The drones, which are all approved under the FAA's new commercial guidelines, can fly autonomously but will have a human backup ready to take the controls if something goes awry. When a drone reaches the hungry customer on the other end of the delivery, it will hover in place while lowering the burrito payload to the ground using a winch. The project's engineers will be testing everything from the drone's navigation systems to customer satisfaction. After all, what good is a drone if it can only bring you a cold, mushy burrito? While the concept seems simple, the data gathered from the project will actually help the FAA design a new system of low-altitude air traffic control that will be necessary once drone deliveries start catching on in earnest.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Japanese government and business leaders have teamed up to map their capital in 3D and turn the soon-to-be host city into a haven for autonomous vehicles.

An agreement to send Canadian authorities passenger name record (PNR) data for flights from the European Union cannot be entered into in its current form, a top European Union judge has said. That's because parts of the draft agreement are incompatible with EU citizens' fundamental privacy rights, according to Paolo Mengozzi, Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the EU, in a legal opinion issued Thursday. His opinion, on a case brought by the European Parliament, is only advisory, and it still remains for the CJEU to make a final ruling on the matter. But if the court follows his advice, it could disrupt the European Commission's plans for a new directive on the sharing of PNR data among EU member states and with other countries. The agreement, which the EU and Canada began negotiating in 2010, concerns the transfer of PNR data to Canadian authorities for the purpose of combatting terrorism and other serious transnational crime. The passenger name records concerned contain 19 categories of information, covering the passenger's identity, nationality, address, contact details of the person making the reservation, payment information such as the number of the credit card used to reserve the flight, luggage details, and additional services requested concerning health problems, mobility, or dietary requirements.

Three military veterans once involved in the U.S. drone program have thrown their support behind a Yemeni man's legal fight to obtain details about why his family members were killed in a 2012 strike. The former soldiers' unusual decision to publicly endorse the lawsuit against President Obama and other U.S. officials adds another twist to Faisal bin Ali Jaber's four-year quest for accountability in the deaths of his brother-in-law and nephew, who he believes needlessly fell victim to one of the most lethal covert programs in U.S. history. The former enlisted service members told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a recent filing that they believe the 2012 drone strike serves as a case study of how mistakes frequently occur in the nation's targeted-killing program, where life-or-death decisions are based upon top-secret evidence. The veterans say they "witnessed a secret, global system without regard for borders, conducting widespread surveillance with the ability to conduct deadly targeted killing operations." Though the veterans did not disclose any personal knowledge of the strike that is alleged to have killed Jaber's relatives, they claim the military frequently labels the deaths of unknown victims as "enemy kills."

Their policy push happened just as the larger public's perceptions about nanotechnology--was it Drexlerian nanobots or a more incremental blend of physics and chemistry?--were Smalley and some policymakers had fears that negative perceptions might impede their plans for a national research initiative. This concern was heightened when, in April 2000, Wired magazine published Bill Joy's article "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us." Joy, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems, warned about future technological dystopias. He singled out nanotechnology--especially the Drexlerian visions of autonomous and self-replicating nano-assemblers--as a potential threat to humanity. Two years later, novelist Michael Crichton published his best-selling techno-thriller Prey.

BRUSSELS--For Apple Inc. AAPL -2.05 % and Ireland, the European Commission's decision ordering Dublin to collect billions of euros from Apple in unpaid taxes isn't the end of the story. They have a chance to turn the tables on the commission at the bloc's highest courts, where they are preparing to appeal. The European Commission, the bloc's antitrust regulator, has ordered Ireland to recoup about 13 billion, or roughly 14.6 billion, in taxes that the commission has estimated Apple avoided paying in Europe for more than a decade. There is a strong record of the European Union's top court ruling in favor of the European Commission's decisions. But lawyers say there is one area where that trend isn't as clear-cut: state-aid cases dealing with tax matters.

IBM has launched a new range of Linux-based servers which have been specifically engineered for high performance in tasks related to artificial intelligence, deep learning and advanced analytics – with a central mission to increase data centre efficiency. Early tests with Tencent reveal a threefold performance increase, even at 2/3rds deployment. The perhaps inelegantly named IBM Power Systems S822LC for High Performance Computing represents a collaboration with Nvidia, with the latter's NVLink high-speed interconnect facilitating a far greater CPU/GPU throughput than is currently possible over a PCIe bus. The servers have been developed in collaboration with the OpenPower Foundation (OPF), which was set up in 2013 as an accelerator for innovation of custom data centre systems, with a particular remit for workload acceleration via GPU, FPGA or advanced I/O, as well as platform optimisation for SW appliances and advanced hardware technology exploitation. IBM conducted preliminary tests on the new OpenPOWER servers in China with Tencent and was able to run workloads three times faster than on its previous x86-based infrastructure even whilst running a third fewer total number of servers.

An illustration of OSIRIS-REx, a collection of sensors, imaging devices and sample collectors, on its way to encounter the asteroid named Bennu. An illustration of OSIRIS-REx, a collection of sensors, imaging devices and sample collectors, on its way to encounter the asteroid named Bennu. A rocket set to take off Thursday evening from Cape Canaveral, Fla., is part of a mission by NASA and the University of Arizona to send a robot to an asteroid. The asteroid is called Bennu, and it's basically a giant rubble pile, shaped something like a spinning top. Scientists believe it's been moving through space untouched for about 4.5 billion years, making it a time capsule from when our solar system was just starting to form.

The U.S. has been using drones more and more frequently since the Sept. 11 attacks. They have been highly effective on the battlefield, but have raised legal and ethical issues. The U.S. has been using drones more and more frequently since the Sept. 11 attacks. They have been highly effective on the battlefield, but have raised legal and ethical issues. Today in the skies over New Mexico, Air Force students are practicing for the kill.