Denmark tests unmanned robotic sailboat fleet with tensions high in the region
But these 10-meter-long (30-foot-long) vessels carry no crew and are designed for surveillance.
Four uncrewed robotic sailboats, known as 'Voyagers,' have been put into service by Denmark's armed forces for a three-month operational trial.
Built by Alameda, California-based company Saildrone, the vessels will patrol Danish and NATO waters in the Baltic and North Seas, where maritime tensions and suspected sabotage have escalated sharply since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
Two of the Voyagers launched Monday from Koge Marina, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Copenhagen. Powered by wind and solar energy, these sea drones can operate autonomously for months at sea. Saildrone says the vessels carry advanced sensor suites — radar, infrared and optical cameras, sonar and acoustic monitoring.
Their launch comes after two others already joined a NATO patrol on June 6.
Saildrone founder and CEO Richard Jenkins compared the vessels to a 'truck' that carries sensors and uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to give a 'full picture of what's above and below the surface" to about 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 kilometers) in the open ocean.
He said that maritime threats like damage to undersea cables, illegal fishing and the smuggling of people, weapons and drugs are going undetected simply because 'no one's observing it.'
Saildrone, he said, is "going to places ... where we previously didn't have eyes and ears.'
The Danish Defense Ministry says the trial is aimed at boosting surveillance capacity in under-monitored waters, especially around critical undersea infrastructure such as fiber-optic cables and power lines.
'The security situation in the Baltic is tense,' said Lt. Gen. Kim Jørgensen, the director of Danish National Armaments at the ministry. 'They're going to cruise Danish waters, and then later they're going to join up with the two that are on (the) NATO exercise. And then they'll move from area to area within the Danish waters."
The trial comes as NATO confronts a wave of damage to maritime infrastructure — including the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions and the rupture of at least 11 undersea cables since late 2023. The most recent incident, in January, severed a fiber-optic link between Latvia and Sweden's Gotland island.
The trial also unfolds against a backdrop of trans-Atlantic friction — with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration threatening to seize Greenland, a semiautonomous territory belonging to Denmark, a NATO ally. Trump has said he wouldn't rule out military force to take Greenland.
Jenkins, the founder of Saildrone, noted that his company had already planned to open its operation in Denmark before Trump was reelected. He didn't want to comment on the Greenland matter, insisting the company isn't political.
Some of the maritime disruptions have been blamed on Russia's so-called shadow fleet — aging oil tankers operating under opaque ownership to avoid sanctions. One such vessel, the Eagle S, was seized by Finnish police in December for allegedly damaging a power cable between Finland and Estonia with its anchor.
Amid these concerns, NATO is moving to build a layered maritime surveillance system combining uncrewed surface vehicles like the Voyagers with traditional naval ships, satellites and seabed sensors.
'The challenge is that you basically need to be on the water all the time, and it's humongously expensive," said Peter Viggo Jakobsen of the Royal Danish Defence College. 'It's simply too expensive for us to have a warship trailing every single Russian ship, be it a warship or a civilian freighter of some kind.'
