News, deep dives, and analysis — every California story, newest first.
AeroVironment just announced on a press release that has acquired Empirical Systems Aerospace in a transaction valued at approximately $200 million, adding a certified aerospace prototyping and manufacturing operation to a company that has spent the last twelve months aggressively reshaping itself into something much larger than a drone maker. The deal closed March 16…
The inventor of the Jetson ONE took off from his driveway, flew over Pismo Beach surfers and straight over the pier, and landed in Grover Beach. MrBeast filmed it. The world noticed. From a Residential Driveway to the Pacific Ocean Tomasz Patan, co-founder, inventor, and CTO of Jetson, did not launch from an airport. He…
Joby Aviation flies past the Golden Gate Bridge to kick off its 2026 Electric Skies Tour. But while the flight was quiet, the real story is the difference between this prototype and the FAA-conforming aircraft. Dive into the certification data and what it means for a 2027 launch.
California’s Parallel Flight Technologies just received the regulatory green light that changes everything for the company. The FAA has granted the Firefly heavy-lift drone a Section 44807 exemption, authorizing commercial operations in U.S. airspace, as UAVHQ reported. This is not a small milestone. The Section 44807 exemption is the specific legal pathway for unmanned aircraft…
In late February, the FBI quietly distributed a security bulletin to California law enforcement warning that Iran had “allegedly aspired” to launch a surprise drone attack on West Coast targets from an unidentified vessel off the coast. The bulletin sat largely unnoticed until Operation Epic Fury began on February 28, when the U.S. and Israel…
California based startup Swarm Aero has opened an 80,000 square foot Advanced Manufacturing Center at Drake Field in Fayetteville, Arkansas
At the India AI Summit, California based Ottonomy.IO unveiled Ottumn.AI, a cloud orchestration platform designed to coordinate robots, drones, and smart infrastructure as if they were sections of the same mechanical orchestra, as published by The Robot Reports. The company built Ottumn.AI on NVIDIA artificial intelligence infrastructure, with backing from the NVIDIA Inception program. The…
Kevin Durant was logging his 16th NBA All Star appearance while the internet was busy staging a different kind of contest. This one involved alleged burner accounts, leaked screenshots, and an unexpected subplot about drones and Yahoo! Sports reported about it. The Houston Rockets forward suddenly found himself at the center of accusations that he…
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