The Islamic extremist group, the deadliest in Africa, has been targeted this year by nearly 30 U.S. military drone strikes after the Trump administration approved expanded operations against it and declared the southern part of the Horn of Africa nation a zone of active hostilities. The U.S. now has more than 500 military personnel in Somalia.

For many, drones are simply a novel gadget, a fun toy to fly around the neighborhood, snapping aerial images or even spying on neighbors. Rapidly growing in popularity, the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) already have been purposed in a variety of scenarios, far beyond their use as robotic toys.

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 two 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. We're not at IREX in Japan this year, sadly, but we're starting to see some videos showing up from the show. Here's a nice long demo of Toyota's new T-HR3, showing how flexible it is.

It's been years now since Amazon revealed its plan to begin using drones for delivery, and the company has slowly been improving and refining the idea ever since. Now, Amazon has been granted a patent on tech that would allow its drones to self-destruct in the event of an emergency. The patent is specifically for "directed fragmentation of unmanned airborne vehicles," or in other words, controlled destruction of drones. The flight controllers can analyze such factors as the drone's flight path, current conditions and the ground it's flying over in order to determine the best way to destroy it in any given situation. If they detect a disruption in its operation, the drone can safely break into multiple pieces and avoid injuring anyone or damaging property.

The U.S. official said armed drone flights could begin as early as next week or at least by the end of December. The memorandum of understanding limits the drones to defensive missions, the official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The dispute highlights growing concern among governments about potential risks associated with the flood of data generated by smartphones, social media and other technology. China has ordered companies to store data about its citizens within this country, which prompted Apple Inc. to announce plans in July to set up a data center in southern China.

With traditional methods, it took 20 hours of surveying and processing labor to obtain a detailed survey of a specific section of the mine site,

What began as a small U.S. training operation has expanded to an 800-strong force that accompanies the Nigeriens on intelligence gathering and other missions. It includes a $100 million drone base in the central Nigerien city of Agadez which at present only deploys surveillance drones.

A memo from the Los Angeles office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau (ICE) has been making the rounds and it states some pretty bold claims about drone-maker DJI. The memo, which was apparently issued in August, says that the officials assess "with moderate confidence that Chinese-based company DJI Science and Technology is providing US critical infrastructure and law enforcement data to the Chinese government." The LA ICE office also says that the information is based on, "open source reporting and a reliable source within the unmanned aerial systems industry with first and secondhand access." Part of the memo focuses on targets that the LA ICE office believes to be of interest to DJI. "DJI's criteria for selecting accounts to target appears to focus on the account holder's ability to disrupt critical infrastructure," it said. The memo goes on to say that DJI is particularly interested in infrastructure like railroads and utilities, companies that provide drinking water as well as weapon storage facilities.

Startups deploying AI can do everything from using drones for medical deliveries to helping lawyers prepare for court. Chen said his firm has invested in Zipline, an AI startup that uses drones to deliver blood to remote places such as western Rwanda. The service is critical to locations that are hard to access by land. "By the time a truck can get there, it may be too late," he said. Medical personnel in the field use an app to order blood by type.