AeroVironment said it delivered 20 of the 5-ounce (140-gram) Snipe unmanned aircraft to its first U.S. government client in April. The company declined to identify the government agency that purchased the drones, but Aviation Week reported last year that AeroVironment was developing prototypes for the U.S. Army.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an uninterrupted connected network of embedded objects/ devices with identifiers without any human intervention using standard and communication protocol. It provides encryption, authorization and identification with different device protocols like MQTT, STOMP or AMQP to securely move data from one network to another. IoT in connected Government helps to deliver better citizen services and provides transparency. It improves the employee productivity and cost savings. It helps in delivering contextual and personalized service to citizens and enhances the security and improves the quality of life.

Robots and artificial intelligence were once just the stuff of Hollywood fantasy, from the Star Wars and Terminator movies to Iron Man's JARVIS butler. However, intelligent machines that can simulate reasoning and develop knowledge to mimic human thought processes are now part of the real world -- and with that comes the risk of bias and cyber attack. Investment in artificial intelligence (AI) in the U.S. more than doubled to $587 million last year, and machine learning is expected to drive an increase in the use of robotics and software automation in coming years. AI algorithms are already used in investment, healthcare, programming, law, music, book and film recommendation services, games, and language learning -- to name but a few sectors. These uses often produce outcomes that would be unattainable by humans or do so at a far lower cost.

The US is considering expanding its electronics ban to all flights departing UK and European airports, according to a new report. Passengers travelling to the US would not be able to board a US-bound plane carrying any electronics larger than a mobile phone. Laptops, tablets and cameras would instead need to be checked-in ahead of flights and stored in the cargo hold. 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. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

The healthcare sector is one of those sectors that has always embraced emerging technologies to make better use of technological innovations. And now artificial intelligence (AI) is gradually making its way into the healthcare market with all its power to disrupt. The annual investment in artificial intelligence for healthcare will grow tenfold in the next five years, becoming a $6-billion industry by 2021 – estimates Frost & Sullivan. They have also forecasted that by 2025, AI systems could be involved in everything from population health management to digital avatars capable of answering specific patient queries. In healthcare, the opportunity for AI is not just limited to making doctors and medical providers more competent in their work; in fact, it's about saving lives and making the lives of the patients better.

If you haven't heard (maybe you've been toiling in Elon's tunnels?), Uber has had a rough start to 2017. The Department of Justice just launched a criminal probe into the company's use of "Greyball," a system it used to identify regulatory officials and block them from booking rides. In January, it lost riders who objected to CEO Travis Kalanick's (soon abandoned) seat on President Trump's economic council. In late February, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published an explosive blog post, accusing Uber of fostering a misogynistic corporate culture. A few days later, Google autonomous driving spinoff Waymo filed a lawsuit alleging Uber boosted its self-driving program by stealing its trade secrets.

What does the public sector of the future look like? Ken McGrath, head of Government at eir Business, looks at the rise of AI and robotics in the public sector and the benefits and challenges that presents. There's no doubt that recent reporting on robots and the future has ushered in a little bit of hysteria about said robots stealing our jobs and replacing humans in certain roles. What most people don't realise is that robots are already all around us; just because a supermarket's self-service checkout doesn't have eyes, doesn't make it any less of a robot. They're already embedded in organisations across Ireland and the world, helping them to work smarter and more efficiently. In the University of Limerick, for example, robotic assisted surgery is in full swing.

In the wake of terrorist attacks like those in Paris and Orlando, Fla., domestic and international law enforcement agencies alike are investigating how attackers were able to slip through intelligence-gathering networks and what can be done to prevent future attacks. Big data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies offer federal, state and local law enforcement agencies the opportunity to predict the probability of terror attacks based on many factors, according to David Rubal, DLT Solutions' chief technologist of data and analytics and principal data scientist. A data futurist as well as a fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT), Rubal said "personal, behavioral, facial recognition, geo-location, social media and financial data" can help government agencies, law enforcement groups and their technology providers make predictions. "Probability and risk is determined based on the intersections of this data and patterns over time," Rubal explained. "Agencies are also using virtual reality, derived from advanced user experiences and gaming, to simulate'life-like' situations for law enforcement to improve predictability and situational awareness when training officers for responding to a terrorist threat," Rubal said.

Headlines about mass data breaches have become ominously routine, and yet password convenience still trumps security for most people. That's why, year after year, the world's most popular log-on remains "123456," a password so obvious it accounted for 17 percent of the 10 million compromised passwords analyzed by Keeper Security, which sells a log-in management service. The answer, of course, is to get rid of passwords altogether. Biometric technology--especially fingerprint scanners--have been steadily replacing the need to type in a password, which can easily be guessed by hackers wielding smart algorithms. Now, with the world increasingly embracing voice-activated devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, companies are starting to create technology that recognizes a person's speech patterns. Facial recognition is starting to catch on as well.

On 12th January, MEPs voted for a set of regulations to be drafted to govern the use and creation of robots and artificial intelligence, hot off the back of the UK government setting up a commission to look at the issues surrounding artificial intelligence. Across continents, the law is unclear and differing and is likely to evolve in this area. In late 2016, in the UK, the Commons' Science and Technology Committee published a report on robotics and artificial intelligence. The report recommended that a standing Commission on Artificial Intelligence be established to examine the social, ethical and legal implications of recent and potential developments in AI. As of 12th January, MEPs from the parliament's legal affairs committee passed Mady Delvaux's report into robotics and AI.