Australian surf lifesavers are increasingly using drones to spot sharks at the beach before they get too close to swimmers. But just how reliable are they? Discerning whether that dark splodge in the water is a shark or just, say, seaweed isn't always straightforward and, in reasonable conditions, drone pilots generally make the right call only 60% of the time. While this has implications for public safety, it can also lead to unnecessary beach closures and public alarm. Engineers are trying to boost the accuracy of these shark-spotting drones with artificial intelligence (AI).

Iran stands accused by Western powers of supplying drones to Russia for its war against Ukraine, with analysts saying such military cooperation is of immense interest for Tehran at a delicate moment for its theocratic leadership. The United States has denounced as "appalling" Russia's use of Iranian drones after residents of Kyiv and other cites were shaken by a spate of recent attacks. Ukraine has said around 400 Iranian drones have already been used against the civilian population of Ukraine, and Moscow has ordered around 2,000. Tehran has rejected the allegations. Iran and Russia, both former imperial powers who for centuries vied for domination of the Caspian Sea region, have long had a highly nuanced and delicate relationship marked by rivalry and cooperation.

WiFi's friendliness to other devices might pose a significant threat in the wrong circumstances. University of Waterloo researchers have discovered a security flaw in the networking standard that lets attackers track devices through walls. The technique identifies the location of a device within 3.3ft just by exploiting WiFi devices' automatic contact responses (even on password-protected networks) and measuring the response times. You can identify all the connected hardware in a room, and even track people's movements if they have a phone or smartwatch. The scientists tested the exploit by modifying an off-the-shelf drone to create a flying scanning device, the Wi-Peep.

In the 36th week of war in Ukraine, Russia backed out of a United Nations-sponsored agreement guaranteeing the safe passage of grain ships through the Black Sea, only to rejoin it three days later. Moscow's withdrawal over the weekend renewed fears of a global food crisis – concerns that have not been completely quelled since it rejoined because its return came with conditions. President Vladimir Putin said he reserved the right to back out again if Kyiv used the humanitarian corridor for attacks, the reason Russia gave for the initial pullout. The Kremlin has also warned that it has not yet decided whether to extend the grain deal, which expires in two weeks. Officials in Moscow had said that grain ships may have acted as a cloak for an attack on its naval base on Saturday at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula.

FedEx is calling it quits on its cute but mostly ineffective "Roxo" last mile autonomous delivery robot. The move comes just weeks after Amazon ended field tests and gutted the team working on its Scout delivery robot. Sriram Krishnasamy, the package delivery giant's Chief Transformation Officer, reportedly broke the news to staff of Roxo's shattering last week as part of a broader internal organizational program called DRIVE, according to emails first obtained by Robotics 24/7. "Although robotics and automation are key pillars of our innovation strategy, Roxo did not meet necessary near-term value requirements for DRIVE," Krishnasamy reportedly wrote. "Although we are ending the research and development efforts, Roxo served a valuable purpose: to rapidly advance our understanding and use of robotic technology." FedEx did not immediately respond to Gizmodo's request for comment but told Robotics 24/7 it's shifting away from Roxo, in part, to focus on, "several nearer-term opportunities."

In this paper, the Multi-Swarm Cooperative Information-driven search and Divide and Conquer mitigation control (MSCIDC) approach is proposed for faster detection and mitigation of forest fire by reducing the loss of biodiversity, nutrients, soil moisture, and other intangible benefits. A swarm is a cooperative group of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that fly together to search and quench the fire effectively. The multi-swarm cooperative information-driven search uses a multi-level search comprising cooperative information-driven exploration and exploitation for quick/accurate detection of fire location. The search level is selected based on the thermal sensor information about the potential fire area. The dynamicity of swarms, aided by global regulative repulsion and merging between swarms, reduces the detection and mitigation time compared to the existing methods. The local attraction among the members of the swarm helps the non-detector members to reach the fire location faster, and divide-and-conquer mitigation control ensures a non-overlapping fire sector allocation for all members quenching the fire. The performance of MSCIDC has been compared with different multi-UAV methods using a simulated environment of pine forest. The performance clearly shows that MSCIDC mitigates fire much faster than the multi-UAV methods. The Monte-Carlo simulation results indicate that the proposed method reduces the average forest area burnt by $65\%$ and mission time by $60\%$ compared to the best result case of the multi-UAV approaches, guaranteeing a faster and successful mission.

New Yorkers are used to ads dotting the landscape, but now they can't even look to the skies for refuge. As Gothamist reports, mobile developer King and show organizer Pixis are flying a swarm of at least 500 LED-equipped drones over New York City's skyline on November 3rd to advertise Candy Crush. They'll take off from and remain in New Jersey for the 10-minute presentation, but you'll spot them if you're within a one-mile radius of Battery Park. This isn't the first drone light show aimed at NYC. In June, Pixis orchestrated a swarm that promoted the NBA draft by flying over the Hudson River.

This year's Swiss Robotics Day – an annual event run by the EPFL-led National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics – will be held at the Beaulieu convention center in Lausanne. For the first time, this annual event will take place over two days: the first day, on 4 November, will be reserved for industry professionals, while the second, on 5 November, will be open to the public. Visitors at this year's Swiss Robotics Day are in for a glimpse of some exciting new technology: a robotic exoskeleton that enables paralyzed patients to ski, a device the width of a strand of hair that can be guided through a human vein, a four-legged robot that can walk over obstacles, an artificial skin that can diagnose early-stage Parkinson's, a swarm of flying drones, and more. The event, now in its seventh year, was created by NCCR Robotics in 2015. It has expanded into a leading conference for the Swiss robotics industry, bringing together university researchers, businesses and citizens from across the country.

DJI's Mavic 3 is a useful cinematic drone, but its steep price ($1,899 as we write this) can be off-putting compared to the $1,449 of the older Mavic 2 Pro. The company thinks it has a simple solution, though: offer a trimmed-back version. DJI has introduced the Mavic 3 Classic, a new variant that drops the telephoto lens in exchange for a better $1,469 starting price (more on that later). The Classic otherwise includes the features that might draw you to the Mavic 3 in the first place. The centerpiece remains a 20-megapixel, 24mm-equivalent Hasselblad camera that can shoot 5.1K video up to 50 frames per second (4K at 60FPS) and capture 12-bit RAW photos.

'Putin's Playbook' author Rebekah Koffler and former U.S. State Department Deputy Special Envoy Ellie Cohanim react to reports that Russia is seeking Iranian missiles. Two weeks ago, the co-founder of a think tank affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Defense, Ruslan Pukhov, accidentally admitted on Russian TV what Moscow has been denying for several weeks – Russian forces are using Iranian drones to bombard Ukrainian cities, killing civilians. Implicitly criticizing the Russian authorities for being secretive about the deal, Pukhov compared the topic of Iranian drones with a body part. "There's an a** but you can't use the word," he said, adding "we all know they are Iranian, but the powers that be don't acknowledge it." Drones, in fact, are not the only type of military assistance that the Ayatollahs are handing to Putin as Iran emerges as the principal backer of Putin's savage war on Ukraine.