'We're trying to put together a layered system that will enable us to keep constant monitoring of potential threats, but at a much cheaper level than before,' he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
He pioneered the cellphone. It changed how people around the world talk to each other - and don't
DEL MAR, Calif. (AP) — Dick Tracy got an atom-powered two-way wrist radio in 1946. Marty Cooper never forgot it. The Chicago boy became a star engineer who ran Motorola's research and development arm when the hometown telecommunications titan was locked in a 1970s corporate battle to invent the portable phone . Cooper rejected AT&T's wager on the car phone, betting that America wanted to feel like Dick Tracy, armed with 'a device that was an extension of you, that made you reachable everywhere.' Fifty-two years ago, Cooper declared victory in a call from a Manhattan sidewalk to the head of AT&T's rival program. His four-pound DynaTAC 8000X has evolved into a global population of billions of smartphones weighing mere ounces apiece. Some 4.6 billion people — nearly 60% of the world — have mobile internet, according to a global association of mobile network operators. The tiny computers that we carry by the billions are becoming massive, interlinked networks of processors that perform trillions of calculations per second – the computing power that artificial intelligence needs. The simple landlines once used to call friends or family have evolved into omnipresent glossy screens that never leave our sight and flood our brain with hours of data daily, deluging us with endless messages, emails, videos and a soundtrack that many play constantly to block the outside world. From his home in Del Mar, California, the inventor of the mobile phone, now 96, watches all of this. Of one thing Cooper is certain: The revolution has really just begun. The phone is about to become a thinking computer Now, the winner of the 2024 National Medal of Technology and Innovation — the United States' highest honor for technological achievement – is focused on the cellphone's imminent transition to a thinking mobile computer fueled by human calories to avoid dependence on batteries. Our new parts will run constant tests on our bodies and feed our doctors real-time results, Cooper predicts. 'That will let people anticipate diseases before they happen,' Cooper envisions. 'People are going to die from old age and accidents but they're not going to die from disease. That's a revolution in medicine.' Human behavior is already adapting to smartphones, some observers say, using them as tools that allow overwhelmed minds to focus on quality communication. The phone conversation has become the way to communicate the most intimate of social ties, says Claude Fischer, a sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley and author of 'America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.' For almost everyone, the straight-up phone call has become an intrusion. Now everything needs to be preceded by a message. 'There seems to be a sense that the phone call is for heart-to-heart and not just for information exchange,' Fischer says. And this from a 20-year-old corroborates that: 'The only person I call on a day-to-day basis is my cousin,' says Ayesha Iqbal, a psychology student at Suffolk County Community College. 'I primarily text everyone else.' Child education student Katheryn Ruiz, 19, concurs, saying 'texting is used for just like nothing substantial, like nothing personal.' Sometimes the roles are reversed, though. Sixty-eight-year-old Diana Cunningham of Overbrook, Kansas, pop. 1005, uses a group text to stay in touch with her kids and grandkids. Her 18-year-old granddaughter Bryndal Hoover, a senior at nearby Lawrence High School, says she prefers voice calls over texting because then I can understand, 'Oh, how should I go about a conversation?'' When she was a girl, Karen Wilson's family shared a party line with other phone customers outside Buffalo, New York. Wilson, 79, shocked her granddaughter by telling her about the party line when the girl got a cellphone as a teenager. 'What did you do if you didn't wait?'' the girl asked. Responded her grandmother: '`You went down to their house and you yelled, 'Hey, Mary, can you come out?'' The brave new world has a price Many worry about the changes exerted by our newly interconnected, highly stimulated world. We increasingly buy online and get products delivered without the possibility of serendipity. There are fewer opportunities to greet a neighbor or store employee and find out something unexpected, to make a friend, to fall in love. People are working more efficiently as they drown. 'There's no barrier to the number of people who can be reaching out to you at the same time and it's just overwhelming,' says Kristen Burks, an associate circuit judge in Macon, Missouri. Most importantly, sociologists, psychologists and teachers say, near-constant phone-driven screen time is cutting into kids' ability to learn and socialize. A growing movement is pushing back against cellphones' intrusion into children's daily lives. 'At the turn of the millennium, technology companies based on the West Coast of the United States created a set of world-changing products,' New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes in 'The Anxious Generation,' which has been on The New York Times bestseller list for a year. 'By creating a firehose of addictive content that entered through kids' eyes and ears, and by displacing physical play and in-person socializing, these companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale,' he writes. Seven states have signed — and twenty states have introduced — statewide bell-to-bell phone bans in schools. Additional states have moved to prohibit them during teaching time. That doesn't sit well with the smartphone's inventor, who says there are better solutions than regulation. 