginnings (03:44) - Tammy's Pilot Journey (05:15) - Flying the T-37 (06:53) - Selecting the Warthog (08:22) - From ROTC to the Cockpit (09:26) - Flying the Thunderbolt II (10:13) - Favorite Stories (12:17) - A-10 Capabilities (13:28) - Close Air Support Training (14:18) - Transitioning to UAVs (15:59) - Flying the Predator (17:58) - MQ-1 Capabilities (19:09) - Separating Missions and Personal Life (20:15) - Combat in Iraq and Afghanistan (22:24) - Weapons School and the MQ-9 (26:03) - Changing Policies (26:59) - From Jets to Drones to Jets Again (27:54) - Flying Mistakes (29:52) - Aircraft Performances (30:36) - The Future of Uncrewed Aircraft (31:22) - Mental Performance Training (35:50) - Tammy's Advice (36:45) - Outro

The United Nations has confirmed what residents of Kherson, and Zarina Zabrisky, revealed nearly a year ago: Russia's drone attacks on civilians were systematic, premeditated and intended to instil terror and forcibly displace the population. A deliberate war crime. ----------Zarina Zabrisky is an American writer based in the Bay Area, California. She is the author of the novel, We, Monsters, several collections of short stories, including Explosion, A Cute Tombstone and her debut work, Iron, and a book of collaborative poetry and art, Green Lions, co-written with Simon Rogghe. Zabrisky is currently based in Odesa, Ukraine. From the beginning of the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Zabrisky has been reporting on the war in Ukraine for Euromaidan Press, Byline Times and A Community Alliance, and has been published in The Paris Review and various other publications. ----------ARTICLE:https://bylinetimes.com/2025/09/08/a-serious-escalation-putin-launches-russias-largest-aerial-assault-on-ukraine-since-2022/https://bylinetimes.com/2025/05/29/un-confirms-russian-drone-attacks-on-kherson-are-crimes-against-humanity-and-war-crimes/LINKS:http://www.zarinazabrisky.com/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarina_Zabriskyhttps://euromaidanpress.com/author/zarinazabrisky/https://kyivindependent.com/author/zarina-zabrisky/https://bylinetimes.com/author/zarinazabrisky/https://empr.media/discover-ukraine/movie/an-american-journalist-presented-the-film-kherson-human-safari/----------SUMMER FUNDRAISERSNAFO & Silicon Curtain community - Let's help help 5th SAB together https://www.help99.co/patches/nafo-silicon-curtain-communityWe are teaming up with NAFO 69th Sniffing Brigade to provide 2nd Assault Battalion of 5th SAB with a pickup truck that they need for their missions. With your donation, you're not just sending a truck — you're standing with Ukraine.https://www.help99.co/patches/nafo-silicon-curtain-communityWhy NAFO Trucks Matter:Ukrainian soldiers know the immense value of our NAFO trucks and buses. These vehicles are carefully selected, produced between 2010 and 2017, ensuring reliability for harsh frontline terrain. Each truck is capable of driving at least 20,000 km (12,500 miles) without major technical issues, making them a lifeline for soldiers in combat zones.In total we are looking to raise an initial 19 500 EUR in order to buy 1 x NAFO truck 2.0 Who is getting the aid? 5 SAB, 2 Assault Battalion, UAV operators‍.https://www.help99.co/patches/nafo-silicon-curtain-community----------Car for Ukraine has once again joined forces with a group of influencers, creators, and news observers during this summer. Sunshine here serves as a metaphor, the trucks are a sunshine for our warriors to bring them to where they need to be and out from the place they don't.https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/summer-sunshine-silicon-curtainThis time, we focus on the 6th Detachment of HUR, 93rd Alcatraz, 3rd Assault Brigade, MLRS systems and more. https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/summer-sunshine-silicon-curtain- bring soldiers to the positions- protect them with armor- deploy troops with drones to the positions----------SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISERA project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's front-line towns.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND:Save Ukrainehttps://www.saveukraineua.org/Superhumans - Hospital for war traumashttps://superhumans.com/en/UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukrainehttps://unbroken.org.ua/----------

2025-11-23 | Silicon Wafers 065 | Ukraine didn't just answer Moscow's “peace offensive” with a strongly worded press release, but with fire and fury. Before dawn, video from the small town of Shatura – about 120 kilometres east of Moscow – flooded Telegram and X: a black sky, a sudden flash, and then a roaring fireball rising over the Shaturskaya State District Power Plant, one of the largest and oldest power stations feeding the Moscow region. (United24 Media) Who has no cards Trump, remind me again, who has no cards? While diplomats in Geneva haggle over a 28-point “peace plan” that asks Ukraine to amputate its territory and its future, someone in Kyiv appears to have sent a different kind of answer: long-range drones hitting the power that keeps Moscow's imperial core lit and warm. The question for this episode is simple: Is turning the lights off in Moscow, Kyiv's answer to a surrender and capitulation ultimatum dressed as “peace plan”?----------SOURCES: Kyiv Independent – “Ukraine war latest: Ukraine downs Russian Mi-8 helicopter… Ukraine's military reportedly strikes power plant in Moscow Oblast” (Nov. 23, 2025) – overview of the reported Shatura attack and context for Ukraine's strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.United24 – “Drones strike Shatura power plant near Moscow, triggering massive blaze – video” – technical details on transformers, capacity and sanctions-hit turbines.Charter97 – “Fire at a Large Power Plant Near Moscow: New Details Have Emerged” – quotes of governor Vorobyov, damage estimates and capacity loss figures.EADaily – “Strong fire at Shaturskaya GRES after UAV attack — mass media” – confirmation of drone attack, local outages and plant history.Online.ua – “Shaturskaya GRES burns near Moscow due to drone attack” – summary of explosions, plant capacity and drone numbers.Wikipedia – “Timeline of the Russo-Ukrainian war (1 September 2025 – present)” – context on earlier strikes against Russian power plants and energy nodes.----------SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISERA project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's front-line towns.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SILICON CURTAIN LIVE EVENTS - FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN Events in 2025 - Advocacy for a Ukrainian victory with Silicon Curtainhttps://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasOur events of the first half of the year in Lviv, Kyiv and Odesa were a huge success. Now we need to maintain this momentum, and change the tide towards a Ukrainian victory. The Silicon Curtain Roadshow is an ambitious campaign to run a minimum of 12 events in 2025, and potentially many more. Any support you can provide for the fundraising campaign would be gratefully appreciated. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------

