Washington, DC - A US federal appeals court has thrown out a lawsuit by the families of two Yemeni men allegedly killed as innocent bystanders in a US drone strike in 2012 but one of the judges said US "democracy is broken" after announcing the ruling. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel in Washington on Friday upheld a lower court's finding that it had no say over the president's drone programme. The case began in 2015 when two family members of Faisal bin Ali Jaber, who brought the "wrongful death" case against then-President Barack Obama in 2015, were killed by a drone strike Yemen in 2012. Faisal's nephew Waleed, 26, and brother-in-law Salem, a father of seven and noted anti-extremist imam, were killed in the strike alongwith three others. Faisal's lawsuit requested an apology from the US government and declaration that the strike was unlawful.

Wooden propellers lie on a stripped-down drone, among tyres and gas canisters. Elsewhere, a four-wheeled contraption stands silent, preparing for its deadly mission. As the battle for Mosul rages on, Iraqi forces recently discovered this ISIS factory which has been making various death machines - from aerial drones to multi-wheeled robot bombs. The crude hardware was unearthed in a warehouse in the Al-Shifa neighbourhood on the fringes of the Islamic State-occupied Old City. Working with whatever they can salvage, the jihadis have been retrofitting hobby drones with explosives and, in some cases, building devices from metal pipes and repurposed small engines - including from motorbikes.

Dubai, the Future City, recently announced its plans to debut self-flying taxis this year. Now, Dubai Police is taking its force to the next level with small autonomous patrol cars equipped with drones, according to Gulf News (via The Verge). The self-driving police cars are expected to hit the road by the end of the year. The vehicles will come with biometric software that will scan individuals it comes across, looking out for criminals and those who are suspected of breaking the law. The police car, which is equipped with 360-degree cameras, will patrol different locations in Dubai, will be on the lookout for suspicious activity and will scan crowds.

Facebook plans to develop a fleet of drone s powered by sunlight that will fly for months at a time, communicating with each other through lasers and extending internet connectivity to the ground below. The company called the first test, in June 2016, a success after it flew above the Arizona desert for 1 hour and 36 minutes, three times longer than planned. The second test occurred on May 22, Martin Luis Gomez, Facebook's director of aeronautical platforms, said in a blog post. The aircraft flew for an hour and 46 minutes before landing near Yuma, Arizona, with only "a few minor, easily-repairable dings," he said.

Facebook's gigantic Aquila drone has the wingspan of a 737 - but can ruj on the power of three hairdryers. The revolutionary craft has completed its second test flight as Facebook works on its plan to use to beam the internet to people in remote areas with no mobile network coverage. However, while the craft aced its flight, the landing left a little to be desired as the craft damaged its propellers. The aircraft flew for 1 hour and 46 minutes, and landed at the Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) in Yuma, Arizona. 'A few seconds before landing, the autopilot stopped the propellers as planned in order to lock them horizontally,' Facebook's Martin Luis Gomez said.

Let me ask you this: Do you trust other drivers? If you answered yes, then you've never been in a car, or used a crosswalk, or gone outside. Good news is, technology will eliminate horrible human decision-making with self-driving cars. But then you've got another beast to deal with: the flying car. Can you imagine a world where Mr. Bean is allowed to roam the sky? Well have no fear, because MIT researchers have crafted a beautifully orchestrated framework for how a swarm of driving and flying robots might share the streets and air without kickstarting a societal meltdown.

Is it possible to kill an entire category of sports before the world really knows about? A new bill, set to regulate drones in the state of California, contains a single vague line that could shut down an entire world of drone sports. In its current form, California Senate Bill 347 says "A person shall not weaponize a remote piloted aircraft or operate a weaponized remote piloted aircraft." Without exceptions for sporting use or clarifying what, exactly, a weaponized drone is, California's "State Remote Piloted Aircraft Act" could end drone duels, and limit what exactly a future sport could be. Drone combat, originally done under the moniker "Game of Drones," is like a flying version of BattleBots, with human pilots steering unmanned machines into combat against each other, with the last machine still flying declared the winner.

Amazon's drone delivery program stopped being a joke a while ago, but the company still has to overcome serious challenges to make the technology actually work. One of these is getting drones near enough to large populations so they're more efficient than regular road delivery. Amazon has an idea for that though: Huge.

Earlier this month, a resident in a rural province of South Korea found a small, sky-blue unmanned plane perched nose-up against a tree in a remote forest. The drone belonged to the North Korean military and apparently had flown south for five hours, capturing images of a sensitive new U.S. anti-missile system before crashing. It lacked missiles or other weapons like the larger, more advanced models used by U.S. forces in the Middle East. But South Korean officials and security experts consider such flights unlawful incursions. As world powers focus on North Korea's emerging nuclear capabilities, its drone program is raising concerns about espionage and aggravating already tense relations with its southern neighbor.

DRONE warfare, once the sole pursuit of the US military, is being democratised. Islamic State (ISIS) has deployed consumer drones carrying grenades in the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul, creating the most daunting problem US Special Operations Command troops faced in Iraq during 2016, according to their commander Raymond Thomas. Groups around the world are taking advantage of the increasing accessibility of drone technology to build and deploy them as weapons (see "Home-grown drones"). And it's not hard to imagine them being used in an attack in the West; the bomber responsible for the May attack on a concert Leader: "Drone blowback: High-tech weapons come home to roost"