Drone delivery is expected to take off big time in the next few years. Chinese online retailer JD.com has already launched drone delivery in four provinces in China, while DHL and Zipline are delivering medicines with drones in rural and hard-to-reach areas. Amazon, Google, and UPS are all working on getting drone delivery service off the ground. There are a lot of issues to think about when it comes to package delivery using drones--safety, privacy, and logistics being some of the main concerns. In a new study, researchers tackle two other important aspects: energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Imagine a situation where a group of adversaries is preparing an attack on the United States or U.S. interests. An intelligence analyst has observed some signals, but the situation is rapidly changing. The analyst faces the decision to alert a principal decision maker that an attack is imminent, or to wait until more is known about the situation. This warning decision is based on the analyst's observation and evaluation of signals, independent or correlated, and on her updating of the prior probabilities of possible scenarios and their outcomes. The warning decision also depends on the analyst's assessment of the crisis' dynamics and perception of the preferences of the principal decision maker, as well as the lead time needed for an appropriate response. This article presents a model to support this analyst's dynamic warning decision. As with most problems involving warning, the key is to manage the tradeoffs between false positives and false negatives given the probabilities and the consequences of intelligence failures of both types. The model is illustrated by revisiting the case of the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. It shows that the radio silence of the Japanese fleet carried considerable information (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "dog in the night" problem), which was misinterpreted at the time. Even though the probabilities of different attacks were relatively low, their consequences were such that the Bayesian dynamic reasoning described here may have provided valuable information to key decision makers.

Artificial intelligence is one of the most celebrated and hyped concepts today. From science fiction to the nightly news, AI has been making record headlines, whether it will become the most dangerous technology around or the one most likely to save humanity. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain, once the territory of dark net denizens and righteous Redditors, are topics of conversation in even the most venerable and stodgy of publications. What happens when you combine the two? Decentralized blockchain technology may hold the key to tapping AI's potential in a democratized way, one that opens participation in the AI economy of the future to more than just a tiny handful of the largest technology behemoths.

In 2004, while conducting training exercises over the Pacific Ocean, two US Navy pilots reported something extraordinary: a mysterious, blindingly fast flying object that caused the sea to boil, rotated mid-air, and could fly more than 60 miles in under a minute, despite having no visible means of propulsion. The episode was just one of many investigated by a highly secretive Department of Defense program that ran from 2007 to 2012 and was championed by a handful of US Senators. A New York Times report on the program mentioned a clandestine government warehouse in Nevada that may or may not be storing "alien alloys" recovered from similar flying objects. Once upon a time, rumors and revelations like these would have sent the public into a frenzy. They would have joined Roswell and Area 51 in the pantheon of UFO-conspiracy chatter.

In the middle of this live stream image of the car, on the center screen, are the words'Don't Panic'. This a reference to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the 1979 book that was first in a series by Douglas Adams about an accidental space traveler, Arthur Dent. In the story, the Guide has the words'Don't Panic' on its cover Two of the Falcon Heavy's reusable boosters - both recycled from previous launches - returned minutes after lift-off for on-the-mark touchdowns at Cape Canaveral. Sonic booms rumbled across the region with the synchronised vertical landings. However, the craft's third and final booster missed its target - a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean - by about 328 feet (100 metres).

Bottom Line: China's nationwide pursuit to become the world leader in artificial intelligence (AI) is an attempt to not only match U.S. economic power, but to bypass it geo-strategically. While Beijing's involvement is spurred by economic ambitions, it has made it clear that the development of AI will simultaneously be for military applications that could change the character of warfare and place the U.S. at a geopolitical disadvantage. Background: China has quickly spurred its innovation engines into action, seeking to leapfrog U.S. military and technological supremacy through advanced AI and machine learning. Their unique brand of capitalism and government control has enabled bottom-up innovation that is broadly guided by the hand of the Chinese Community Party. China's whole-of-nation approach means the U.S. has found itself in a race against a strategic competitor.

Images released by SpaceX last week showed Musk's original Tesla Roadster perched on a large cone inside Falcon Heavy on what appeared to be a secure mount to keep it stationary as the rocket made its maiden flight.

Images released by SpaceX last week showed Musk's original Tesla Roadster perched on a large cone inside the Falcon Heavy on what appeared to be a secure mount to keep it stationary as the rocket made its maiden flight.

As if SpaceX's successful Falcon Heavy launch wasn't impressive enough, the firm managed to complete another remarkable feat as the megarocket blasted off to Mars. Stunning video from today's launch shows the twin boosters returning to Cape Canaveral in a synchronized landing. The massive rocket launched at 3:45 p.m. ET, carrying Elon Musk's cherry red Tesla roadster on board. Just over three minutes into the launch, the side boosters detached from the rocket and launch operators confirmed the rocket was on the right trajectory. After shedding from the core section of the rocket, the two reusable side boosters landed seamlessly back on Earth about eight minutes into the launch.

We have been working hard to understand the core stack of data services that make our cities work, or not work, depending on where you live. While we have labeled this research "smart cities", we are starting with the basics of open data required for city operations. This is the current data sets available via existing services, which may or may not exist in a machine readable format, via an API, depending on the city you live in. There is a huge amount of data already available at the municipal level, but here is where we have started as of January. Real Time Streaming 311 Incidents In Chicago 511 - Traffic, Travel & Transit Adding 511 Data To Our Existing Transit Data Research Getting Your 511 Traffic Incidents in the San Francisco Bay Area as a Real Time Streaming API 911 - Emergency Events Making 911 Data Real Time Streaming 911 Emergency Data For Baltimore, MD We've targeted these three areas because they make a difference in our lives at the local level, and have huge potential when it comes to making available via web APIs, and in real time using Server-Sent Events (SSE).