'Accommodating disruptive technologies requires disruptive solutions,' Cooper wrote from Del Mar. 'Wouldn't it be better for teachers to integrate the cellphone that provides access to all the information in the world?' Global inequality is an issue That advantage is coming to rich countries faster than poor ones. The first time that Nnaemeka Agbo had to leave his family in Nigeria for a prolonged period, life shuttled him to Russia for studies, like many other young Nigerians increasingly desperate to relocate to seek better opportunities. Adjusting to life in Russia when he moved there in 2023 was tough, he says, but one thing kept him going; WhatsApp calls with family. 'One thing that kept me sane was calling home every time, and it made me feel closer to my people,' the 31-year-old says. In a country that has one of the world's highest poverty and hunger levels despite being Africa's top oil producer, Agbo's experience mirrors many young people in Nigeria increasingly forced to choose between remaining at home with family or aiming at a better life elsewhere. At least 37% of African adults expressed their desire to live somewhere else in 2023, the highest rate in the world, according to a Gallup survey published in October last year. For many, phone calls blur the distance and offer comfort. 'No matter how busy my schedule is, I must call my people every weekend, even if that's the only call I have to make,' Agbo says. In Africa, where only 37% of the population had internet access in 2023, according to the International Telecommunication Union, regular mobile calls are the only option many have. In northern Nigeria's Zamfara state, Abdulmalik Saidu says the mobile connectivity rate is so low that 'sometimes we stay for weeks without network.' When 19-year-old Shamsu Deen-Cole flew from Sierra Leone to the United States to study international relations in 1971, making a call to his parents in Sierra Leone would take days, starting with telling his parents when to expect the call. Calls would cost around $150 for under 10 minutes. 'There was no time for extra talks or complimentary because it would all add up in cost,' recalls Deen-Cole, 73. Tabane Cissé, who moved from Senegal to Spain in 2023, makes phone calls about investing Spanish earnings at home. Otherwise, it's all texts, or voice notes, with one exception. His mother doesn't read or write, but when he calls 'it's as if I was standing next to her,' Cissé says. 'It brings back memories — such pleasure.' He couldn't do it without the cell phone. And half a world away, that suits Marty Cooper just fine. 'There are more cell phones in the world today than there are people,' Cooper says. 'Your life can be made infinitely more efficient just by virtue of being connected with everybody else in the world. But I have to tell you that this is only the beginning.' ___ Weissenstein contributed from New York and Asadu from Lagos, Nigeria. Aroun R. Deen in New York, Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, Renata Brito in Barcelona, Spain and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, New York also contributed.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Apple Inc. (AAPL) Adds Tennis To Its List of Supported Sports Ahead of Wimbledon
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is among the 13 Best Big Name Stocks to Buy Now. On June 25, the company announced that it had added tennis to its list of supported sports on Apple Sports, a free app for iPhone users that provides them with real-time scores, statistics, and more. g-stockstudio/ Tennis fans will now be able to access live scores and track points for all men's and women's matches for Grand Slam and 1000-level tournaments, beginning with Wimbledon this summer. Fans will also be able to stay updated on players' progress during the tournaments. Moreover, Apple Sports has also recently unveiled a new home experience, making it easier for users to personalize and follow their favorite teams and tournaments on the app. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been making heavy investments in Apple Sports to expand its growing list of supported sports. In recent months, the app has added NASCAR, F1, and several soccer tournaments. While we acknowledge the potential of AAPL as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and . Disclosure: None.
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
VCs Are Turning Away From The ‘fixer-Upper' Founder
Faster. Better. Smarter. Smoother. What might sound like a Daft Punk lyric has become something of an anthem for tech startups. In recent years, a strong proportion of the pitches I've reviewed have been for startup ideas focused on incremental gains. Think faster versions of existing tools, smoother, more interoperable systems, and any other kind of upgrade ending in '-er'. Of course, aiming for better is no bad thing. By improving on great ideas, we can drive progress and develop more tailored solutions. And there have been brilliant, highly successful businesses that have emerged as a result of this philosophy: zoning in on a need and applying tech or better design to make it more efficient, effective or enjoyable. But, as I covered in my recent piece on moat building, the rise of vibe coding and open-source AI means being the 'best version right now' is no longer defensible as a long-term strategy. Betting on being the next best upgrade is a losing game. It leaves your offering just one fix or disrupter away from being replaced. Computer service and assistance concept with work tool icon on a laptop keyboard 3D illustration. That's why VCs like me are turning away from 'incremental improvers' in favour of paradigm-shifting experiences; startups who are building something genuinely novel with a user experience that's 5 or even 10 times better. So if you're a founder hoping to attract investment, here are three things you can do to demonstrate that you're more than a fixer-upper. 