The ancient ruins of Palmyra, one of Syria's oldest cities, have stood for 3,000 years, but, since last May, the Unesco World Heritage site has been facing some of the most brutal threats to its existence. Located in an oasis northeast of the Syrian capital of Damascus, Palmyra has become a significant symbolic and military position in the now 5-year-old Syrian conflict. After seizing the city of roughly 50,000 residents last May, the Islamic State group was forced out of Palmyra over the weekend by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad. On a strategic level, retaking Palmyra gives the Syrian regime a strong military base for future operations against the militants' other strongholds as well as renewed control over some of Syria's most important oil and gas fields. But regaining Palmyra is also a highly symbolic win for the Syrian regime -- now trying to salvage whatever is left of the ancient ruins -- in its quest to position itself as a key partner in the fight against the terrorist group, also known as ISIS. An aerial view of the historic city of Palmyra, in Homs Goveronorate, Syria, is seen in this still image taken from a drone video, March 28, 2016.

And the artificial intelligence chatbot that didn't survive a day on the Internet. Plus: Reviewing Santiago Calatrava's latest, how to be unprofessional and the "Grand Theft Auto" modification that may have you watching for hours on end. Time has Russian drone footage that provides an overview of what remains of the old Silk Road crossroads, as well as the contemporary human settlement of Tadmur that sits nearby. About 80% of the artifacts appear to be largely intact. The country's antiquities chief says repairs will take five years.

There are about 2.5 million drones in the US and not one has collided with a piloted aircraft – yet. With nearly 600 close-calls reported from August 2015 to January 2016, the Federal Aviation Administration worries it is only a matter of time before there are disastrous incidents. This data shows an urgency for effective anti-drone systems to deal with rogue UAVs, as more unmanned vehicles take the sky. More than 406,000 drone owners have registered their vehicle with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) since late December. There are about 2.5 million drones in the US and not one has hit with a piloted aircraft – yet.

Rakuten, just like Amazon, is experimenting with drones that can quickly deliver goods to its customers. Unlike Jeff Bezos' company, however, the e-commerce giant is starting small with a service designed for golfers. From May, players at a specific course in Japan's Chiba prefecture will be able to take out their phone and request some new golf balls or refreshments. A Mini Surveyor drone developed by the Autonomous Control Systems Laboratory -- a company from Chiba which Rakuten has now invested in -- will then fly them over from a base station near the course's clubhouse.

But while the idea of sinking your teeth into a tasty slice can be appealing, the bummer is the pesky delivery guy, who loiters in the doorway judging your slovenly outfit and your measly tip. They're fully enclosed, four-wheeled carbohydrate-dispensing machines, complete with heated and cooled, lockable compartments that require the purchaser to enter a passcode to retrieve their delivered food. Its space-age, Kubrickian exterior styling is sure to appeal to middle-age sci-fi geeks as well as neighborhood paintball enthusiasts. Domino's Pizza--which happens to share its hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with Car and Driver--has a long history of delivery innovation, including in recent years electric vehicles and Chevrolet Spark–based custom delivery wagons. When it came time to go robotic, Domino's called in Australian technology startup Marathon Targets to help in the creation of its autonomous delivery vehicles.

Humans have always used tools to create art, but paintbrushes, pens, and chisels don't have an agenda of their own; they bend to the will of the person wielding them. But a project by students at the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group ponders what happens when a machine has a voice in the artistic process. In this case, the machine is a drone, and that drone is essentially a flying phantograph. As a human draws with a pen, a camera captures the motion and a computer communicates it to the drone, which mimics what the pen is drawing. In the video you see a person make a sweeping gesture across a canvas; the drone mirrors it, creating a similar mark on its own canvas.

Drone attacks killed eight men suspected of belonging to al Qaeda in southern Yemen on Saturday night, local residents said, as a U.S. campaign against the militant group goes on amid a wider civil war in the country. Two missiles hit the fighters who had gathered in courtyards in the villages of al-Hudhn and Naqeel al-Hayala, residents from the southern coastal province of Abyan told Reuters by phone. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has taken advantage of a war pitting the Iran-allied Houthis against forces loyal to exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to grab territory and operate more openly. The group has carried out attacks against the Yemeni state for years, plotted to blow up U.S.-bound airliners and claimed responsibility for the January 2015 attack in Paris on a French magazine that killed 12 people. The United States has kept up a drone campaign against the militants, although it evacuated the last of its military and intelligence personnel from Yemen in March last year.

SAN FRANCISCO – The world's largest drone maker has teamed up with the nation's largest thermal camera company to create ready-to-fly drones that can see in the dark. The drone maker is DJI, a China-based company that currently has about 70% of the world drone market. The camera is by FLIR Systems, a Wilsonville, Ore.-based thermal and infrared imaging company. The collaboration will produce drones that can be used in search-and-rescue, firefighting, security and surveillance. At a news conference Thursday, the companies showed video shot from one of the infrared-capable drones in which several people walking in a pitch black field at night looked like brightly lit light bulbs moving across the rough ground.

Many of the reports are pedestrian, and frequently involve seeing a drone near a conventional aircraft. However, some of the observers note that the drones got uncomfortably close -- in a few cases, just 50 feet away. There aren't reports of collisions with aircraft, but at least one pilot had to change course to avoid an accident. Statistically, the odds of drones creating serious problems are quite low. However, the sightings are only likely to fuel the FAA's belief that it needs to regulate drone usage through registration and no-fly zones. It's doubtful that the agency wants to look complacent if a drone triggers a crash.

Just months after announcing a pizza delivery truck with built-in heaters, the pizza purveyor is upping the ante with the world's first pizza delivery robot. The company's Australian arm announced plans to deploy a Domino Robotic Unit (DRU). Essentially an autonomous vehicle, DRU can, according to Domino's, follow a map, navigate sidewalks, avoid obstacles and keep your pizza hot and fresh while delivering it to your front door. While this sounds like an elaborate marketing stunt, a Domino's spokesperson confirmed to Mashable that the robot is real. "DRU is cheeky and endearing and we are confident that one day he will become an integral part of the Domino's family. He's a road to the future and one that we are very excited about exploring further," said Domino's Group CEO and Managing Director Don Meij in a release.