UAVs are tackling everything from disease control to vacuuming up ocean waste to delivering pizza, and more. Drone technology has been used by defense organizations and tech-savvy consumers for quite some time. However, the benefits of this technology extends well beyond just these sectors. With the rising accessibility of drones, many of the most dangerous and high-paying jobs within the commercial sector are ripe for displacement by drone technology. The use cases for safe, cost-effective solutions range from data collection to delivery. And as autonomy and collision-avoidance technologies improve, so too will drones' ability to perform increasingly complex tasks. According to forecasts, the emerging global market for business services using drones is valued at over $127B. As more companies look to capitalize on these commercial opportunities, investment into the drone space continues to grow. A drone or a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) typically refers to a pilotless aircraft that operates through a combination of technologies, including computer vision, artificial intelligence, object avoidance tech, and others. But drones can also be ground or sea vehicles that operate autonomously.

Japan's Preferred Networks Inc. has only one publicly available product, a whimsical application that uses artificial intelligence to automate the coloring of manga cartoons. Yet the four-year-old firm has become Japan's most valuable startup, with a venture capital funding that priced it at more than $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Toyota Motor Corp., its biggest backer, handed over $110 million on a bet its algorithms will help them compete with Google in driverless cars. Last February, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe posed for pictures with the firm's two young founders at his office, where they were awarded a prize for promising new ventures. What sets Preferred Networks apart from the hundreds of other AI startups is its ties to Japan's manufacturing might.

Canadian computer scientists helped pioneer the field of artificial intelligence before it was a buzzword, and now Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is hoping to capitalize on their intellectual lead. Trudeau has become a kind of marketer-in-chief for Canada's tech economy ambitions, accurately explaining the basics of machine learning as he promotes a national plan he says will "secure Canada's foothold in AI research and training." "Tech giants have taken notice, and are setting up offices in Canada, hiring Canadian experts, and investing time and money into applications that could be as transformative as the internet itself," Trudeau wrote in a guest editorial published this week in the Boston Globe. Trudeau has been taking that message on the road and is likely to emphasize it again Friday as he addresses a gathering of tech entrepreneurs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His visit to the MIT campus headlines an annual meeting of the school's Solve initiative, which connects innovators with corporate, government and academic resources to help them tackle world problems.

People look at an underwater robot during an intelligence science and technology exhibition in north China's Tianjin, May 17, 2018. TIANJIN, May 18 (Xinhua) -- Machines that can impeccably synthesize the human voice, assist judges in sentencing, and tell customers whether a dress is a good fit, have been displayed at the second World Intelligence Congress in Tianjin. Riding the global waves of artificial intelligence (AI), China aims to improve the productivity and inject new momentum into its economy by encouraging more players to tap the fledging industry. By June 2017, about one-fourth of the world's 2,542 AI companies were in China, where around 15,700 AI patents were filed, ranking second after the United States, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. "China should seize opportunities to boost innovation in deep learning, smart algorithms and chips, and modernize industries with AI technologies," Lin Nianxiu, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told a room of entrepreneurs, researchers and policy-makers at the congress, which was held from May 16 to 18. NDRC is China's top economic planning agency.

In a lawsuit filed last month and unveiled Thursday, United States defense contractor and drone-maker company AeroVironment was sued by one of the its ex-employees, who claimed he and his colleagues were fired for reporting an incident that violated commercial flight laws. Former programs chief of AeroVironment Mark Anderson claimed in the wrongful termination lawsuit, filed April 18 with the California Superior Court, an unidentified employee of the company traveled from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles in April 2015 on a Delta Air Lines commercial flight with an explosive-laden drone in a carry-on bag. The flight was carrying 230 passengers at the time. It was unclear how the employee managed to take bomb-loaded drone past Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents before getting on the flight. TSA has an extensive list of items that are banned on commercial flights, be in carry-on or check-in luggage.

Henry Kissinger must be watching the latest season of "Westworld." The former U.S. secretary of state is warning against the threat of "unstable" artificial intelligence in a new essay in The Atlantic -- fearing the rapid rise of machines could lead to questions humanity is not ready to tackle. "What will become of human consciousness if its own explanatory power is surpassed by AI, and societies are no longer able to interpret the world they inhabit in terms that are meaningful to them?" asked Kissinger in the piece. Also Read: 'Silicon Valley' Fact Check: That'Digital Overlord' Thought Experiment Is Real and Horrifying Up to this point, humans are reported to have only reached "limited" AI, where machines have mastered chess and other complex games. The same machines would be useless if used to play Monopoly.

WASHINGTON – Dramatic new drone video of the Niger ambush that killed four American soldiers shows U.S. forces desperately trying to escape and fighting for their lives after friendly Nigerien forces mistook them for the enemy. It describes how the fleeing troops set up a quick defensive location on the edge of a swamp and -- thinking they were soon to die -- wrote messages home to their loved ones. The video, released by the Pentagon with explanatory narration, includes more than 10 minutes of drone footage, file tape and animation that wasn't made public last week when the military released a portion of the final report on the October attack. The video depicts for the first time the harrowing hours as troops held off their enemy and waited for rescue. There were 46 U.S. and Nigerien troops out on the initial mission in the west African nation, going after but failing to find a high-value militant, then collecting intelligence at a site where the insurgent had been.

There were 46 U.S. and Nigerien troops out on the initial mission in the west African nation, going after but failing to find a high-value militant, then collecting intelligence at a site where the insurgent had been. The team was heading home when it was attacked by more than 100 militants just outside the village of Tongo Tongo. During the firefight, a number of the Nigeriens escaped by truck, but four U.S. and four Nigerien troops were gunned down.

Visitors enjoy an artificial intelligence robot's performance during the 2018 Exposition on China's Indigenous Brands at Shanghai Exhibition Center on May 10, 2018 in Shanghai. China, thanks to its 1.37 billion residents, leads the world on a number of counts. The smartphone user population totaled 663 million last year, more than anywhere else, and its internet penetration stood at 751 million. Now China ranks first in the world in the number of patent applications from two heavily watched, fast-growing areas of high tech: cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, claims American startup ecosystem research organization Startup Genome in a 2018 report. Chalk that up to active government support, domestic demand for new technology and, per one study, a more relaxed patent regime.

Cancer, the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. after heart disease, kills more than 500,000 citizens per year, including about 2,000 children. In 2016, then Vice President Joe Biden launched the Cancer Moonshot, saying: "I know that we can help solidify a genuine global commitment to end cancer as we know it today -- and inspire a new generation of scientists to pursue new discoveries and the bounds of human endeavor." The importance of high performance computing (HPC) in cancer research was recognized by the Cancer Moonshot Task Force report, and by then Vice President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Ernie Monitz. "Supercomputers are key to the Cancer Moonshot," Monitz wrote. "These exceptionally high-powered machines have the potential to greatly accelerate the development of cancer therapies by finding patterns in massive datasets too large for human analysis. Supercomputers can help us better understand the complexity of cancer development, identify novel and effective treatments, and help elucidate patterns in vast and complex data sets that advance our understanding of cancer."