Light Start – DARPA’s new drone, office WeChat, Earth in 4K, and WoW Legion launch

DARPA successfully test-flies strange new 24-fan LightningStrike drone

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the skies, DARPA comes along with a new experimental drone design. The strange critter in the video above (or the header image, in the newsletter) is the LightningStrike, a drone created by a company called Aurora Flight Sciences (on a DARPA contract) that uses 24 ducted fans for lift. It looks almost penguin-like, in that you’re pretty sure it was designed to fly but aren’t certain if it can get off the ground. The LightningStrike is flight-capable, though, as the video test shows. Its eventual purpose is unmanned cargo transport (seriously, lots of cargo) while hitting speeds of about 460km/h. This is just a one-fifth scale model for testing. We wonder who gets to keep it once they’re done building the real thing?

Source: Aurora Flight Sciences

WeChat wants you to use it in the office with the launch of WeChat Enterprise

If you’re in charge of a business, you probably deal with WeChat, WhatsApp and Facebook usage all the time. WeChat, for one, wants to make that work for you by launching WeChat Enterprise. This is a version of WeChat designed for the workplace (so you want people to use it, see?) and has features for everything from group messaging – for collaboration – to timekeeping and documentation retrieval. Want to use it? Er… no. Not yet. WeChat Enterprise is only available for the Chinese market for the moment (and you need a Chinese business license to register) but we don’t see it staying there. Even if the company hasn’t made any announcements for this side of the world yet.

Source: Tech In Asia

Experience the Earth, from space, in 4K

If you have the internet connection and the screen for it, you’re going to have to stop everything and watch this short clip from the International Space Station. What you’re looking at, if you have a 4K screen, is insanely detailed footage of the planet, as seen from space. If you’ve only got an HD display, that’s cool too. It doesn’t make the video any less impressive. What you can see in the video above was shot using the same camera used for yesterday’s fighter jet footage. We really need to take out two home loans so we can get our hands on the RED Dragon at some point.

Source: NASA

Join World of Warcraft for Legion‘s launch on 30 August

That noise you just heard was the sound of thousands of people dusting off their World of Warcraft subscription. Blizzard have announced that WoW‘s newest expansion, Legion, will be available from 30 August this year. That’s sooner than expected, if you were wondering. Legion will be adding the Demon Hunter class to the game, and those that pre-order will get access to it early, and the add-on will also be adding new areas, weapons, and changes throughout the world. If you’re planning on taking the fight to the Burning Legion, you’d better make sure your toons are ready by August.

Source: via Eurogamer