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Amazon reveals its new VTOL delivery drone
Amazon has announced and released video of the latest incarnation of its Prime Air drone, set to start making deliveries to customers “within months” (TechCrunch). The hexagonal drone has been designed to minimise the number of moving parts and it transitions between a vertical take-off and landing configuration to horizontal aeroplane-like flight.
Boston Dynamics is finally ready to start selling robots
Boston Dynamics is preparing to sell its first ever commercial robot: its vaguely doglike quadruped, Spot (The Verge). Currently in “proof-of-concept” testing and due to go on sale before the end of the year, the robot can navigate autonomously or be remote controlled, and is being sold as a versatile platform that can be customised with additions ranging from 3D environmental mapping cameras to robot arms.
YouTube bans white supremacists and holocaust deniers
YouTube has announced that it's removing more harmful content from its platform, including videos promoting white supremacism and holocaust denial (Ars Technica). However, it's hard to take the efforts seriously as the company is currently vacillating over whether or not racist and homophobic slurs against specific individuals are okay if they happen to come from popular right-wing commentators.
WTO appoints panel to look into US trade tariffs on China
The World Trade Organisation has appointed a panel to rule on China's complaint that US trade tariffs levied against it are in breach of WTO treaties binding all member countries (The Register). The result is likely to have a major impact on the price and availability of tech hardware in the future and multiple nations and political bodies, including the EU, Russia and Japan, have reserved a right to participate in the proceedings of the panel.
[A hard limit has been found on endurance athletes' energy expenditure
](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/06/study-marathon-runners-reveals-hard-limit-human-endurance)
Athletes who run thousands of kilometres in the five-month Race Across the USA have helped to reveal the limits of human endurance (Science). Whilst humans can expend to up to five times their basal metabolic rate (BMR), after 20 days of extreme activity, energy expenditure plateaus at 2.5 times BMR – the same metabolic threshold seen in pregnancy.
How big beef destroyed the planet
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
