Falling Drones, Swarming Drones And Rolling Nightmare Robots In This Week's Beyond Cars Roundup

Drone shows are meant to be the future of celebration as they’re a cleaner alternative to fireworks that don’t terrorize every animal within a five-mile radius. That’s not quite true when these shows go wrong and thousands of drones start falling from the sky, however, as was the case in China earlier this month. - Owen Bellwood Read More

KTM has had a tough go of it recently. Maybe it was all that investment in the X-Bow, maybe the company didn’t make enough track-only RC 8Cs, or maybe the problem began when it turned down Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. Regardless, the ready-to-race manufacturer now looks ready for bankruptcy proceedings, and it’s now reportedly struggling to even last that long. - Amber DaSilva Read More

Occasional fliers, when standing in line to remove their shoes at security, always glance longingly at us frequent flying types over in the PreCheck line. Our wait times are shorter, our laptops remain in our bags, and our shoes are still firmly attached to our feet. They wonder how they could ever access such luxury, how they could join the ranks of the PreCheck elite. Then, apparently, they get scammed. - Amber DaSilva Read More

If you thought the threat of police robots died with the demise of New York’s subway bot, you’d be wrong. A new rolling robot has been sent into the field in China. The spherical crime fighting device is a lot more sinister than New York’s failed attempt at robot policing and comes armed with net-throwing guns, tear gas and can pursue suspects at up to 22 miles per hour. - Owen Bellwood Read More

SpaceX has contracts to do all sorts of work for the United States government, from putting Toyotas on the moon to plunging the International Space Station into the sea. The company’s work includes secret projects for the U.S. military, but CEO Elon Musk wouldn’t know much about that — he’s not allowed into those rooms at corporate HQ. - Amber DaSilva Read More

Hi, I’m a motorcyclist. If you see me hanging out somewhere give me a wave, I promise I’m friendly. If you see me on the side of the road with my helmet behind my bike, though, I’m asking you to do more than wave. That’s a bit of signaling we do to other riders (and the occasional kind driver) to say we need help. - Amber DaSilva Read More

When people think of airships, they either picture the Goodyear blimp circling the skies of major sports events or the Hindenburg going up in flames. Multiple start-ups are looking to up the notion that dirigibles are an archaic form of transportation. The enterprises claim that rigid airships will herald an era of sustainable luxury air travel despite only having a top speed of 80 miles per hour. - Ryan Erik King Read More

Folks in and around New Jersey lost their minds recently, and not just because they heard rumors that people might be allowed to pump their own gas. No, it’s because they keep seeing things in the sky that may or may not be drones, and it caused them to absolutely freak the fuck out. Is it aliens? China? Aliens working with China? The official line is that a change in the law now allows people to fly drones at night, and that’s responsible for most of the sightings. I can’t say for sure, but what I will say is that you should not shoot at those things in the sky under any circumstances. - Collin Woodard Read More

Massachusetts residents driving through Boston were met with a watery surprise when a storm caused the Ted Williams Tunnel to flood with as much as three feet of water last week. The tunnel, which was built during Boston’s infamous Big Dig, allows Interstate 90 to run under the city, reportedly flooded after a catch basin clogged, causing water to accumulate across about 400 feet of road, WCVB reports. - Collin Woodard Read More

Conducting a crewed space mission isn’t like going out on a cross-country road trip. You can get by just fine without cell service on an isolated stretch of highway, but a spacecraft losing communications is typically the precursor to a disaster. SpaceX lost power for at least an hour at a California facility during Polaris Dawn, a five-day mission in September that featured the first private spacewalk in history. The company’s mission lost its ability to command the mission’s Dragon spacecraft during the outage. - Ryan Erik King Read More