1. Disrupt, don't decorate The idea that 'disruptors' have the greatest potential for long-term impact is nothing new. But now, in a market increasingly saturated by 'add-on' technology, it's more important than ever that founders distinguish themselves from what's already out there. That means daring to imagine where technology is heading, not just where it is today. Startups able to do this have a much greater shot at reaching and dominating untapped markets. Revolut's $48 billion valuation and Airbnb's $11bn annual revenue didn't come from minor upgrades or applying a bit of polish around the edges. They're the achievements of founders who believed that things could be done differently to deliver a customer experience that was unlike anything else. And then built platforms that made it a reality. Perhaps you're disrupting an industry because you've lived its challenges first-hand. This was the case for Molly Johnson-Jones, who co-founded Flexa (an Ada portfolio company) after being fired for asking to work from home while managing a chronic health condition. Today, millions of people use the platform to access transparent, verified information on different working environments and cultures, so candidates can find roles that actually work for them. With no predecessor and no playbook, Flexa has carved out a category of its own and become indispensable to modern jobseekers. Or maybe you're introducing much-needed digital solutions to fix an age-old analogue problem. Take Patchwork Health for example. Founded by two NHS doctors who were frustrated by the relentless pressure and lack of flexibility on the frontline, their digital workforce management tools are making sustainable staffing a reality in healthcare. Patchwork's tech-led approach includes an app which lets clinicians book shifts, request holiday and manage their own schedules all in one place. Meanwhile, managers can view staffing trends and fill vacancies through the same platform. This isn't just an upgrade, it's a huge step in modernising a process that's long been held back by archaic systems, siloed data and painstaking admin. So if you find yourself saying 'we're the next [insert successful company],' it's worth asking: am I a disruptor, or merely a decorator neatly papering over cracks? 2. Uncover, then unlock Fixer-upper founders jostle for space in a market. Real disruptors prise open the doors to places no one has set foot yet. They identify the unmet needs that have existed for so long that everyone else has just taken them for granted. And then they set about solving them. A great example of this in action is Valla (an Ada portfolio company). Their AI-powered legal tech platform empowers workers embroiled in employment law disputes to access advice. An estimated 12.4 million employees are affected by employment law breaches each year. By bringing down costs and democratising access to support, Valla are unlocking a vast, overlooked user base with huge potential for growth. They're truly offering a type of service that simply doesn't exist anywhere else today. Another example, also in the legaltech space, is Orbital. Through machine learning and AI, their platform streamlines the dense, paperwork-heavy processes of property due diligence, giving lawyers an instant view of the risks and red flags buried in leases and deeds. They're not competing with innovations from last year - or even from this century. Instead, they're transforming processes that date back to the Victorian era. This is what investors like me are after: solutions to long-written-off problems, not face-lifts for challenges that have largely been addressed. 3. Think far, not fast Disruption is not a product, it's a process. It requires a continued commitment to uncover new market opportunities and develop new solutions for consumers. There is perhaps no greater example of this than the stratospheric rise of Netflix. What began almost 30 years ago as an innovative new model for DVD rentals is now the world's largest streaming platform; an entertainment behemoth constantly improving to stay ahead of the competition. Netflix's dominance isn't just the result of one good idea, or one small improvement to existing services, it's a testament to their ability to look ahead. Instead of stopping at streaming (or indeed at rental by post!), Netflix has continued to lead the market with award-winning original content and unique in-app features. The lesson for founders here is clear: success requires you to champion a business model and a mindset that embraces change. Of course, startups will always need to tinker with existing products and make tweaks to improve their offering. But this shouldn't come at the expense of thinking big. This is where initiatives such as Google's famous '20% time' policy can be helpful; encouraging teams to regularly focus their efforts on more future-gazing projects, and proving to investors that you're serious about driving impact. Fixer-upper founders are stuck in the here and now. They admirably take on the pain points of today, but offer little inspiration for tomorrow. True disruptors don't just muscle their way into new markets; they create new categories, cater to unmet needs, and put the work in to stay on top. If we're to address some of society's biggest challenges, we need more innovators and fewer renovators. And investors have their eyes trained on the difference.
