An UberEats, operated by Uber Technologies Inc., branded box sits on a motor scooter in London, U.K. Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg In a few years, you may order food from UberEats, and a flying drone may deliver it to your door. The Wall Street Journal reported that Uber plans to launch food-delivery drones by 2021. A job post, which Uber later removed from its website, indicated that the company was looking for an operations manager to handle delivery drones. Uber Technologies Inc. has a ridesharing app that allows drivers, who work as independent contractors, to connect with people who need a need ride. The company also owns UberEats, which lets people deliver food from local restaurants.

For island nations and countries without the infrastructure for reliable transportation, drones can do more than take photos or collect data: they can transport supplies to save lives. The Pacific island country of Vanuatu, for instance, has teamed up with UNICEF and two drone companies to deliver vaccines to rural areas. Vanuatu is composed of 83 islands spread over an area that covers 1,600 kilometers ( 1,000 miles). To deliver vaccines to its more rural communities, health workers often have to walk for hours -- sometimes, it can even take them days by cars and/or boats. Drones could ensure that local health facilities have quick access to lifesaving supplies when needed.

SAN, FRANCISCO/BEIJING – DJI, the world's top seller of drones for consumers, has snagged a pair of wins in its effort to court businesses. SZ DJI Technology Co. Ltd. said its latest industrial gadget -- the Mavic 2 -- will soon survey power grids for U.S. utility Southern Co., while American Airlines Group Inc. will test the craft for plane inspections. Those are important alliances for the Chinese company, which is grappling with a U.S. government shut-out, a potentially damaging patent lawsuit and rising American tariffs. Privacy is a particularly thorny issue for DJI -- one of the few Chinese technology giants that's made major strides abroad. Escalating U.S. tensions are fueling concerns about the dominance of a Chinese company in unmanned flying craft.

Israel's Airobotics today announced it has raised a $30 million round of funding as the company continues to build out its U.S. operations. Founded in 2014, the company has developed a commercial pilotless drone that self-deploys and then returns to its base, where robotic arms handle chores like changing the battery and various components. No human intervention is needed. The drones have proven to be particularly popular with mining companies, but are targeting a wide range of industries such as utilities and warehouses. In late September, the company announced it was opening a North American headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona to oversee its business in South America and Central America as well.

If a recent demonstration in Canada is any indication, the digital vineyard of the future might very well receive scientific data in real-time gathered by drones and transferred via a cell network. Global UAV Technologies Ltd., Jöst Vineyards, VineView (Scientific Aerial Imaging Inc.) and a major Canadian telecommunications company recently completed a 4G proof-of-concept mission in in Malagash, Nova Scotia, to demonstrate a real-word application of drone technology for a project called the "Digital Vineyard of the Future." "Fine wine making is in the growing of grapes with specific qualities, where many variables have to be taken into consideration," said Jonathan Rodwell, director of viticulture and winemaking for Jöst Vineyards. "We see these emerging technologies offering excellent opportunities for integrated measurement and management of our vineyards and focus on precision viticulture." Global UAV provided a 4G-enabled, Procyon 800E helicopter drone platform with a specialized multi-spectral imaging payload.

Dronemaker DJI has warned that some of its unmanned aerial vehicles are suddenly falling out of the sky mid-flight. The company says there have been a'small number' of reports surrounding its Matrice 200 series drones, where a power issue is causing them to crash mid-flight. However, the warning has prompted UK police to ground some of their drones. DJI says there have been a'small number' of reports surrounding its Matrice 200 series drones (pictured), where a power issue is causing them to crash mid-flight The United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority issued a safety notice saying that some 200 model drones lost power mid-flight and dropped straight down to the ground. In one case, a drone experienced an'in-flight issue' and landed on the roof of a commercial building.

Some DJI drones are falling from the sky and no one is sure why. The United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) issued a safety notice Friday warning that some DJI Matrice 200 model drones have lost power mid-flight without warning and dropped straight down. The Chinese drone maker acknowledged the issue and said that it is working to address the matter. According to the CAA, there have been a small number of incidents reported in which the Matrice 200 has completely lost power during flight. The problem occurs even when there appears to be charge remaining in the drone's battery.

Last week, Stanford researchers revealed that that they had built tiny drones that can open doors. I'm not sure I'm happy about this: How will we keep the robots out of our houses if they can just open the doors? But this is also pretty cool. These tiny drones (or micro air vehicles) are able to pull super heavy loads as compared to their own weight--up to a factor of 40. Well, I guess it's crazy--crazy awesome.

Three Palestinian boys aged between 13 and 14 have been killed in an Israeli air raid in the southeastern Gaza Strip, according to health officials.

Since the concept of "machines learning" was introduced in the 1950s, the field has gone from a cryptic domain understood by a few (Turing, Markov, Legendre, Laplace or Bayes) to a technology that every company must deploy. Every day we hear how data and automation improve our shopping experiences, our online searches and enables fraud prevention and cybersecurity routines to do more, faster and better for us. Now, the amalgamates created around Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data are bound to confuse industry observers or investors who aren't familiar with the technical details. If you're asking yourself: "What's the difference between Big Data and Machine Learning?", then for the sake of my piece, simply think about it this way: "Big Data is Machine Learning's great uncle". Machine Learning doesn't need Big Data to exist.