The FAA is still trying to figure out the best way to regulate drones to ensure safety. Last week, a committee tasked with tackling the issue met for the first time, including representatives from Amazon, Ford and NYPD. One of the items discussed was a better way to identify registered drones from the ground since any ID numbers are pretty much invisible while the UAV is airborne. This could be a workable solution for commercial drones, but since a Washington, DC court struck down the FAA's registration requirement for personal machines last month, a remote ID system isn't the answer for all of the UAVs flown in the US -- right now, at least. As Recode notes, Congress is working to restore mandatory registration which would be key to tying a drone to its owner for the purposes of any remote identification.

"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," said an exasperated James Comey in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8. Comey's desire reflects a familiar one for individuals accused of lying when the stakes are high. The former FBI director wished for tapes because, in our society, audio and video recordings serve as a final arbiter of truth. He said, she said always loses to what the tape shows. Greg Allen (@Gregory_C_Allen) is an adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

The Order of Canada marks its 50th anniversary this year with 99 new appointments on its Canada Day honours list, including renowned figures from the fields of law, government, entertainment and sport, as well as Canadians whose contributions are less widely known. The list includes soccer star Christine Sinclair, television host Alex Trebek, actor Catherine O'Hara and Globe and Mail editorial cartoonist Brian Gable. Three people were named to the highest rank, Companion of the Order of Canada: former Supreme Court Justice Marshall Rothstein, National Arts Centre president Peter Herrndorf and The Prince of Wales. Nineeteen people were named Officers of the Order of Canada, including former spymaster Richard Fadden, hockey player Mark Messier and actor Michael Myers. There were 77 people named as members of the Order, including opera singer Tracy Dahl, historian Bill Waiser, public health nurse Cathy Crowe and Indigenous leader Terrance Paul.

PBS NewsHour Weekend The PBS news magazine's season premiere recalls stories from residents, scientists and soldiers about nuclear testing in the Nevada desert during the Cold War era. Doctor Who The Doctor (Peter Capaldi, who is leaving the series) makes a final stand against an army of Cybermen in the season finale of the science fiction series. Reliable Sources Anchor says Trump used a tabloid as a threat; three journalists leave CNN after a retracted article; the Trump administration limits press access. Sarah Palin sues the New York Times; White House press briefings; CNN's retracted story about Anthony Scaramucci.

Earlier this week, David Kenny, IBM Senior Vice President for Watson and Cloud, told the US Congress that Americans have nothing to fear from artificial intelligence, and that the prospects of technological unemployment and the rise of an "AI overlord" are pernicious myths. The remarks were as self-serving as they were reckless, revealing the startling degree to which IBM is willing to forfeit the future for the sake of the present. Congressman John Delaney (MD-6) recently launched the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Caucus for the 115th Congress, the purpose of which is to "inform policymakers of the technological, economic and social impacts of advances in AI and to ensure that rapid innovation in AI and related fields benefits Americans as fully as possible." The caucus, which is being co-chaired by Congressman Pete Olson (TX-22), recently had tete-a-tetes with Amazon and Google. Now, it's had an opportunity to hear what IBM--the tech firm responsible Watson, an overhyped cognitive computing that made a name for itself by defeating the world's greatest Jeopardy champions--has to say.

Washington, DC - A US federal appeals court has thrown out a lawsuit by the families of two Yemeni men allegedly killed as innocent bystanders in a US drone strike in 2012 but one of the judges said US "democracy is broken" after announcing the ruling. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel in Washington on Friday upheld a lower court's finding that it had no say over the president's drone programme. The case began in 2015 when two family members of Faisal bin Ali Jaber, who brought the "wrongful death" case against then-President Barack Obama in 2015, were killed by a drone strike Yemen in 2012. Faisal's nephew Waleed, 26, and brother-in-law Salem, a father of seven and noted anti-extremist imam, were killed in the strike alongwith three others. Faisal's lawsuit requested an apology from the US government and declaration that the strike was unlawful.

The recent surge in interest in ethics in artificial intelligence may leave many educators wondering how to address moral, ethical, and philosophical issues in their AI courses. As instructors we want to develop curriculum that not only prepares students to be artificial intelligence practitioners, but also to understand the moral, ethical, and philosophical impacts that artificial intelligence will have on society. In this article we provide practical case studies and links to resources for use by AI educators. We also provide concrete suggestions on how to integrate AI ethics into a general artificial intelligence course and how to teach a stand-alone artificial intelligence ethics course.

The AAAI 2016 Fall Symposium Series was held Thursday through Saturday, November 17–19, at the Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Virginia adjacent to Washington, DC. The titles of the six symposia were Accelerating Science: A Grand Challenge for AI; Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction, Cognitive Assistance in Government and Public Sector Applications, Cross-Disciplinary Challenges for Autonomous Systems, Privacy and Language Technologies, Shared Autonomy in Research and Practice. The highlights of each (except Acceleration Science) symposium are presented in this report.

Yuan Wang, co-founder of American Marine Research Company, details the progress his company is making in developing automated drones to identify and catch lionfish. An engineer at American Marine Research Company works on a drone on Thursday, June 29, 2017. The company is designing robots to autonomously detect and collect lionfish. PENSACOLA, Fla. -- There's a potential game changer brewing in the struggle to eradicate lionfish from the Gulf of Mexico. A quartet of engineers is developing drones to autonomously detect and collect lionfish at depths beyond the scope of human divers.

Next month, the inaugural FIRST Global Challenge robotics competition will bring together high school teams from around the world. Taking place in Washington, DC, over 150 teams are set to participate. However, while the team from Afghanistan's robot will be there, the team itself won't because the US has denied their visa applications. The team is made up of six teenage girls who traveled over 500 miles to the US embassy in Kabul for their visa interviews. They actually made the trip twice in hopes that another round of interviews would help their case.