Be prepared in the near future when you gaze into the blue skies to perceive a whole series of strange-looking things – no, they will not be birds, nor planes, or even superman. They may be temporarily, and in some cases startlingly mistaken as UFOs, given their bizarre and ominous appearance. But, in due course, they will become recognized as valuable objects of a new era of human-made flying machines, intended to serve a broad range of missions and objectives. Many such applications are already incorporated and well entrenched in serving essential functions for extending capabilities in our vital infrastructures such as transportation, utilities, the electric grid, agriculture, emergency services, and many others. Rapidly advancing technologies have made possible the dramatic capabilities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV/drones) to uniquely perform various functions that were inconceivable a mere few years ago.

Amazon has unveiled a bizarre home surveillance drone that flies around your house when you're not there and keeps an eye out for intruders. Unveiled by Ring, the firm's home security arm, the Always Home Cam can fly to check if the stove is off or the window is still open while the user is away. It consists of a flying black camera, powered by rotor blades, that automatically takes off from a stationary white dock if it detects movement in the house. The drone only records when it is in the air and makes a sound when it flies, so any people in the house know it is recording. Amazon said was inspired to create a security product that could move more freely throughout the home to'give more viewpoint flexibility'.

Tech product launches in the year of 2020 involve a kind of perspective whiplash that makes it more difficult than usual to decide whether or not you really need the thing. There's the consideration of whether the gadget fits into your life right now, at a time when our needs have changed considerably. There's also the fact that most of the products launching this year were dreamt up in 2019 or earlier. Back then, tech companies had a different vision of the future in mind, or at least different ideas of what the "lifestyle" images in their 2020 product marketing kits would look like. Do you need a fully autonomous surveillance drone for inside your home?

Consumer drones are notorious for being hard to fly at first, before you learn what you're doing, and the odds are, you will crash it. So how about a drone that flies automatically, in the home as a roaming security camera? One the manufacturer promises won't crash into a ceiling fan or a flower pot, because it has obstacle avoidance technology. And flies back into its cradle when the flight is complete. Jamie Siminoff, the founder of the Amazon Ring subsidiary, insists that it will because there's an app for it.

Amazon has announced a full range of new spherical Echo devices, new motorised smart display, a camera drone that flies around your house, a game-streaming service and more. In a streaming presentation, the firm showed off a smorgasbord of new devices from its various brands, including Ring, Eero Fire and Echo. The new standard Echo ditches its cylindrical shape for a fabric-covered ball design with Amazon's characteristic light-ring in the base to indicate when it is listening to you. It has a new 3in woofer and two tweeters with Dolby processing for stereo sound and automatic adjustment to the acoustics of your room. It also has Amazon's new AZ1 artificial intelligence chip for greater local processing of voice and other actions for increased privacy and speed.

I expect it to generate a huge amount of interest from technology enthusiasts who are typically the people who embrace smart home technology first. However, it is also likely to provoke a huge discussion around privacy and the future role of technology in the home.

Ring knows that there are only so many places in your home that you want to put a camera, and sometimes that isn't enough. That's why the company is building the Ring Always Home Cam, a small drone that can patrol your home to keep watch over your stuff. As well as offering an extra layer of security, you can use the device to check specific worries, like if you left a window open or the burners on. Naturally, the Always Home Cam integrates with the wider Ring ecosystem, and will fly a patrol whenever its sensors are triggered in Away mode. You won't be able to manually control the craft, but can watch it go about its business on a live feed via the Ring app.

Sam's Club is giving its members a new way to see the doctor – virtually. The Walmart-owned warehouse club chain announced a partnership with Seattle-based virtual primary care provider 98point6 Tuesday to provide members with an exclusive introductory fee and quarterly subscription. Sam's Club members with either a Club or Plus membership level can sign up for a quarterly subscription to 98point6's telehealth virtual clinic via a text-based app for $20 per participant for the first three months, $10 less than 98point6's regular sign-up fee of $30. With the subscription, unlimited virtual visits are $1 each with "access to U.S. board-certified doctors 24 hours a day and seven days a week," the retailer said in a news release. Walmart raises:Walmart increasing pay for approximately 165,000 hourly workers across U.S. stores, introducing new roles The quarterly subscription costs increase to $33.50 every three months per participant after the first three months.

Walmart is starting to deliver at-home COVID-19 tests by drone. A trial got underway in North Las Vegas today and the deliveries will expand to Cheektowaga, New York early next month. It's delivering the kits to qualifying patients who live within a mile of certain Walmart Supercenters in both locales. Patients will self-administer a nasal swab, which they'll send to Quest Diagnostics for testing. Walmart says there's no kit or delivery cost for those who opt to receive a test by drone, and there's a prepaid shipping label to return it.

Billions of birds die annually from collisions with windows, communication towers, wind turbines, and other human-made objects. One reason is that birds see a reflection of the sky in the object and think they're flying into an unobstructed path. This is even a problem for solar panel facilities, which see up to 138,000 bird deaths per year in the US from collisions with equipment. Though damage to the solar panels is minimal, officials worry about the impact these structures have on local wildlife. To combat the problem, the Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Argonne National Laboratory $1.3 million to develop a system that can automatically monitor bird activity.