Drones have caused Gatwick Airport to come to a standstill. Tens of thousands of passengers are suffering travel chaos after two unmanned aerial vehicles were spotted near the UK airfield. The runway was first closed at 9pm on Wednesday after two drones were seen. It was then reopened at 3am on Thursday, however it was shut again 45 minutes later after a further sighting of drones and has remained closed. "There is significant disruption at Gatwick today as a result of what appears to be a deliberate attempt to disrupt flights," the airport said.

Drones spotted over the UK's second-busiest airport have halted flights for hours, heavily disrupting the holiday travel of tens of thousands of passengers. Flights at London's Gatwick airport currently can't take off or land, and airport authorities have said that 110,000 passengers on 760 flights are scheduled to fly today. The delays have been ongoing since yesterday evening, and though operations briefly resumed at around 3 AM, they were halted about an hour later when the drone was spotted again. Two drones were spotted flying "over the perimeter fence and where the runway operates from," Airport operating chief Chris Woodroofe told BBC News. He condemned the "irresponsible" actions of the drone operators, saying it could take days for normal operations to resume at the airport's busiest time of the year.

Thousands of passengers have seen their flights from Gatwick Airport cancelled after two drones were spotted flying over the airfield within a 12-hour period. The runway is currently shut as officials investigate. So why has a drone caused so much disruption and what are the risks posed by these devices? The term "drone" for some prompts images of air strikes but the sophisticated flying robots used on the battlefield are unlikely to be what we are talking about here. The vast majority of unmanned aerial vehicles are actually small, remote-controlled quadcopters used by hobbyists and photographers.

The Army has deployed "specialist equipment" to Gatwick Airport as the travel chaos caused by drone activity shows no sign of abating. It comes as Easyjet has cancelled all of its flights from Gatwick for the rest of the day. The airline, the biggest operator at the airport, said there was "no indication" when Gatwick would reopen. Tens of thousands of passengers on several airlines have been disrupted by drones flying over the airport. In a tweet, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson had confirmed the military deployment.

Cencetta Didiano, left, and her mother, Casandra Kerr, right, were arrested after they flew a drone full of contraband onto the roof of a prison where their relative was being housed, deputies said. A mother and daughter who police said were "hoping to spread some holiday cheer" were arrested and accused of flying a drone packed with contraband to a Florida state prison. Casandra Kerr, 40, and Cencetta Didiano, 22, of Tampa, allegedly flew their "special delivery" onto the roof of the Martin Correctional Institute in Indiantown, officials said. The pair were trying to deliver tobacco and cellphones to an inmate, who was Kerr's wife, and Didiano's father, the Martin County Sheriff's Office wrote on Facebook on Tuesday. Their plan was foiled when prison guards noticed the drone and alerted the sheriff's office.

Every day at around 4 p.m., the creeeek criikkk of stretched packing tape echoes through Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen's sprawling neighborhood of hardware stores. Shopkeepers package up the day's sales--selfie sticks, fidget spinners, electric scooters, drones--and by 5, crowds of people are on the move at the rapid pace locals call Shenzhen sudu, or "Shenzhen speed," carting boxes out on motorcycles, trucks, and--if it's a light order--zippy balance boards. From Huaqiangbei the boxes are brought to the depots of global logistics companies and loaded onto airplanes and cargo ships. In the latter case they join 24 million metric tons of container cargo going out every month from Shekou harbor--literally "snake's mouth," the world's third-busiest shipping port after Shanghai and Singapore. A few days or weeks later, the boxes arrive in destinations as nearby as Manila and Phnom Penh and as far afield as Dubai, Buenos Aires, Lagos, and Berlin. They appear in the world's largest cities and smallest villages: selfie sticks held up in front of Indian temples, a (rebranded) Xiaomi electric scooter cruising down San Francisco's Market Street, and a DJI drone flying over pretty much anywhere.

Kalashnikov has revealed a pair of smart drones designed to protect Russian assets in the Arctic. The drones will offer'round-the-clock protection of the perimeters' according the the arms makers. The two'ZALA' drones have an automatic identification system that can gather information about a vessel at a distance of 62 miles, it claims. The ZALA 421-16Ev2, one of two new'ZALA' drones that have an automatic identification system that can gather information about a vessel at a distance of 62 miles, it is claimed The two drones will able to give operators information about each vessel: its name, size, course and speed. It also has its own alternative navigation system for when GPS or its Russian equivalent, is unavailable.

A food delivery robot was destroyed after it caught fire because of "human error", its creator has confirmed. Kiwibot autonomous delivery robots have been rolling around the University of California, Berkeley campus for two years. On Friday, students found one of the robots in flames and shared photos on social media. Kiwi said the cause was a "defective battery" that had been accidentally installed in the robot. "One of the batteries for our robot that was idling started smouldering, eventually leading to some smoke and minor flames," the company said in a statement.

A drone flying more than 20 times the allowed height came within 15m (50ft) of a Boeing 737 approaching a runway at Stansted Airport in Essex. The plane was flying at 10,000ft (3km) and coming in to land on 17 August when the captain spotted the drone. The first officer then saw "a dark-coloured square or rectangle-shaped object pass down the right side of the aircraft with minimal separation". The UK Airprox Board rated the risk of collision as the highest possible. After the incident, which happened at 16:36 BST, the plane was inspected on the ground and found no evidence of contact or damage.

Quadrotors are fast, cheap, and capable, and they're getting smarter all the time. Where they struggle a little bit is with adaptation. Many other kinds of robots can change their structure to better perform different tasks: Humanoids do it all the time, with all those conveniently placed limbs. Hey, wouldn't it be cool if drones had movable limbs too? Someone should figure out how to do that.