Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Drones may one day save your life: European responders to use drones for rescue missions

By Christian de Looper April 8, 2016

first responders using drones dji phantom 4 hands on 0025 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Drones are opening up a world of new possibilities for consumers. They may have started off as aerial cameras, but now, as the technology has matured, they’re finding applications far outside the realm of photography. Nowadays we’ve got drones that deliver goods, fight deforestation, and even patrol our coastlines to warn swimmers of nearby sharks — but this is just the beginning. In the not so distant future, drones will also be used to save lives.

Staring very soon, DJI, the world’s largest drone manufacturer, will be supplying drones to the European Emergency Number Association for use in high-impact situations like rescue missions — a deal that could fundamentally change the way first responders operate.

Related Offer: Visionary Intelligence. Elevated Imagination. See the DJI Phantom 4 here

“Drones are transforming the way first response and civil protection missions operate by not only helping commanders make faster, smarter and better informed decisions, but also by providing first responders with more detailed information from an aerial perspective,” said Romeo Durscher, director of education at DJI, in a statement.

The partnership will involve the use of DJI’s Phantom, Inspire, and Matrice 100 drones, which will be equipped with the company’s Zenmuse XT thermal imaging system. Pilot programs will begin in May and September in Denmark and Ireland.

In the Denmark pilot program, the Greater Copenhagen Fire Department will be trained to use drones for things like firefighting, chemical accidents, and car accidents. The Irish Donegal Mountain Rescue Team is already using DJI-built software to coordinate rescue missions, however going forward they will also be working on improving real-time networking techniques and crowd-sourcing capabilities.

The program could open the door for other teams to incorporate drones into how they operate. At the end of the pilot programs, teams will “share insights and best practices with the broader international emergency-response community to promote the safe integration of drones in emergency situations,” according to the statement.

The EENA has representatives from over 1,200 emergency services in 80 countries, so it’s certainly well-positioned to implement drone use for emergency situations around Europe.

Topics

Christian de Looper

Contributor

Christian’s interest in technology began as a child in Australia, when he stumbled upon a computer at a garage sale that he…

News

Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards

Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

News

Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards

Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Entertainment

AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying

Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."