Lifestyle
Anti-drone defense in focus as airport endangerment episodes rise
In the wake of the drone sightings at London’s Gatwick Airport, an incident which grounded and delayed planes for 32 hours during the Christmas travel rush this past December, the issue of anti-drone defense is receiving serious attention from regulators. Recent studies on the issue are showing the loopholes – according to a recent UK Airprox Board (UKAB) report, around 120 near misses between drones and aircraft were reported across the UK in the last year alone. In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) receives over 100 reports every month of unauthorized drone activity around aircraft. While the future of drone tech has exciting possibilities, the security response will clearly need to grow with it, and the US and UK governments are stepping up their roles in the issue as commercial products expand their solutions.
The United Kingdom’s parliamentary leadership has recently called on all airports to make greater efforts in securing their facilities from the unauthorized small craft flights, specifically by investing in technology that will identify their presence and remedy it immediately. In response, military-grade anti-drone equipment has already been installed at several airports across the country. In the U.S., a pilot program has been launched by the FAA in collaboration with NASA to determine ways to integrate drones (or more broadly Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)) with current airspace traffic. Additionally, proposals will be coming soon for more drone rules that balance security concerns with innovation.
Unauthorized flights by hobbyists in airport spaces, potentially including those with bad intentions in the future, are a serious security risk, even deceptively so given the size difference between passenger aircraft and the typical commercial drone. Cockpit collisions and engine damage could have catastrophic results, something seen in aviation over the years with birds (see: “miracle on the Hudson”). In the wider realm, considering the growing capabilities of drones to carry larger payloads and have longer flight times, the potential security issues increase with the imagination – just about anything that could be a positive service for consumers could be modified into a nefarious one: illegal drug deliveries, spying, hacking, etc. Of course, drones falling onto unsuspecting heads below is also a serious concern.
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- The Skywall 100 anti-drone device. | Credit: OpenWorks Engineering Ltd.
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- The DroneGun Tactical, an anti-drone device. | Credit: DroneShield
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- An overview of the Dedrone DroneTracker system. | Credit: Dedrone
Some of the anti-drone solutions already on the market to assist with the emerging security issues arising from this developing technology are as interesting as the drones themselves. One such tech, called “DroneGun Tactical“, looks like a military rifle and works by jamming the communication signals between drones and their pilots, immediately ceasing video transmission as well. It’s designed to keep drone payloads intact so sensitive cargo (i.e., explosives) can be safely controlled and origination information can be retrieved. A similar product called the “IXI Dronekiller” has a similar function. Another firearm-styled anti-drone tech called “SkyWall100” allows operators to physically capture offending drones and has been previously used for presidential-level security operations.
On the larger scale tracking front, one of the major companies in the anti-drone solution business is Dedrone Inc., a venture using AI-driven tracking software. Dedrone’s technology combines sensors and machine learning to detect, identify, and alert clients of all craft in designated airspace. The system can distinguish between drones, birds, planes, and other moving objects, including the specific drone models being flown, providing additional information for security teams to locate the craft’s origin and determine its threat level. Similar technology such as Fortem Technologies’ “SkyDome” also provides airspace-specific security coverage. Dedrone additionally provided a situational awareness report to 4 UK airports wherein 285 drones were detected in their respective areas over the course of about 5 months, the findings of which further underscored the problem at Gatwick last month.
For whatever reason, the threat warnings regarding drones from those in the security industry haven’t merited responses like the ones now being seen following the UK airport incidence and subsequent revelations. The UKAB report also revealed 18 previously unknown near-misses between drones and airliners last year in the country. Previous crashes – including an airliner-drone nose collision on a Boeing 747 Aeromexico flight, an Army helicopter-drone hit, a small passenger plane-drone strike and a helicopter crash landing after a drone evasion – over the last couple of years weren’t determined by the FAA to be results of “catastrophic” drone risks. Perhaps 1,000 grounded flights affecting 140,000 passengers created enough of a Twitter storm to garner the needed attention.
The embrace of drone technology across multiple industries has already begun. In search and rescue efforts, the crafts have been used to locate missing hikers and accident victims. Retail giants like Amazon are testing consumer deliveries via drone, and hospitals are looking into organ transportation to expand donor organ availability. As with all new technologies, there will be growing pains – remotely controlled hobbyist and professional devices taking to the skies unsurprisingly are no exception.
Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.
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