The North Dakota Army National Guard reportedly deployed an "anti-drone missile system" at the site of the Dakota Access oil pipeline on Tuesday. North Dakota Guard spokesman William Prokopyk confirmed to The Daily Beast the presence of the Avenger missile system. He added that the system was put in place "strictly in the observation role." The Morton County Sheriff's Department echoed Prokpyk's statements, adding that the systems "are used strictly for observation of ungoverned encampments to help protect private property and maintain public safety," according to The Daily Beast. Jon Ziegler, who describes himself as a "citizen journalist," spotted the surface-to-air missile launchers at the site.

Bangalore: Tereadata India released its technology predictions for the India market in 2017. Smart commercial buildings are predicted to be the highest user of IoT until 2017, followed by smart homes. Together these two categories will consume just over 1 billion connected devices by 2018. The Internet of Things (IoT) has vast implications for government institutions from city hall to international governing bodies. Tens of billions of physical devices are expected to join the global network by the end of the decade, providing a number of concerns and opportunities for planners, policymakers and regulators.

In Davos right now, the world's best and best-performing economic minds are gathered for their annual bout of elite networking. You know you're not invited because a ticket costs $35,000, and that's before the cost of membership, which is also required, and even more expensive. But we get news reports from the proceedings and the most interesting one today concerns the World Economic Forum's recent report which claims the biggest risk in 2017 is people losing their jobs to robots. The word out of Davos is we have nothing to fear. If you don't believe them, you might find some comfort in a story about Donald Trump that's been kicking around for a couple of years that is, well, intriguing. The next Leader of the Free World has never used a computer. It's great fun (Matt Novak has tenaciously taken up the baton at Gizmodo), and not at all as far-fetched as you might be thinking right now. We know Trump tweets, badly. But it is actually surprisingly difficult to find evidence of him looking comfortable behind a MacBook.

The child of a refugee from Vietnam is striving to realize her dream of building a Japanese language school in the Southeast Asian country. "My dream is to do something that would serve as a bridge between Japan and Vietnam," said Doan Thy Trang, 27. To achieve that goal, she founded a consulting firm in Akashi, a city in Hyogo Prefecture facing the Seto Inland Sea, in January 2015. Trang explained that many business trainees from Vietnam she meets through her work have little difficulty communicating with Japanese in daily conversations but struggle with technical terms. "Vietnamese need a school that teaches them Japanese language used in workplaces," she said.

It's no secret that automated machines and robots are rapidly replacing human workers. In Europe, concerns about the loss of good-paying jobs to automation is so strong that the idea of a universal basic income is gaining traction. France, for one example, could lose three million jobs by 2025 due to automation, a former education minister campaigning for the French presidency has argued. The topic has been front of mind this week for participants at the World Economic Forum's annual summit in Davos, Switzerland. There, CBS News asked business leaders to look past the hope and hype of artifical intelligence and reflect on the negatives of automation.

Last November, detectives investigating a murder case in Bentonville, Arkansas, accessed utility data from a smart meter to determine that 140 gallons of water had been used at the victim's home between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. It was more water than had been used at the home before, and it was used at a suspicious time--evidence that the patio area had been sprayed down to conceal the murder scene. As technology advances, we have more detailed data and analytics at our fingertips than ever before. It can potentially offer new insights for crime investigators. One area crying out for more insight is cybersecurity.

Give me six!: Two strange mammals illuminate the process of natural... Daily chart: Toxic emissions from cars may be several times higher than... Too peripheral to matter: Germany's supreme court decides not to ban the... Visit The Economist e-store and you'll find a range of carefully selected products for business and pleasure, Economist books and diaries, and much more

The Federal Aviation Administration may have loosened its regulations on drones last summer, but it's still cracking down on those who violate the rules. The administration issued its largest civil penalty ever Tuesday to drone company SkyPan International. The settlement agreement between the FAA and SkyPan will require the Chicago-based company to pay $200,000 for conducting 65 illegal drone flights in congested airspace over Chicago and New York City, the FAA said. Beyond the civil penalty, SkyPan agreed to pay an additional $150,000 if it violates FAA regulations in the next year, and $150,000 more if it fails to comply with the terms of the settlement agreement. Even with the looming threat of additional penalties, SkyPan managed to escape with considerably less of a penalty that was initially proposed by the FAA.

January 17, 2017 --The dream of useful quantum computing may have just come one step closer. Australian researchers are combining two of the hottest topics in science: quantum computing and machine learning. Specifically, they've succeeded in training an algorithm to predict the evolving state of a simple quantum computer. Such an understanding allows real time stabilization of the system, much as tightrope walker uses a pole for balance, according to a paper published Monday in Nature Communications. That would be a big deal for everyone – from Silicon Valley to Washington, D.C.

Roughly 20 people took to downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday and called on the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to immediately suspend plans to deploy a drone in emergency situations, saying they feared the device will be used for warrantless surveillance. Hamid Khan, founder of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, said his group rejected the use of drones in all forms, even in response to bomb threats or hostage crises. In announcing the pilot program last week, Sheriff Jim McDonnell said the drone would not be used for surveillance, but Khan said he feared the agency could change that policy at any time. "What this represents is the rapid escalation and militarization of police," Khan said. Last week, sheriff's officials said they would use the drone only to help deputies gain crucial advantages when dealing with barricaded suspects, suspicious devices, hazardous materials situations, and similar scenarios where it would be dangerous for a deputy to approach on foot.