New rules governing the operation of drones, or unmanned aerial systems (UAS) as they are formally called, in United States airspace came into effect Monday. Called Small UAS Rule (Part 107), they were finalized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in June and cover operating rules for drones as well as regulations for their pilots, and apply to drones flown for both business and pleasure. Drones have been flying around even before Part 107 came into effect, with about 3,000 exemptions already handed out to businesses, but the new rules simplify the process of flying UAS legally. If your UAS weighs under 0.55 pounds or if you are flying it indoors only, you don't require any registration. If your drone is under 55 pounds in weight and you don't fly it at night or above 400 feet and you always keep it within line of sight, you have it simple. Head over to the registration page on the FAA website and register yourself.

A protester holds a placard reading'Let's be realistic, ask for the obvious, 32h sharing of work time, Basic income, more jobs thanks to energy transition' during a demonstration called by youth organizations and students' unions on March 9, 2016, in Paris, during a nationwide day of protest against proposed labour reforms. In June of this year, Swiss voters saw an initiative on their ballots calling for an "unconditional basic income" that would "allow the whole population to lead a decent life and participate in public life." Put on the ballot by a petition drive after it was rejected in parliament, the initiative was rejected by 77 percent of Swiss voters, with 23 percent approving. The initiative lost badly, but even having a national vote on a universal basic income (UBI) shows how far the idea has come. Although people have advocated some type of universal basic livelihood or support for centuries, usually tied to concerns about poverty, recent advocacy is closely linked to fears about extensive job losses due to technology, especially artificial intelligence (AI) and robotization of work.

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Welcome to California Inc., the weekly newsletter of the L.A. Times Business section. Pharmaceutical company Mylan is still in the news after hiking the price of life-saving EpiPens by more than 400%. But keep this in mind: Of roughly 250 million raised for and against 17 ballot measures coming before California voters in November, more than a quarter of that amount -- about 70 million -- has been contributed by deep-pocketed drug companies to defeat the Drug Price Relief Act, which would limit drug prices charged to state healthcare programs. Spending on the measure could set a state record over coming weeks. No buzz kill: New federal rules for small commercial drones go into effect Monday.

Humans will journey to Mars in the 2030s accompanied by robots, if Nasa's ambitious plans become reality. The US space agency has launched a 1 million competition challenging engineers to develop the capabilities of humanoid robots, which will help astronauts on their long and arduous journey to the red planet. The Space Robotics Challenge will see teams program a virtual robot modelled on Nasa's advanced Robonaut R5 android, dubbed Valkyrie, to complete a series of virtual tasks that could save human crew members' lives, such as repairing leaks. Valkyrie is a six foot tall, 290 pound humanoid designed to work in extreme environments. It can'see' thanks to sensors and cameras in its head, walk, and grasp objects in its hands, which have three fingers and a thumb.

NAIROBI – Japanese and African leaders on Sunday pledged to fight terrorism and emphasized the importance of rules-based maritime order as they wrapped up a Japan-led international conference on the continent's development. In the Nairobi Declaration adopted at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), the leaders also agreed to promote investment in infrastructure that leads to job creation in the fast-growing region. "Japan's public and private sectors will offer cooperation for the development that is led by Africa itself," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a news conference after wrap-up of the sixth TICAD, convened in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta told the same news conference that Japan does not press its own views on the continent and continues to be a force for African development. The triennial conference was held outside Japan for the first time, as Tokyo seeks to strengthen its economic and political presence in the continent amid China's increasing influence.

The blending of home-based diagnostic platforms with medical care at home is arriving. The Tricorder XPRIZE competition is well underway, with several teams set to compete in the final stages. Leading contenders include CloudDx and Scanadu, a company started at our first Exponential Medicine program, have successfully leveraged crowdfunding to enable their clinical trials. Gale by 19Labs is a next generation "first aid kit meets home health center" (see the below video for a demo) exemplifying how integration of home diagnostics paired with menu-driven (and potentially AI-driven) assistance and optional telemedicine connectivity can provide increased access to home-based diagnosis, triage and management of minor bumps and scrapes and also more complex medical conditions. Interactive and engaging, from coaching on diet and nutrition to reminding you to take your medications or offering psychological support and follow up -- the chatbots are on their way.

We've had more than 150 speakers in the past three seasons. Two of them made the news this summer: Danny Bickson (E9 Season 1) one of the co-founders of Graphlab then Dato then Turi and Arjun Bansal from Nervana systems (E12 Season 3). Turi just got acquired by Apple for 300M, and Nervana got acquired for 350M by Intel. In a different direction, at the last meetup, Raymond Francis explained to us what got picked by the LA Times a month later, Curiosity now uses Machine Learning on Mars. This news is exciting on two levels: First, robots can now explore the universe better and second, it definitely brings some perspective when we talk about the dichotomy between exploration and exploitation in our discussions.

NASA scientists are engineering a form of artificial intelligence (AI) that they hope will help firefighters and other first responders escape dangerous situations. Set to launch next year, the system will help first responders through unpredictable fires and chemical leaks by giving them advice based on machine learning of past emergencies. The new system--called AUDREY--the Assistant for Understanding Data through Reasoning, Extraction and sYnthesis--is designed to be distributed to individual firefighters so it can collect a precise network of data directly from the field, and learn from that data for next time. No emergency is the same, which means first responders have to rely on extensive training and experience to stay safe in dangerous conditions that can change rapidly. The AUDREY system hopes to use distributed data collection and machine learning to better inform first responders about the situation at hand.

For the past year, Amazon has been cracking down on sellers and third parties offering money for positive reviews. But for one team of data scientists, negative reviews on Amazon are much more interesting than positive ones. Researchers from the University of Washington's Data Science for Social Good program have set out to harness Amazon reviews to predict food product recalls. The team has developed a machine learning platform that can mine the text of Amazon reviews to make predictions about the safety of products. While the program is still in progress, it has the potential to revolutionize the process of food recalls.