There are lots of affordable drones on the market but many of them are not designed for commercial applications. Consumer drones may not have the battery life and sensors needed to handle complex missions. Businesses need to do their homework on take off weight, cameras, object tracking and various other features to make the right choice. This infographic from Drone Shop covers top drones made for commercial use:
Source: Statista
The House of Representatives passed a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban of the social media platform TikTok in the United States, unless its Chinese owner Byte Dance sells its stake in the company within 165 days.
U.S. lawmakers had raised concerns over the question of data and national security risks of the app, fearing potential links to China’s government. TikTok, which is headquartered outside of China, says it has never been asked by the Chinese government to provide them with U.S. data and has been actively trying to distance itself from Beijing.
The short form video app is particularly beloved by teenagers and young people around the world. Now, nearly one in three (32 percent) young adults aged 18-29 even say that they turn to TikTok regularly for news. This is up from just nine percent who said the same in 2020.
While still low, the overall share of adults in the United States who say they regularly get news on TikTok has more than quadrupled between 2020 and 2024. According to a survey by Pew Research Center of over 8,800 adults, where only 3 percent said they regularly get their news from the social media platform four years ago, this had climbed to 14 percent between September 25 and October 1, 2023, when the survey was last fielded.
In order for the bill to come into action, it first needs to see through the legislative process and would then need to pass the Senate.
Source: Statista
As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decided to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at 5.25 to 5.50 percent for the fifth consecutive meeting, as it wants to “gain greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainable toward 2 percent” before beginning to cut rates. Two years into the most aggressive tightening cycle since the early 1980s, one thing appears to be clear though: unless something extraordinary happens and inflation unexpectedly heats up again, we have like reached the ceiling and rates will only go down from here.
“The economy has made considerable progress toward our dual mandate objectives,” Fed chairman Jerome Powell said at a press conference. “Inflation has eased substantially while the labor market has remained strong, and that is very good news.” Powell refused to declare ‘mission accomplished’ just yet, though, pointing out that “inflation is still too high, ongoing progress in bringing it down is not assured, and the path forward is uncertain.” He did say that it would “likely be appropriate to begin dialing back policy restraint at some point this year,” though, which is about as optimistic as it gets from Powell, who has been very cautious with his rhetoric throughout the inflation crisis. In agreement with their chairman, FOMC meeting participants also reiterated their belief that rate cuts are on the horizon for 2024. According to projection materials published on Wednesday, we could see as many as three 25 basis point cuts before the end of the year, with 15 out of 19 meeting participants anticipating that the target range for the federal funds rate will fall below 5 percent by year’s end.
For next year and beyond, the committee members expect interest rates to return to lower levels, albeit at a slower pace than previously anticipated. Looking at the dot plots for 2025 and beyond also reveals a high degree of uncertainty and different levels of optimism within the committee, as predictions for the appropriate policy rate at the end of 2025 range from 2.625 to 5.375 and from 2.375 to 4.875 for the end of 2026.
