DRONES

Drones for doobies

The 21st-century farmer’s toolkit goes beyond tractors, balers, and mowers. Nowadays, it frequently includes drones too.

Unmanned aerial vehicles can help with a slew of farm tasks, from crop dusting to crop monitoring. The market for commercial agricultural drones is projected to grow from $1.2 billion in 2020 to $5.7 billion by 2025, per Markets and Markets. 

And in the fast-growing world of cannabis farming specifically, the tech is widely used for security as well as crop monitoring, according to cultivators we spoke with. Some companies, like Houston-based drone startup Hylio, are looking to push into the cannabis space with crop-spraying drones too—a common use case among farmers in general—though the company hasn’t yet progressed beyond the demo stage with a cannabis company, and growers say that application is unusual for now.

For Flora Growth, an all-outdoor cannabis company based in Colombia and traded on the Nasdaq, drones are commonly used for security and data collection, Jason Warnock, the company’s chief revenue officer, told us. Warnock said it’s the cannabis-industry standard to at least use drones for security. 

• “I think almost every grower uses drones, primarily to make assessments of their property, the security, having a good sense of all the positions around their facilities,” Warnock explained, adding that it’s particularly useful for large grows. 
• He also said he’s seen a lot of anti-drone technology in use, because growers are concerned about snooping or the infestation of their plants by a drone unwittingly carrying in pests. 

Looking ahead...As the space grows and farmers look to gain an edge over one another, it’s possible more cultivators will look to solutions like Hylio’s crop-spraying drones. Erickson expects comfort levels with the tech to grow as cannabis becomes legal in more areas. 

“Using drones also comes with a whole other set of regulations that you need to abide by,” Erickson said. “I think the cannabis leads are kind of waiting to have all their ducks in a row before pulling the trigger on too much drone stuff.”

Click here to read the full story.—JM, DM

AV

Testing, testing… another AV partnership

Get ready for a lot of hyphens: The world’s largest retailer is rolling out its first-ever multi-city autonomous driving service. 

This week, Walmart announced it will team up with Ford Motors and Argo AI, an autonomous vehicle platform startup, to start testing a self-driving delivery service in three major hubs: Miami, Austin, and Washington, D.C. At least one human safety driver will still be in the loop. 

If this sounds familiar...You might be thinking of the retailer’s past forays into self-driving tech, which are plenty. But the new announcement marks Walmart’s first multi-city, grocery-focused bet on the tech. And these aren’t small markets, either. 

• Earlier this year, Walmart kicked off a grocery-delivery pilot with Cruise in Scottsdale, Arizona, and a middle-mile delivery pilot with Gatik in Bentonville, Arkansas. Before that, it had also partnered with Nuro and Waymo.

“They’re doubling down, they’re tripling down, and they’re putting their money where their mouth is,” Grayson Brulte, cofounder and president of Brulte & Company, an autonomous mobility consulting firm, told Emerging Tech Brew. 

Looking ahead...Walmart is limiting testing to just one retail location in each of the cities, but if successful, we’ll likely see it expand the offering to multiple stores. And since Walmart is one of the only big-box retailers with a presence in all 50 states, so it has a unique opportunity to combine autonomous delivery with passenger rides, Brulte said. 

“If you can combine grocery with the ability to move people, that’s a very interesting business,” he said. “Walmart’s merely in the first inning of a nine-inning game of where they’re going on their strategy with autonomy.”—HF

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Say This Out Loud: Oh. Hi. Yo.

You just said Ohio. 

It’s what all today’s top tech players are saying because it’s where they’re moving. 

Leading companies like Facebook, Google, IBM, Upstart, and more are enjoying the top-rated affordability and low taxes Ohio offers. It’s also a state where work-life balance is actually attainable—unlike some coastal cities (we won’t name names).

In fact, Cincinnati was ranked No. 4 Best City for Jobs by Glassdoor in 2018, and Ohio is the only state with three cities that made the list.

Aside from midwestern hospitality, the space to finally start your own herb garden, and the joy that comes with saying “Buckeye State,” Ohio also has a talented pool of STEM professionals and generous statewide programs that will help your tech company go further at a fraction of the cost.

