Wu has used the drones in two ways for his dramatic, surreal photos. In the first technique, he attached LED lamps to 3D Robotics drones and set them off on GPS-controlled flights. He took the photos with a medium format Phase One camera while the drone was stationary, experimenting with the height, angle and distance from the subject. Once back home, he layered the photos together until the image matched his vision. For later photos, he created time-lapse exposures while the drones ran in set circles around the rock pinnacles, tracing out "halos" in the sky.

Google has partnered with the United States Department of Defence to help the agency develop artificial intelligence for analysing drone footage, a move that set off a firestorm among employees of the technology giant when they learned of Google's involvement. Google's pilot project with the Defence Department's Project Maven, an effort to identify objects in drone footage, has not been previously reported, but it was discussed widely within the company last week when information about the project was shared on an internal mailing list, according to sources who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly about the project. Some Google employees were outraged that the company would offer resources to the military for surveillance technology involved in drone operations, sources said, while others argued that the project raised important ethical questions about the development and use of machine learning. Google's Eric Schmidt summed up the tech industry's concerns about collaborating with the Pentagon at a talk last spring. "There's a general concern in the tech community of somehow the military-industrial complex using their stuff to kill people incorrectly," he said.

On Tuesday, a privacy and security report published by Gizmodo revealed that Google and the Pentagon are collaborating on developing drones. Known as Project Maven, the Department of Defense pilot project involves analyzing, combing through, defining, and categorizing visual data amassed by aerial drones. It wouldn't be too far off to say the project would function as the Pentagon's all-seeing eye. According to Greg Allen, a Center for a New American Society adjunct fellow, the current amount of obtained footage is so vast it isn't possible for human analysts at the defense agency to sift through it and correctly define objects in the footage. As it stands, the United States' drone strike program is already criticized by human rights groups like Reprieve for reportedly killing hundreds of civilians in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and beyond in spite of claims of "surgical" precision from former CIA director John Brennan in 2011.

A program called Project Maven is utilising the technology to automate the analysis of objects in the enormous amount of images that are captured by the Department of Defence's surveillance drones - also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Gizmodo reported that some Google employees were "outraged that the company would offer resources to the military for surveillance technology involved in drone operations". There have been almost 30,000 coalition strikes against targets in Iraq and Syria since the US-led intervention in 2014, the intelligence behind many of which is developed by analysis of UAV surveillance footage. Google confirmed that software called TensorFlow was being used by the Pentagon for a pilot and said it had "long worked with government agencies to provide technology solutions". A Google spokesperson said: "The technology flags images for human review, and is for non-offensive uses only.

The HQ-40 drone, made by Tuscon, Ariz.-based Latitude Engineering, can carry samples for medical testing in a refrigerated container. The HQ-40 drone, made by Tuscon, Ariz.-based Latitude Engineering, can carry samples for medical testing in a refrigerated container. One shred of solace that surfaced as hurricanes and tropical storms pummeled Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico last fall was the opportunity to see drones realize some of their life-saving potential. During those disasters unmanned aircraft surveyed wrecked roads, bridges and rail lines. They spotted oil and gas leaks.

Gervais' beaked whales are easily one of the most elusive mammals to swim through our oceans. Most of the information we have about them comes from studies of corpses that have washed ashore, and the first live whale was only spotted about 20 years ago. On February 27, photographer and videographer Patrick Dykstra captured what may be the first drone or aerial footage of Gervais' beaked whales. He was filming about three miles off the west coast of Dominica in the Caribbean Sea. Dykstra and his Picture Adventure Expeditions team accidentally came across the rare beaked whales when they were filming sperm whales for an upcoming production.

Scientists are recruiting members of the public to help clean up the shores of Great Britain. Plastic waste is scattered across the beaches of the UK and a computer programme is being developed to help spot the litter. The charity campaign needs human volunteers to help train an artificial intelligence algorithm that will automatically spot plastic in pictures taken by drones. Plastic Tide, the charity behind the project, hopes to harness cutting edge drone and algorithm technology to create an open source map of the plastic pollution problem. Peter Kohler, founder and director of The Plastic Tide, said: 'Marine creatures die each year through starvation due to eating plastic that stays in their stomach, making them feel full.

The spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban says the son of their chief, Mullah Fazlullah, was among 21 "holy warriors" killed this week when missiles fired by a U.S. drone struck a seminary in Afghanistan.

Audi is getting on board a flying car being developed by Airbus by bringing its autonomous driving technology to the table. First Porsche expressed interest in a flying taxi, and now Audi has partnered with Airbus and Italdesign to bring a self-driving car with flying drone capabilities to life. Together, the companies presented the Pop.Up Next concept at the 2018 Geneva International Motor Show this week, an evolution of the Pop.Up concept unveiled by Airbus and Italdesign one year ago. The electric vehicle has an airborne range of 81 miles. The latest version of the concept adds self-driving capability on the ground using technology Audi is developing for its own self-driving cars of the future.

There isn't much space between your ears, but what's in there can do many things that a computer of the same size never could. Your brain is also vastly more energy efficient at interpreting the world visually or understanding speech than any computer system. That's why academic and corporate labs have been experimenting with "neuromorphic" chips modeled on features seen in brains. These chips have networks of "neurons" that communicate in spikes of electricity (see "Thinking in Silicon"). They can be significantly more energy-efficient than conventional chips, and some can even automatically reprogram themselves to learn new skills.