Drones and robots could replace some field workers as farming goes high-tech
CBSN
The fruits and vegetables you eat may soon be cultivated and processed by an army of drones and robots, some powered by artificial intelligence. In fact, it's already happening on farms across America.
Hylio, a Houston-based tech company, was granted an exemption from the Federal Aviation Administration in February for a single pilot to operate swarms of heavy drones over farms. Three battery-powered drones, some weighing as much as 400 pounds each, can now be used at one time to spray fertilizer and pesticides on fields of produce. That task is typically handled by farm workers or crop-dusting planes.
Before the FAA decision, deploying this kind of drone swarm would have required a team of licensed operators, which makes the process more complicated and expensive. Using a swarm of three drones at one time, one operator can spray 150 acres every hour.
This story previously aired on Sept. 15, 2018. News report: Today, in a 5-1 decision, the California State Supreme Court ruled that Rodney Alcala did not receive a fair trial. Juror: We, the jury, find the defendant, Rodney James Alcala, guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree. Victim Robin C. Samsoe… "I wanna kill, I wanna kill, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean, kill, kill, kill, kill." Jury member [in court]: We, the jury … determine that the penalty to be imposed upon defendant, Rodney James Alcala, to be death. D.A. Cyrus Vance to reporters: For both families, who had lost all hope that these cases would ever be solved, the pleas by Rodney Alcala, and today's sentencing brings closure to painful chapters in their lives.
A new law aims to strengthen reporting requirements for technology companies to combat online predators seeking to exploit children. One dad told CBS News that he hopes the law will save children like his son, who died by suicide after becoming ensnared in a "sextortion" scheme when he was 17 years old.