The world's first cafe using the tiny domestic unmanned aircraft as servers has opened in a Dutch university. The pop-up drone cafe will be serving up all weekend as part of celebrations for the'Dream and Dare' festival marking the 60th anniversary of the Eindhoven University of Technology. The drone (pictured), nicknamed Blue Jay, resembles a small white flying saucer. It has a luminescent strip for eyes, flies to a table and hovers as it takes a client's order. The customer then points to the list to signal what they would like.

Artificial intelligence and UAVs are two emerging technologies with big potential. Due to the continual breakthroughs in semiconductors, natural language processing, and other technologies, some scientists think that AI could eclipse human intelligence as soon as 2029. Given the improvements in weight reduction and battery technology, many investors believe UAVs could do everything from powering Internet connections to delivering products quickly over the next decade too. Given the two technologies' potential, it isn't surprising that Chevron (NYSE: CVX) has big plans for artificial intelligenceand UAV technology for its future. Let's explore in more detail.

A team from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln flew an unmanned aircraft over the prairie at the Homestead National Monument of America on Friday, dropping ping pong-like balls filled with a chemical mixture to ignite brush-clearing grass fires. Local and federal officials are interested in the technology because it could help clear overgrown vegetation in rugged, hard-to-reach terrain, said Michael Johnson, a spokesman for the National Park Service. The balls are filled with a chemical powder, potassium permanganate, before they're loaded into the drone. During flight, the aircraft pierces the ball with a needle and injects it with another chemical, glycol, before releasing it. The technology is already used by helicopters to start controlled burns, but researchers note that the drone is cheaper and more portable.

GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA – Wearing black headsets with tentacle-like sensors stretched over their foreheads, the competitors stared at cubes floating on computer screens as their small white drones prepared for takeoff. "Three, two, one … go!" the announcer hollered, and as the racers fixed their thoughts on pushing the cubes, the drones suddenly whirred, rose and buzzed through the air. Some struggled to move, while others zipped confidently across the finish line. The competition -- billed as the world's first drone race involving a brain-controlled interface -- involved 16 pilots using willpower to drive drones through a 10-yard (9.1-meter) dash over an indoor basketball court at the University of Florida on April 16. Organizers hope to make the event an annual intercollegiate spectacle, involving ever-more dynamic moves and challenges.

Swarms of drones flying in terrifyingly perfect formation could be one step closer, thanks to a control algorithm being developed at MIT. The complexities involved in controlling teams of moving robots so they don't crash into each other, or indeed wipe out other objects/entities that cross their path, is a hard problem that continues to keep roboticists busy. But the team of researchers at MIT reckon they have made a breakthrough that could make perfect complex drone formations easier to pull off. They say their decentralized planning algorithm can handle both stationary and moving obstacles, and do so with reduced computational overheads. Why are decentralized control algorithms better than centralized control algorithms?

Researchers in Nebraska tested a new tool on Friday that could eventually help in fighting grass fires -- drones. A team from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln flew an unmanned aircraft over the prairie at the Homestead National Monument of America on Friday, dropping ping pong-like balls filled with a chemical mixture to ignite brush-clearing grass fires. Local and federal officials are interested in the technology because it could help clear overgrown vegetation in rugged, hard-to-reach terrain, said Michael Johnson, a spokesman for the National Park Service. The balls are filled with a chemical powder, potassium permanganate, before they're loaded into the drone. During flight, the aircraft pierces the ball with a needle and injects it with another chemical, glycol, before releasing it.

Wearing black headsets with tentacle-like sensors stretched over their foreheads, the competitors stare at cubes floating on computer screens as their small white drones prepare for takeoff. Some struggle to move even a few feet, while others zip confidently across the finish line. The competition -- billed as the world's first drone race involving a brain-controlled interface -- involved 16 pilots using willpower to drive drones through a 10-yard dash over an indoor basketball court at the University of Florida this past weekend. The Associated Press was there to record the event, which organizers hope to make an annual inter-collegiate spectacle, involving ever-more dynamic moves and challenges and a trophy that puts the brain on a pedestal. "With events like this, we're popularizing the use of BCI instead of it being stuck in the research lab," said Chris Crawford, a PhD student in human-centered computing.

Wearing black headsets with tentacle-like sensors stretched over their foreheads, the competitors stare at cubes floating on computer screens as their small white drones prepare for takeoff. Some struggle to move even a few feet, while others zip confidently across the finish line. Competitors in the Florida race use specially programmed headbands to monitor their brainwaves - moving the drone when they will it to happen. The EEG headset is calibrated to identify the electrical activity associated with particular thoughts in each wearer's brain -- recording, for example, where neurons fire when the wearer imagines pushing a chair across the floor. Programmers write code to translate these'imaginary motion' signals into commands that computers send to the drones.

In the near future, if you need a few things from Amazon, or perhaps you forgot to pick up the dry cleaning, there's a chance a small robot will deliver your goods right to your front door. No, this won't be a drone dropping something from the skies. A six-wheeled robot from Starship Technologies, run by the founders of Skype, will soon be making deliveries without those complicated autonomous drone systems touted by Amazon and Google. Starship's little robots are already making deliveries in London, and they will likely be rolling around US streets soon. Lauri Väin, Starship's engineering lead, said during last week's RoboUniverse conference in New York City, that the company has 10 prototype robots, and plans to have 100 by the end of the year, and over 1,000 next year.

There was understandable alarm in the U.K. earlier in the week when a drone reportedly hit a passenger plane coming in to land at London's Heathrow airport. But after examining Sunday's events more closely, a government minister on Thursday speculated that rather than a drone, the object may have actually been a plastic bag. While there've been hundreds of apparent near misses between planes and drones over the last couple of years, initial news reports regarding the recent Heathrow incident suggested an actual collision had taken place for the first time. The aircraft, a British Airways Airbus A320 with 132 passengers on board, landed safely. The pilot had said that as the plane came in on its final approach, it hit what may have been a drone flying at an altitude of about 1,700 feet.