jikFAA Clears Amazon To Start Testing Delivery Drone Flightsde

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Amazon is getting one step closer to the company’s dream of delivering packages by air, as the Federal Aviation Administration has given the company the go-ahead to start testing drones outside.

The FAA issued an experimental airworthiness certificate to Amazon Logistics, Inc., for what it calls an “unmanned aircraft design” that the company will use for research and development of its proposed Amazon Prime Air service, as well as crew training, the FAA says.

Lest anyone thinks drones will just start whizzing through the sky willynilly, there are some restrictions and conditions set in the certificate that Amazon must abide by in testing its fliers: All flights must stay below 400 feet and happen during the daylight, in clear skies.

The drone has to stay within the pilot’s line of sight at all times, as well as an observer. And whoever is flying the aircraft has to have at least a private pilot’s certificate and current medical certification.

From here, Amazon will have to provide monthly data about its test to the FAA, reporting the number of flights conducted, pilot duty time per flight, unusual hardware or software malfunctions, any deviations from air traffic controllers’ instructions, and any unintended loss of communication links.

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

jikConsumerist Friday Flickr Findsde

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Here are eight of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness.

(Eric Arnold)

(Rich Renomeron)

(Renee Rendler-Kaplan)

(Rainer Schund)

(Joel Zimmer)

(Steve)

(Bjarne Winkler)

(Nicholas Eckhart)

Want to see your pictures on our site? Our Flickr Pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikCDC Links Listeriosis Illnesses To Fruit Recalled In July 2014de

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(Renee Rendler-Kaplan)

Last summer, a California-based fruit packing company recalled all fruit that had passed through their plant during a six-week period, since they were potentially contaminated with Listeria bacteria. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have definitively linked fruits from the Wawona plant and cases of Listeriosis in different parts of the country, but what does that mean? should people who are pregnant or frail avoid fresh peaches and nectarines?

In short: no. Fresh fruit is good for you, and is also delicious. Listeriosis poses a special risk to pregnant women, and also people who are elderly or have compromised immune systems. These people shouldn’t avoid fruit, but should be sure to wash fresh fruit that they eat carefully. (Everyone was doing that already, right?)

The CDC used whole-genome sequencing to match bacteria from people who became sick from listeriosis during the period covered in the Wawona Packing Company recall. They checked whether the bacteria that made four people in different parts of the country sick matched. Two of them did. Investigators were able to use grocery store loyalty card records to match the customers’ purchases of fruit that had passed through that plant to an illness.

When it comes to fruit, the most important thing to remember in order to prevent infection with Listeria is to wash the fruit before you eat it.

Follow the FDA’s tips to avoid cross-contamination between types of food, and don’t leave precooked meats sitting around in your refrigerator for a long time.

Notes from the Field: Listeriosis Associated with Stone Fruit — United States, 2014 [MMWR]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikTruck Carrying 30,000 Pounds Of Lobsters Overturns, All Survive To Become Dinnerde

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When a tractor-trailer tips over and spills its edible cargo on the highway, it’s simultaneously sad and hilarious as long as no one is seriously injured. In that case, it would be just sad. Heavy snow in Maine yesterday caused a tractor-trailer accident involving one truck and thousands of lobsters.

Before you hop in your car with a trunk full of butter and wearing a bib, you should know that the lobsters did not scatter across the highway, and remain uncooked and alive. According to the driver, he had swerved to avoid a car in the wintery conditions, and the vehicle fell on its side off the highway. The passing lane was closed all day.

The lobsters are a rare happy ending in one of these stories where a toppled trailer spills food on the highway. The lobsters will need to be inspected, but they survived the crash. Exoskeletons have their advantages. They were loaded into a different truck for distribution to their respective pots of boiling water. The truck, unfortunately, was destroyed, but the driver was unhurt.

In recent years, we’ve seen candy, ramen noodles, frozen turkeys, French fries, potatoes, beer, more beer, dairy products, chicken, and ham scattered on the highway, and most of the food ended up in the trash (though those turkeys were donated.)

Tractor Trailer Carrying 30,000 Lbs. of Lobster Overturns on I-95 [NECN] (Thanks, Peg!)

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

jikCheapo Euro Airline Ryanair Denies Plans To Launch Transatlantic Flights To The U.S.de

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(Juan Rodriguez – PMI/LEPA)

Maybe April Fool’s Day comes early in Ireland? Just four days after European budget airline Ryanair announced its board approved plans to launch transatlantic flights, the company backtracked, saying no such plans have ever been in the works.

In a short statement released Thursday afternoon, Ryanair denied that the airline had considered or approved an expansion into the U.S. market via transatlantic flights.

“In the light of recent press coverage, the Board of Ryanair Holdings Plc wishes to clarify that it has not considered or approved any transatlantic project and does not intend to do so,” the statement reads.

The abrupt about-face comes after it was widely publicized that within the next five years the company would begin offering flights to New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami from London, Dublin and Berlin, with one-way tickets that could start as low as $20.

At the time, representatives for the Ireland-based company reportedly told the Irish Times that a start date for the flights depended on the availability of aircraft, but that Ryanair was already in talks with manufacturers to buy more long-haul planes.

BBC News reports that Ryanair first announced plans for transatlantic flights back in 2008, but nothing had come to fruition until this week.

Ryanair abandons plans to operate transatlantic flights [BBC News]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

jikAmsterdam Uber Driver: Mysterious Masked Men Threatened Mede

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(redsox223)

From the point of view of Uber, a service that summons cars and drivers over the Internet, maybe the fines imposed on the company by governments are a relatively cheap marketing expense instead of a nuisance. Yesterday, we shared that Germany has banned the company yet again. Authorities in the Netherlands have imposed a fine of $107,000 on the company for violating the laws that regulate taxis.

Yet the company’s UberPop service, where ordinary citizens pay to drive each other around, still operates in the Netherlands while the company appeals that fine. One driver told a radio reporter that he was attacked by a mysterious group of masked anti-Uber vigilantes. Taxis and regular cars blocked his vehicle in and confronted him, and he even recalls feeling brass knuckles pressed into his neck.

Police say that another driver reported being blocked in while on the job as well, but neither driver was physically harmed. One can’t blame them for wanting to quit driving for the company, though, which is exactly the point.

It sounds outlandish, but this wouldn’t be the first incident of anti-Uber, pro-taxi driver violence in Europe since the company expanded there. Taxi drivers blocked off traffic to protest Uber last summer, and there were also slashed tires and broken windows in Paris last year that were blamed on drivers of traditional taxis.

Masked Men Ambushing Uber Driver Elevates Clash in Amsterdam [Bloomberg]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist