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once again one of these initiatives that came up from a situation and that would never have been possible with a top-down approach .... fantastic! and as Dario said: we are apparently where NASA still has to go with this :-)

Actually, NASA Ames did that already within the NASA Open Source Agreement in 2008 for a V&V software!

found it: http://javapathfinder.sourceforge.net/news.html

indeed ... you are right .... interesting project btw - they started in 1999, were in 2005 the first NASA project on Sourceforge and won several awards .... then this entry why they did not participate last year: "05/01/09: Skipping this years Google Summer-of-Code - many of you have asked why we are not participating in this years Summer of Code. The answer is that both John and Peter were too busy with other assignments to set this up in time. We will be back in 2010. At least we were able to compensate with a limited number of NASA internships to continue some of last years projects." .... but I could not find them in this years selected list - any clue?

the graphs are Motion Charts. They were made famous by Hans Rosling's TED talks (http://www.ted.com/speakers/hans_rosling.html). Google eventually bought his software, and made part of it freely available: http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery/motionchart.html. That's what they are using there.

could we just use genetic algorithms to evolve these shapes and layouts? :P

> Not sure if the skycrane is really necessary but it is certainly cool. I think apart from coolness using a skycrane helps keep the rotating knives away from the recipient...

Honest question, are we ever going to see this in practice? I mean besides some niche application somewhere, isn't it fundamentally flawed or do I need to keep my window opened on the 3rd floor without a balcony when I ordered something from DX? Its pretty cool yes, but practical?

Package delivery is indeed more complicated than it may seem at first sight, although solutions are possible for instance by restricting delivery to distribution centers. What we really need of course is some really efficient and robust AI to navigate without any problems in urban areas : ) The hybrid is interesting since it combines the advantage of a Vertical Takeoff and Landing (and hover), and a wing for more efficient forward flight. Challenges lie in the control of the vehicle under any angle and all that this entails also for higher levels of control. Our lab has first used this concept a few years ago for the DARPA UAVforge challenge, and we had two hybrids in our entry last year for the IMAV 2013 (for some shaky images: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7XgRK7pMoU ).

While Google and facebook are out: http://qz.com/422775/facebook-and-google-are-out-of-the-space-race/

reading the qz article, it is not clear to me that google dropped out as one of the main investors in SpaceX? did I miss something?

I attended a presentation by H. Hemmati, formerly at NASA's JPL, now at Facebook working to "connect the unconnected" during a panel session of the Workshop "Shining light on future space optical communications". I gather that they are targeting a combined strategy of HAP (with solar powered planes at 20-25 km), balloons and satellites. The rationale behind is that each solution is best suited for different population density zones, i.e. satellites while expensive (total cost of 100MUSD after Hemmati) are the only way to provide internet in remote zones, while balloons seem to be one inexpensive solution for densely populated areas. Funfact: he mentioned that the main drawback will be some crashes of HAP elements...