An Associated Press investigation finds that Russian cyber spies exploiting a national vulnerability in cybersecurity are trying to break into the emails of scores of people working on military drone technology. An accused Russian hacker blamed for attacking LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring is finally facing American prosecutors after a lengthy extradition fight in the Czech Republic. Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin is due to appear in U.S. federal court in California on Thursday for a detention hearing. It's unclear whether Nikulin has any connection to the Russian troll farm the Internet Research Agency, which is widely blamed by American authorities for interfering in the 2016 presidential election. But only two days after Nikulin's arrest, American officials for the first time publicly warned that the Russian government was directing efforts to influence the election by hacking and releasing private information.

In a park, perched on San Francisco's east bay, I set down Skydio's R1 drone, open an app on my phone, click "launch" and do something I would normally never do. I walk straight under a tree, knowing full well that the R1 will follow me and that the branches are directly in its flight path; I am trying to make it crash. I repeat this task a few more times, even with the drone flying backward but, try as I might, the R1 slips right under (and sometimes over) the tree's canopy. I am doing nothing but walking, no controller or phone in my hand; the R1 is figuring this all out by itself. Should I be surprised at this?

The number of utility companies in the United States is creating value with drone technology. On the other hand, Europe has also been able to use the UAV's in faster, cheaper and safer completion of the project. One of the companies named'ENGIE' used the drone technology to inspect vital components in power plants. Innovation is the major aim of the ENGIE's development. With the usage of drones in the inspection the risk have been reduced plus the work completion have become much faster.

Darren Aronofsky, an American filmmaker and writer, used drones to capture the Earth's beauty in one of his 10-part National Geographic series called'One Strange Rock.' "You'll see a lot of drone shots and aerial shots and actually full frame camera shots where the camera's spinning or turning, and this is something that you see a lot of in Darren's films anyway," said Arif Nurmohamed, Executive Producer. People who have watched the trailer of'One Strange Rock' have found it stunning, with a lot of wonderful aerial shots covered via drones. The global community of camera-drone enthusiasts will appreciate the inventive ways in which the drone technology is being employed.

The University of Michigan's autonomous vehicle testing grounds are no longer limited to earthbound machines. It just opened M-Air, a 9,600 square foot, four-story facility designed for testing autonomous aircraft outdoors. The complex lets researchers test drones in realistic lighting and wind conditions, but includes netting that prevents wayward drones from smacking into people or other aircraft. The addition enables the kind of experiments that would previously have required permission to fly outside. Researchers already have a few examples of what they can do.

China's Legal Daily reported today that officials in the country just shut down a major smartphone smuggling scheme. A total of 26 suspects were arrested in connection with the plot. The individuals allegedly used drones to string two cables between Shenzhen in southern China and Hong Kong and with the setup, they could reportedly transport as many as 15,000 phones in a single night. Those arrested are accused of smuggling 500 million yuan (approximately $79.5 million) worth of smartphones. Attempts to smuggle devices from Hong Kong to China are fairly common.

A law requiring that a safety assistant be present during long-distance commercial drone operations will be scrapped, according to new rules announced Thursday by the transport and industry ministries. Under the rule change planned for the end of the year, when flying a drone that moves beyond an operator's line of sight, a safety assistant will no longer be required to keep the aircraft in view if flight safety can be fully ensured remotely through devices such as cameras and sensors. The government is seeking to make it easier for companies to use drones to deliver packages to difficult-to-reach places, with the aim of making them able to fully service mountainous areas by the end of the year. The new rules also say that, regardless of whether an operator is accompanied by an assistant, a drone that is out of sight must have a long safety record and stay below an altitude of 150 meters.

Last year, Yuneec announced an SDK for its six-rotor commercial UAV, the H520. That drone has thermal capabilities as well, but that developer's kit was strictly software-based, unlike DJI's, which integrates third-party hardware. If other drone companies want to catch up to DJI, they have a lot of ground to make up. Reports put the company's total market share in North America at 50 percent, which includes the sub-$500 drone segment in which smaller, toy-like crafts do huge volume. DJI also just signed a deal with Japanese construction firm Komatsu to create a fleet of drones running a custom machine-learning software.

Authorities arrested 26 suspects who used drones to fly two 200-meter (660-feet) cables between Hong Kong and the mainland to transport refurbished iPhones with a total value of 500 million yuan, the paper said in a report on the crackdown by Shenzhen and Hong Kong customs.

The Marine Corps has held 10 days of battle simulations and exercises to test out new urban warfare technologies. The exercises, dubbed Urban 5th Generation Marine Exploration and Experimentation 2018 (U5G), ran from March 15 to 25 in Camp Pendelton in southern California. Multiple naval warfare centers and military laboratories joined 48 private companies for U5G, where NCOs tested out some 79 technologies and offered feedback. The experimental equipment included anti-drone weapons, sensors that see through walls, 'smart' networked radio, micro drones, an enhanced thermal imager with information displays, as well as autonomous vehicles and enhanced munitions. 'This whole week was introducing us to new technology and getting feedback from us as the end user,' said Marine Sgt.