Learn what Ohio can do for your business today. 

TECH POLICY

For all inquiries re: tech-government...

If you’ve ever wanted to dive deep into the world of tech company–government relations, an accountability-focused research organization called Tech Inquiry has a new report for you. 

The report maps out government use of AI-based weapons and surveillance, including new details about Project Maven—a controversial Pentagon drone-surveillance project that Google employees successfully protested—as well as revelations of government contracts for things like a potential “lethal autonomous tank,” created by Anduril Industries.

• Tech workers, spanning from Microsoft to Palantir, have pushed back hard on defense and law-enforcement contracts in recent years, notably via movements like “Tech Won’t Build It.” 

Some background...Jack Poulson founded Tech Inquiry in 2019, after resigning from his research-scientist role at Google due to the company’s plan to create a censored search engine for China. Tech Inquiry’s goal is to give tech workers “informed consent about when their work may lead to loss of life or suppression of human rights or freedoms,” Poulson told the Guardian in 2019. 

• The volunteer-based group also released the underlying tool to help people easily explore tech companies’ government dealings, including both government contracts and lobbying efforts. 
• The tool’s database includes “tens of thousands” of organizations, and pulls from a US federal contract database as well as lobbying filings. It updates regularly. 

Bottom line: Tech companies and the US government have an interdependent, but at times fraught, relationship. Tech Inquiry’s report and tool make it easier for individuals to understand the specifics of that intertwinement.—DM

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BITS & BYTES

Stat: The four civilians SpaceX sent to space on Wednesday will orbit the earth 15x each day, until they return on Saturday.  

Quote: “We cannot afford to continue playing catch-up regarding AI—allowing its use with limited or no boundaries or oversight, and dealing with the almost inevitable human rights consequences after the fact.”—United Nations Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet 

Read: A profile of Ginkgo Bioworks, which will SPAC at a ~$15 billion valuation today. 

Car insurance has taken a wrong turn: That’s why Root is redefining the industry by offering rates based primarily on how you drive, not who you are (i.e., your credit score). Good drivers could save up to $900/year—get started with Root today.*

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• President Biden announced a new agreement to share defense tech with the UK and Australia. (France is very, very angry about this.) 
• Discord raised $500 million, pushing its valuation to $15 billion.
• Ford announced it will invest another $250 million in the recently completed Rouge Electric Center, where it also just began preproduction of the F-150 Lightning. 
• Digital health tech, like fitness trackers, is increasingly popular. But there’s little research on ethics or privacy in the space.
• The WSJ cracked open Facebook this week. Two of its revelations: The company’s 2018 algorithm change made users angrier, although it was billed as promoting healthy engagement; Facebook also had insufficient responses to employee concerns about the platform’s role in human trafficking, international conflict, organ selling, and more.
• Facebook also knew that fake-news troll farms reached 140 million Americans per month in the lead-up to the 2020 election, MIT Technology Review reports.

GOING PHISHING

Three of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

1. In Japan, Google is promoting its new Pixel 6 with a bag of “Googley Salty Flavor” chips. 
2. Netflix is making a thriller series with episodes that can be watched in any order. 
3. ESPN announced a hard pivot to VR broadcasts, and is now calling itself the "metaverse for sports."
4. GM told some Chevy Bolt owners to keep their distance from other cars, lest the battery explodes.  

TECH THROWBACK

Clive Sinclair, who invented the ZX80 in 1980—one of the first widely popular home computers in the UK—died yesterday at 81. Sinclair is credited with “bringing home computers to the masses,” per the Guardian. 

• He was knighted in 1983, after producing several extremely popular follow-ups to the ZX80 PC. 
• Sinclair also had an ahead-of-its-time failure: He invested heavily in producing a battery-powered electric trike, bracing for 100,000 units sold in its first year, but it did not catch on.

ICYMI

• One barrier to electric boating? Consumers don’t know they’re real
• A biotech startup raised millions to resurrect woolly mammoths
• How a cannabis-focused AI platform helps growers predict yield

GOING PHISHING ANSWER

ESPN has dabbled in VR, but is not embracing the metaverse label just yet.