Engineers at Delft University of Technology developed a lightweight tactile sensor modeled on animal whiskers, allowing small drones to detect obstacles by touch rather than vision. The design targets ultra-compact rescue drones, which often operate in smoke-filled or dark environments where cameras and lidar fail. Professor Salwa Hamaza said the sensor must be lightweight, low-latency and low-power to work on such drones.
wired.com
· 2026-10-14
Seattle Mountain Rescue volunteers have begun field-testing powered hip-and-leg exoskeletons to see if the devices improve speed and endurance during search operations. Similar wearable exoskeletons are already used by IKEA, Ford, Boeing and Mazda Toyota on assembly lines, by Finnish rescue and firefighting crews under the ExoPELA project, and by Ukrainian soldiers carrying artillery shells, according to Colonel Vitalii Serdiuk.
theconversation.com
· 2026-10-07
A 16-year-old was stranded near a steep rock face known as the 'Widowmaker' on Crown Mountain in British Columbia after Anthropic's Claude chatbot directed him off the marked trail during his descent. North Shore Rescue crews rappelled down to reach him since a helicopter couldn't approach the cliff, and safely extracted him using ropes and anchors. Search manager Paul Markey confirmed the teen called for help after becoming stuck, averting what could have been a fatal fall.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-06
Powered exoskeletons that boost lower-body strength are now being tested by Seattle Mountain Rescue volunteers and have been deployed by companies like IKEA, Ford, Boeing and Mazda Toyota on factory floors. Finland's ExoPELA project found the devices reduced muscle strain for firefighters, while Ukraine's military says soldiers using Hypershell exoskeletons to carry artillery shells report less fatigue and longer sustained combat effectiveness, according to Colonel Vitalii Serdiuk.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-03
Katalyst Space Technologies built and launched a satellite called Link under a $30 million, nine-month NASA contract to boost the Swift Observatory into a higher orbit before it decayed. Link launched July 3 but suffered a malfunction weeks later that sent it spinning out of control, and NASA confirmed in August the rescue attempt was off. Swift, launched in 2004, lacks its own propulsion and remains at the mercy of atmospheric drag.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-01
The New Yorker published a long-form account centered on a fatal 2015 crash on Colorado's Million Dollar Highway, in which a car reversing near the roadside went over a cliff into a gorge, killing the driver and his mother-in-law while his young daughter survived. The piece traces the rescue effort and the girl's memories of the crash, using the incident to explore why the notoriously dangerous highway has seen little infrastructure improvement over the years.
newyorker.com
· 2026-09-29
The FreeBSD Project has shipped version 14.5 of its operating system, offering several installer formats including a full DVD image with documentation and pre-built packages, a smaller disc1 image without packages, and a bootonly image for network-based installs. All variants can be written to USB drives for booting on amd64 machines and include a livefs rescue mode.
freebsd.org
· 2026-09-08
Scientists from the University of Queensland and University of New South Wales fitted giant burrowing cockroaches with electrodes, cameras and automatic injection devices to create cyborg insects called Paraborgs. The bugs can crawl through rubble to locate disaster victims and even administer medication, according to a study published in Advanced Science.
wired.com
· 2026-09-06
Siskiyou County rescuers pulled three young men off Mount Shasta after they used Google's Gemini chatbot to plan their climb. The group started at 3am, missed the noon turnaround guideline, summited at 7pm, and had to be rescued after spending the night in Mud Creek Canyon.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-05
A group of hikers relied on Google's AI tools to map out a route and had to be rescued after the plan led them into dangerous, unsuitable terrain. Rescuers intervened to bring the hikers to safety following the failed AI-guided excursion.
futurism.com
· 2026-09-05
A group of climbers attempting Mount Shasta in Siskiyou County, California used Google's Gemini chatbot to plan their route, food and water needs, and were told the climb would take eight hours and that they should pack simple carbs instead of fats. The estimate proved drastically wrong: the ascent alone took 16 hours, leaving them descending in darkness, off-route, and with a dead phone after their AllTrails navigation app failed, ultimately requiring a nearly 24-hour rescue operation by search and rescue teams.
engadget.com
· 2026-09-03
A survivor of the deadly Tibet-Nepal flooding reported that satellite connectivity on his HUAWEI Mate X5 let him stay in contact with the outside world after cellular networks failed. He used the satellite link to reach a helicopter crew and was subsequently evacuated, then shared his account through HUAWEI executive Richard Yu's social media page. The flooding has killed over 900 people, with thousands still unaccounted for.
androidauthority.com
· 2026-08-31
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