Ten United States-based media organizations announced on Thursday that they will form a coalition aimed at testing drones for news gathering in a partnership with Virginia Tech University.
The group is set to include the New York Times, the Washington Post, Advance Publications, A.H. Belo Corp, the Associated Press, Gannett Co, Getty Images, NBCUniversal, E.W. Scripps Company and Sinclair Broadcast Group, the Bangkok Post reports.
The news gathering drone initiative is "designed to conduct controlled safety testing of a series of real-life scenarios where the news media could use small UAS (unmanned aircraft systems) technology to gather the news," the coalition wrote in a statement, according to the site.
Although drones have earned a reputation for functioning exclusively for government purposes, a growing number of private-sector corporations have begun endeavoring into the use of the machines.
Drone developer Skydio also announced on Thursday that it will invest $3 million toward boosting the company's efforts to construct drones that are able to navigate with cameras and computer vision software instead of traditional GPS methods commonly used.
"You can think of it like a self-flying vehicle instead of a self-driving car," Adam Bry, co-founder of Skydio said, according to Wired.
The company's new technology is expected to be used for a diverse set of industries, including construction, intelligence gathering and international development.
