Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. CES isn't really a venue for the launch of flagship robotics products anymore (if it ever was), but we still see some high profile introductions from large companies looking to make a splash. Besides LG, Honda was the other notable, with a couple strange robots (and one kind of familiar looking).

Boeing unveiled a prototype for a massive remote-controlled drone Wednesday, meant to deliver cargo up to 500 pounds. Eventually, it wants the drone to fly itself. Such ambitions put the plane maker in direct competition with Amazon, which in December 2013 said it was developing Prime Air drone delivery service. Both companies say their drones are intended to be able to deliver goods within at least a 10-mile radius. Amazon's drones, however, are only intended to carry packages up to five pounds--a payload that the retailer says encompasses nearly 90% of its sales.

Jan 7, 2018; Las Vegas, NV; Drone pilot Colby Curtola flies a small consumer drone at the Fat Shark display during the annual Drone Rodeo held annually the day before the start of the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. Drone Shark is showing off their first drone which will be sold in a complete kit for $249. The Drone Rodeo brings together manufacturers and pilots and media and drone enthusiasts where they can get a close up look at new drones and technology.

On the floor of CES, LG's CLOi service robots got a lot of attention. But just across the parking lot from the Las Vegas Convention Center, two service robots--both Relay robots from San Jose-based Savioke--are quietly at work. These robots, tagged Elvis and Priscilla, are full-time employees of the Renaissance Hotel, and they aren't getting a lot of attention. When Priscilla navigated through the crowded lobby to make a delivery on Wednesday, only a few people pulled out cameras. Others casually brushed by, sometimes giving it a little pat as they passed.

The annual trend-setting tech extravaganza that is CES International in Las Vegas is drawing to a close, having suffered through torrential rain, blackouts and a few uncooperative robots. And it's clear that your voice is more important than ever. CES 2018 rammed home that big technology thinks voice is the next major evolution in computing. First we had the computer, then the smartphone and now voice assistants. Smart speakers such as Amazon's popular Echo devices and Google's Home, which both had a killer Christmas, are just one outlet for the artificial intelligence-powered voice assistant. Google reverse-ferreted from its Google own-brand strategy to follow Amazon's led in opening up its Assistant voice system to third-parties.

As flying, camera-wielding machines get ever cheaper and more ubiquitous, inventors of anti-drone technologies are marketing every possible idea for protection from hovering eyes in the sky: Drone-spotting radar. Now one group of Israeli researchers has developed a new technique for that drone-control arsenal--one that can not only detect that a drone is nearby, but determine with surprising precision if it's spying on you, your home, or your high-security facility. Researchers at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheva, Israel have built a proof-of-concept system for counter-surveillance against spy drones that demonstrates a clever, if not exactly simple, way to determine whether a certain person or object is under aerial surveillance. They first generate a recognizable pattern on whatever subject--a window, say--someone might want to guard from potential surveillance. Then they remotely intercept a drone's radio signals to look for that pattern in the streaming video the drone sends back to its operator.

The Pakistani assertion that Votel said no unilateral action inside Pakistan was being considered may have referred to the possibility of cross-border U.S. drone strikes and other military missions targeting Taliban and other militant figures outside the border area.

Drones used to attack two Russian military bases in Syria were so high-tech they were designed to offset jamming technology, were capable of launching precision strikes and could not have been made without foreign assistance, the defence ministry in Moscow has said . The ministry's drone department head Gen Alexander Novikov said the drones used in the weekend's raids differed from the rudimentary craft earlier used by rebels in Syria. The attacks required satellite navigation data that are not available on the internet, complex engineering works and elaborate tests, Gen Novikov said. Analysts say the drones present the biggest military challenge so far to Russia's role in Syria'The creation of drones of such class is impossible in makeshift conditions,' Novikov said. 'Their development and use requires the involvement of experts with special training in the countries that manufacture and use drones.' The ministry said Saturday's raid on the Hemeimeem air base in the province of Lattakia and Russia's naval facility in the port of Tartus involved 13 drones.

In the future, autonomy won't just mean you can relax in the passenger seat on your drive home from work. Driverless vehicles of all kinds are set to revolutionize the cargo industry, too, from delivering a pizza or dropping off an Amazon package, to hauling much larger shipments across continents and the high seas. Naturally, Boeing is one of many companies investing in cargo planes of tomorrow, and is keen to show off some of its early work in the form of a huge octocopter capable of carrying loads of up to 500 pounds (over 250kg). In less than three months, Boeing eggheads built and carried out successful test flights of the all-electric prototype, possibly (but unofficially) breaking a Guinness world record in the process. The rough-and-ready concoction of metal and batteries measures 15 feet long, 18 feet wide and 4 feet tall, weighing in at 747 pounds (nearly 339kg).

The Associated Press sought details of applications submitted by the state of Connecticut and several cities through the Freedom of Information Act. It's part of a national look at what cities and states are offering the internet giant and how much they spent to make those pitches.