Joining the pod today are Rob Lee of FPRI, Shashank Joshi of the Economist, and Tony Stark of the Breaking Beijing substack. We discuss… Whether Ukraine represents a revolution in military affairs and what lessons the war holds for other theaters Why roughly 80% of casualties in Ukraine are caused by UAVs, and the symbiotic relationship between artillery and drones, The limits of FPVs and UAVs, tactics to counter UAV attacks, and the role of unmanned ground vehicles, Institutional friction within the Ukrainian forces, How Chinese components and commercial drones from DJI are shaping the battlefield. Drone incidents over Europe, burden sharing, and the US policy climate. Outro music:  Leon Bridges and Khruangbin - Texas Sun, a song that made it onto a 2022 playlist a reporter made of songs they heard on the front in Ukraine (⁠https://open.spotify.com/playlist/72paG2c3VqKblZsZlsCBOx?si=ace9197c40c6440f⁠) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joining the pod today are Rob Lee of FPRI, Shashank Joshi of the Economist, and Tony Stark of the Breaking Beijing substack. We discuss… Whether Ukraine represents a revolution in military affairs and what lessons the war holds for other theaters Why roughly 80% of casualties in Ukraine are caused by UAVs, and the symbiotic relationship between artillery and drones, The limits of FPVs and UAVs, tactics to counter UAV attacks, and the role of unmanned ground vehicles, Institutional friction within the Ukrainian forces, How Chinese components and commercial drones from DJI are shaping the battlefield. Drone incidents over Europe, burden sharing, and the US policy climate. Outro music:  Leon Bridges and Khruangbin - Texas Sun, a song that made it onto a 2022 playlist a reporter made of songs they heard on the front in Ukraine (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/72paG2c3VqKblZsZlsCBOx?si=ace9197c40c6440f) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an odd turn of events, officials have revealed unusual new details about an aircraft crash that occurred near Area 51 in late September. The crash, initially described as minor and non-fatal, has since taken a strange turn after investigators reportedly discovered “tampering” at the site, which includes the discovery of objects that included an “inert training bomb body” and aircraft material of "unknown origin." This week on The Micah Hanks Program, we look at the latest news about the ongoing investigation, as well as the strange history involving several of the key players involved in the investigation into the mysterious crash near America's most controversial high-security facility. Have you had a UFO/UAP sighting? Please consider reporting your sighting to the UAP Sightings Reporting System, a public resource for information about sightings of aerial phenomena. The story doesn't end here... become an X Subscriber and get access to even more weekly content and monthly specials. Want to advertise/sponsor The Micah Hanks Program? We have partnered with the AdvertiseCast to handle our advertising/sponsorship requests. If you would like to advertise with The Micah Hanks Program, all you have to do is click the link below to get started: AdvertiseCast: Advertise with The Micah Hanks Program Show Notes Below are links to stories and other content featured in this episode: NEWS: Living Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners are freed as part of Gaza ceasefire  She saw a car-sized object above a Texas farm and found a wayward hunk of NASA equipment  3I/ATLAS is Displaying Surprising Activity Scientists Call "a Note from Another Planetary System" Scientists Track Over 1000 Martian Dust Devils, Revealing Hidden Wind Patterns Across the Red Planet   Forget the Sixth Sense: New Study Says the Human Brain May Be Wired for Seven Senses AREA 51: Officials Say Aircraft Material of “Unknown Origin” Found at Site of Crash Near Area 51  RAID ON DREAMLAND RESORT: Air Force, FBI raid homes of man with Area 51 website  STATEMENT ON RAID: Press release regarding FBI raid KNAPP REPORTS: Questions remain 16 months after dual raids on Area 51 website creator BECOME AN X SUBSCRIBER AND GET EVEN MORE GREAT PODCASTS AND MONTHLY SPECIALS FROM MICAH HANKS. Sign up today and get access to the entire back catalog of The Micah Hanks Program, as well as “classic” episodes, weekly “additional editions” of the subscriber-only X Podcast, the monthly Enigmas specials, and much more. Like us on Facebook Follow @MicahHanks on X. Keep up with Micah and his work at micahhanks.com.