WASHINGTON – Federal investigators say a recreational drone operator was at fault in the first confirmed midair collision in the U.S. between a drone and a manned aircraft. The report says the operator was unaware the Federal Aviation Administration had temporarily banned drone flights in New York when his drone collided with an Army Blackhawk helicopter on Sept. 21. The U.N. General Assembly was meeting at the time. The helicopter suffered minor damage while the drone was destroyed. The report said the operator flew the drone 2.5 miles away despite an FAA prohibition on drone flights beyond the sight of an operator.

The US Army will soon send teams of cyber warriors to the battlefield, officials said Wednesday, as the military increasingly looks to take the offensive against enemy computer networks. While the Army's mission is generally to'attack and destroy,' the cyber troops have a slightly different goal, said Colonel Robert Ryan, who commands a Hawaii-based combat team. How can I influence by non-kinetic means? How can I reach up and create confusion and gain control?' he told reporters. The US Army will soon send teams of cyber warriors to the battlefield, officials said Wednesday, as the military increasingly looks to take the offensive against enemy computer networks. The cyber soldiers have been integrated for six months in infantry units, and will tailor operations according to commanders' needs, said Colonel William Hartman of the Army's Cyber Command.

Three astronauts have landed back on Earth after nearly six months on board the International Space Station. A Russian Soyuz capsule containing Nasa's Randy Bresnik, Russia's Sergey Ryazanskiy and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency descended under a red-and-white parachute and landed on schedule at 2:37pm local time on the vast steppes outside of a remote town in Kazakhstan. The three were extracted from the capsule within 20 minutes and appeared to be in good condition. The spacecraft brought back Randy Bresnik from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Sergey Ryazanskiy from Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Italy's Paolo Nespoli with the European Space Agency. The capsule landed in the windswept and snow-covered steppe in Kazakhstan's central Karaganda region at 2.37 p.m. (0837 GMT).

The first Institute for Machine Learning will be implemented at the former Royal Adelaide Hospital site. The institute will build on world-leading research in machine learning and artificial intelligence, helping to deliver what is known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution -- the transformation of the global economy through artificial intelligence. The University of Adelaide has signed a long-term lease which will see the old Women's Health Centre used for the site. The facility will become home to more than 200 creative thinkers, researchers and start-ups attracting the world's best and brightest to come to work and study in South Australia. "The University of Adelaide is already a world leader with the Australian Centre for Visual Technologies, and the transition to this new institute will build further on the work being done as well as Adelaide's reputation as an incubator of innovation," said Science and Information Economy Minister Kyam Maher.

After Thursday afternoon we will know more about the mysteries the Kepler space telescope has been solving since it launched in March 2009. The telescope is known as one of NASA most efficient exoplanet hunters. NASA will hold a media teleconference Thursday to reveal the most recent discovery the Kepler telescope made. The discovery that will be announced was made with the help of machine learning from Google, or the use of artificial intelligence to analyze the data from Kepler in a new way. Kepler has recently been traveling around our galaxy and making observations about planets that might host life outside of the life present here on Earth.

Earlier this year, the FAA and U.S. Interior Department separately barred drone flights within the boundaries of sites including the USS Constitution in Boston, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. The list also includes Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona, Hoover Dam in Nevada and Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state.

More than 90% of cybersecurity professionals are concerned that hackers will use artificial intelligence (AI) in cyberattacks against their company that are more sophisticated and harder to detect, according to a new report from Webroot. AI has already proven to be both a benefit and a threat on the cybersecurity front: While the technology can help companies fill cybersecurity skills gaps and safeguard data, it also gives hackers a new tool for attack. In August, researchers created an AI that could modify malware to bypass machine learning antivirus software. Common cyberattacks such as phishing also become much more effective when they are powered by AI, according to ZDNet. Webroot surveyed 400 cybersecurity professionals at companies with 100 or more employees in the US and Japan.

Nasa is set to make a major announcement about a breakthrough in its alien-planet-hunting project. The space agency is holding a live-stream event today at 1:00pm ET (6:00pm GMT) to reveal a discovery about potentially habitable worlds made by its Kepler telescope. The satellite has been searching the stars for distant worlds using Google's AI system, which is helping Nasa find planets that may host alien life. Nasa is set to make a major finding from its planet-hunting Kepler space telescope. The planet-hunting satellite has been working with Google's AI system.

The state firefighting service of California collaborated with a unit of California Air National Guard and deployed military wartime drones in order to receive real time photos and videos of the massive wildfire which spread across the area. According to a report by USA Today, this is only the third time such collaboration had taken place. The Reaper MQ-9, operated by the 163d Attack Wing at March Air Reserve Base in the Riverside County, will fly five miles above and transmit relevant information to commanders on the ground. This also includes information about spot-fire detection. Scott McLean, Deputy Chief of California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said, "It's out of the way."

The United States' largest military contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. announced Wednesday it will start using artificial intelligence software from NEC to analyze data collected by sensors in space. Intelligent machines are taking the technology world by storm, and have started to move to outer space. One of the most advantageous uses of smart software is to analyze data, and increasingly governments and industries see AI as the answer to the big-data deluge, much of it coming from space. "AI can revolutionize how we use information from space, both in orbit and on deep space missions, including crewed missions to Mars and beyond," said Carl Marchetto, vice president of new ventures at Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado. NEC Corporation is a global information technology firm headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.