But what the gossip and the op-eds didn't mention was that the real surprise wasn't Haqqani's public appearances--it was that he was appearing at all: Multiple times over the last two decades, the US military thought they'd killed him in drone strikes. Clearly Haqqani is alive and well. But that raises a glaring question: if Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani wasn't killed in those US drone strikes, who was? The usual bland response is "terrorists," an answer now institutionalized by the highest levels of the US security state. But the final days of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan showed that is not necessarily true.

A two-legged robot inspired by birds can walk, skateboard, fly and balance on a slackline, which is like a loose tightrope. It could potentially become a new tool to monitor infrastructure in hard-to-reach environments. The robot, named LEONARDO by its creators at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Northeastern University in Boston, is a human-like machine with knee, hip and ankle joints, but rotor blades for arms that give it upward thrust. LEONARDO is 75 centimetres tall, weighs 2.6 kilograms and walks at up to 20cm per second. It is "the first robot to achieve seamless integration of walking …

Iranian dissidents are warning of the hard-line regime's use of drones to cause instability in the region, saying it is using the technology – materials for which are being imported from China – to make up for the weaknesses of its air force. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella group of Iranian resistance groups that oppose the regime, released evidence in a press conference it says shows the production and utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UACs) for terrorist operations and for assisting its proxies in the Middle East – including aerial photographs of the alleged sites and details that have emerged from inside the country. "Our revelation today is significant because it shows that the Qods Force of the IRGC has in recent years expanded its arsenal to step up terrorism and warmongering to destabilize the region by arming its proxies with UAVs," Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told Fox News. "This is in line with the regime's nuclear defiance and its repression at home." The group alleges that the regime, which has been rocked by a slew of economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration as well as protests at home and challenges related to its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, has used a web of industries to spend billions of dollars to produce components or smuggle them in from foreign countries.

Monetizing data has long been a goal of entrepreneurial CSPs (communication service providers). For example, operators like A1 in Austria, and O2 in the UK, have developed mobility insights units, enabling them to form new revenue streams by providing demographic data to governments and businesses. Today, connecting billions of sensors and devices is a reality thanks to 5G. As a result, the volume of data generated across 5G is set to explode, with estimates of up to a mind-blowing 79.4 zettabytes by 2025, according to IDC. That's a lot of data with a lot of potential value, and CSPs are looking to the 3GPP Network Data Analytics Function (NWDAF) and ONAP's Data Collection, Analytics and Events (DCAE) framework to unlock some of it. With this standardized approach to collecting and analyzing network data, NWDAF and DCAE allow CSPs to manage, automate, and optimize their 5G network operations much more efficiently.

Alphabet subsidiary Wing has launched a pilot program that will have its drones fly products from the rooftops of shopping centers. In fact, it has already started the program in its biggest market, Logan, Australia. The subsidiary has teamed up with Australian retail property group, Vicinity Centres, to test the new model at Logan's Grand Plaza, where Wing's drones have been flying orders to customers from businesses directly below their launching pad. Wing has been operating in Logan over the past two years, but up until now, businesses have had to co-locate their products at the company's delivery facility. This is the first time the subsidiary is conducting deliveries from participating merchants' existing location instead.

Depth estimation-based obstacle avoidance has been widely adopted by autonomous systems (drones and vehicles) for safety purpose. It normally relies on a stereo camera to automatically detect obstacles and make flying/driving decisions, e.g., stopping several meters ahead of the obstacle in the path or moving away from the detected obstacle. In this paper, we explore new security risks associated with the stereo vision-based depth estimation algorithms used for obstacle avoidance. By exploiting the weaknesses of the stereo matching in depth estimation algorithms and the lens flare effect in optical imaging, we propose DoubleStar, a long-range attack that injects fake obstacle depth by projecting pure light from two complementary light sources. DoubleStar includes two distinctive attack formats: beams attack and orbs attack, which leverage projected light beams and lens flare orbs respectively to cause false depth perception. We successfully attack two commercial stereo cameras designed for autonomous systems (ZED and Intel RealSense). The visualization of fake depth perceived by the stereo cameras illustrates the false stereo matching induced by DoubleStar. We further use Ardupilot to simulate the attack and demonstrate its impact on drones. To validate the attack on real systems, we perform a real-world attack towards a commercial drone equipped with state-of-the-art obstacle avoidance algorithms. Our attack can continuously bring a flying drone to a sudden stop or drift it away across a long distance under various lighting conditions, even bypassing sensor fusion mechanisms. Specifically, our experimental results show that DoubleStar creates fake depth up to 15 meters in distance at night and up to 8 meters during the daytime. To mitigate this newly discovered threat, we provide discussions on potential countermeasures to defend against DoubleStar.

Here's What You Need to Know: AI-capable drone defenses can already gather, pool, organize and analyze an otherwise disconnected array of threat variables. What if waves of hundreds of autonomous, integrated artificial intelligence (AI)-capable mini-drones were closing in upon a forward Army unit, Air Force base or Navy ship at staggering speeds, presenting unprecedented complexity for defenders? Perhaps they are programmed with advanced algorithms such that they operate in close coordination with one another? Perhaps hundreds of them are themselves engineered as explosives to close in upon and explode on target? Simply put, what happens when computerized swarms of enemy drone attacks exceed any human capacity to respond in time?

Good thing it's Halloween season, because I'm not sure whether I should be scared of all these big tech announcements. Earlier this week, we saw Amazon roll out (in one case literally) a variety of devices they believe will make your life easier. There's the giant Echo Show that mounts on your wall as a digital bulletin board. There's the drone-like flying security camera to let you monitor every inch of your home. Then there's Astro, the seemingly adorable robot who rolls out your home to keep you safe and attend to your every needs.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has shared what it says are the first images and video captured inside a hurricane by a surface drone. The agency placed the Saildrone Explorer SD 1045 in the path of the category-four Hurricane Sam. The saildrone overcame 50-foot waves and winds at speeds topping 120 miles per hour to capture data from the hurricane and offer a new perspective into such storms. The device has a special "hurricane wing" to help it survive the intense wind conditions. The SD 1045 is one of five saildrones that have been in the Atlantic Ocean during hurricane season.

Hundreds of Android apps sent user location data to a data broker that had been banned from the Google Play Store since December 2020. Close to 200 messaging apps, video and file converters, dating sites, and religious and prayer apps downloaded tens of millions of times had X-Mode installed. Despite the ban, only ten per cent of these apps have been removed from Google Play. The tracker caused controversy after Vice's Motherboard reported that the United States military was buying the granular movement data of users of a a Muslim prayer and Quran app that had more than 98 million downloads worldwide. The US military has reportedly used location data to target drone strikes.