An inmate escaped a South Carolina maximum-security prison with the help of a drone. The individual, Jimmy Causey, was captured Friday after escaping on the 4th of July, officials said. Causey, 46, escaped in the evening of July 4 from the Lieber Correctional Institution, which is located in Ridgevilee, SC. However, officials didn't notice he was gone until the next day in the afternoon because he had used a dummy to fool guards. Causey managed to break free by using a cell phone, wire cutters and other tools that were dropped off by a drone, officials said according to the New York Times.

The two Islamic State jihadis scrambled up to the roof of the building, breaking cover for a moment before quickly hiding from sight. But it was too late. They had been spotted by the camera drone hovering above Mosul's Old City, their images beamed to black-clad special forces operatives huddled around a tablet roughly 300 yards away. Lt. Col. Muhannad Tamimi, a battalion commander, turned to his walkie-talkie. "Staff Col. Arkan," he said.

As the battlefield use of commercial drones by ISIS extremists becomes more prevalent and sophisticated, there is growing concern that these unmanned aircraft systems could be used in terror attacks inside the U.S. Drones, relatively inexpensive and easily purchased online or at a local big-box retail store, have been modified by ISIS fighters to drop grenades or to surveil troop movements overseas. The terror group continues to bolster its use of weaponized and surveillance drones against Iraqi and U.S. forces. In April, U.S. Central Command told Fox News that coalition troops have as many as 30 encounters a week with unmanned aerial vehicles. In fact, ISIS announced the formation of a new drone warfare unit in January, whose sole purpose is to inflict "a new source of horror for the apostates." And, according to a January report by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point "we should expect the Islamic State to refine its drone bomb-drop capability. It is likely that the Islamic State's use of this tactic will not only become more frequent, but more lethal as well."

Every time North Korea launches a missile, experts pore over photographs and videos to learn more about the country's weapons capabilities. It's a form of kremlinology, one where something so seemingly trivial as Kim Jong-un's coat carries significant meaning. But you don't have to be an analyst at the CIA or the MI6 or any other three-letter agency to do this. Using a video of Tuesday's launch of what experts said is an ICBM capable of reaching Alaska, you can figure out the missile's acceleration. Let me show you how.

As President Donald Trump seeks to reinvigorate U.S. manufacturing, many industry leaders are looking to robots as the most efficient way for American factories to compete with cheap labor overseas. "We think robotics has had a positive impact on U.S. manufacturing by creating better, safer and higher paying jobs for American workers," said Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), a trade group. "Most importantly (robotics is) making American companies more competitive so that they can expand their business and ultimately, in many cases, add more workers than they did before they started automating." According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data compiled by A3, U.S. companies added a record 136,748 robots to factory floors over the past seven years, while creating 894,000 new manufacturing jobs. Robots assemble a Toyota Motor Corp. Yaris at the company's plant in Onnaing, near Valenciennes, France, May 17, 2017.

Remember when you had to register your drone, regardless of whether it was hulking thousand-dollar pro model, or some cheap toy off Amazon? Then, remember when the FAA then realised it violated its own rules? Well, that decision in the US Court of Appeals means that the ever-growing drone pilots of America can now apply for a refund if they had previously registered their flying'bot. There are rules, however: To qualify for the refund, owners need to reiterate that their drone is used only for recreation and in accordance with community safety guidelines -- of course. If you're ticking those boxes, you can find the rest of the application form here, so send that off and start imagining what you're going to do with that sweet fiver.

The military is constantly working on new drone technology. That includes new types of drones like autonomous boats and small swarming UAVs as well as ways to combat drones, like frying them with microwaves, guided bullets and hacking. Right now, the US Army is working on a small, lightweight drone that can take on a number of tasks depending on what's needed in a given situation. The drone, which you can see in action in the video below, looks a little bit like a flying squirrel. It's small, weighing just over half a pound, and its rotors can tilt themselves, giving the UAV plenty of flexibility in how it moves around. The design goal is to create a drone that can easily integrate with soldiers in the field and have multiple uses.

Prince Harry has urged young people to take a break from their phones from time to time. Speaking at an event in Leeds this week, he said youngsters can be overly reliant on technology. He believes that taking a break from our devices can help us become "more effective and efficient", and help us cope with the pace of modern life. Harry also took the opportunity to raise awareness of mental health issues. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. Dean Kamen's DEKA R&D firm, with support from DARPA's Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program, designed the advanced prosthetic LUKE Arm to give amputees "dexterous arm and hand movement through a simple, intuitive control system." The LUKE Arm, which stands for Life Under Kinetic Evolution but is also a reference to Luke Skywalker's bionic hand, "allows users to control multiple joints simultaneously and provides a variety of grips and grip forces by means of wireless signals generated by sensors worn on the feet or via other easy-to-use controllers."

The opinion that software will soon dominate and radically change every aspect of everyone's lives has become so commonplace, and repeated so frequently, that those of us in the tech industry treat it as a statement of fact. A less heralded but more concrete fact is that much of the productivity gains expected from the introduction of computer technologies have not been realized. As Tyler Cowen explains, "Labor productivity has been growing at an average of only 1.3 percent annually since the start of 2005, compared with 2.8 percent annually in the preceding 10 years." Software has increased productivity across the board for some industries, such as manufacturing, but for many other industries only certain companies have managed to capture the benefits. A study from 2003 showed that while Wal-Mart and Kmart both invested in IT, Wal-Mart did a better job of changing the rest of their business to work with the technology, and consequently saw "higher levels of productivity and market value".