Japanese carmaker Toyota has announced its backing for a group of engineers who are developing a flying car. It will give 40 million yen (£274, 000) to the Cartivator group that operates outside Toyota city in central Japan. The Nikkei Asian Review reports Toyota and its group companies have agreed in principle to support the project. So far crowdfunding has paid for development of the so-called Skydrive car, which uses drone technology and has three wheels and four rotors. Measuring 9.5ft (2.9m) by 4.3ft (1.3m), Skydrive claims to be the world's smallest flying car.

This e-newsletter marks the sun setting on the career of GeoIntelligence Insider columnist and contributing editor Art Kalinski, long active in geospatial circles. Art is handing the journalistic reins to William Tewelow, a former intelligence specialist with the U.S. Navy. He also served a special assignment at the U.S. Department of Transportation and is currently a manager with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Every issue of this newsletter also brings you the latest news on both expanding fronts, hardware and software, in the defense and security realm. Counter-drone technology research and operation efforts are helping to prepare for the potential threat of drone swarms.

Eric Sondheimer has been covering high school sports for the Los Angeles Times since 1997 and in Southern California since 1976. Get his latest from the field and follow all our prep sports coverage and analysis here. The Southern Section Division 1 track and field preliminary meet at Trubuco Hills High School on Saturday featured a water balloon attack from a lone drone. Near the start of the meet, around 11:30 a.m., a group of people positioned themselves on the hill above the track and allegedly flew a drone carrying water balloons over the track. One race official remarked that the water balloons were completely decimated upon impact.

Autonomous cars haven't even fully hit the roads yet, and companies are already touting the potential benefits of autonomous drones in the sky – from package delivery and industrial inspection, all the way to modern warfare. But a drone presents new levels of challenges beyond a car. While a self-driving car or land-based autonomous robot at least has the ground underneath it to use as a baseline, drones potentially will have a full 360-degree space to move around in and must avoid all of the inherent obstacles and pitfalls associated with this. Speaking at the 2017 GPU Technology Conference (GTC), a team of engineers from Nvidia believe the solution to having freely autonomous drones lies in deep learning. Their research has already yielded a fully autonomous drone flight through a 1 km forest path while traveling at 3 m/s, the first flight of its kind according to Nvidia.

Video shows how narwhals use their iconic tusks to hunt fish. Filmed near Nunavut, Canada, a narwhal can be seen tapping a fish with its tusk. The unicorn of the sea just got a little less mysterious. Until now, how narwhals used their long tusks had been subject to much speculation by scientists. Behavior captured for the first time on camera shows narwhals using the long tusks protruding from their heads to stun Arctic cod by hitting them, using jagged, quick movements.

Unlike typical consumer-aimed quadcopter drones, Latvian company Aerones specializes in big UAVs that can carry hefty loads. Last year, they showed off one of their big lifter's prowess by towing YouTuber Kaspars Balamovskis on a snowboarding run. Today, they released another stunt video spotlighting one of their heavy lifters hauling a man a thousand feet in the air -- before he let go to skydive back down to earth. Aerones' 28-rotor drone picked up skydiver Ingus Augustkalns from a tower before climbing to 330 meters, at which point he lets go to parachute to the ground. The not-so-typical video is one of several on Aerones' site that flex its drones' capabilities to pull off extreme stunts.

It could be the next big thing in extreme sports – 'drone-diving'. Daredevil skydiver Ingus Augstkalns was lifted 1,082 feet (330 meters) into the air by a 28-propeller drone, dropped and parachuted safely back to the earth. Although the feat makes for an entertaining spectacle, Aerones, the creator of the massive drone, foresees the unmanned aerial vehicle being used in rescue missions. It could be the next big thing in extreme sports – 'drone-diving'. The drone measures 34 feet (3.2sqm), boasts 16 rotors and weighs 154 pounds (70kg).

The Federal Aviation Administration exists to keep the skies safe for people. In the past two years, that task has grown much more complex. The FAA added an unprecedented number of new pilots: 770,000 registered drone operators, which is almost 200,000 more than the 584,000 total pilot certificates held in 2016. As one might expect, that massive increase in people operating flying machine is accompanied by a jump in how many pilots saw strange airborne objects. What didn't change, even as hundreds of thousands of drones joined the skies over the United States, is the number of dangerous close encounters with drones.

Late last month, a federal court dismissed a lawsuit brought against a Kentucky man who shot a drone out of the sky when it allegedly flew over his property in 2015. The man, who used a shotgun to take out the drone, later dubbed himself the "Drone Slayer." The drone operator, who filed the lawsuit in 2016, argued that his DJI Phantom 3 quadcopter, flying at an altitude of some 200 feet, was in federally protected airspace and was in no way trespassing based on the Federal Aviation Administration's rules and even the trespassing laws of his state, which according to his suit prohibit a person from intruding, not a drone. In short, it wasn't because it thought this drone operator was incorrect; it was because it didn't deem the matter important enough to make a decision that might influence the delicate balance between federal and states' rights. And one of the justifications for that conclusion was that the FAA hadn't involved itself in the incident.

Andrew Studer was admiring a massive lava fire hose at Hawaii Volcanoes national park when he spotted something unusual: a small quadcopter drone flying very close to the natural wonder pouring hot molten rock. "There were other visitors sitting out relaxing in somewhat of a meditative state, just trying to enjoy this phenomenon," said Studer, who recently captured a viral image of a drone hovering near the lava. "I do feel like drones are extremely obnoxious, and I'm sure it was frustrating for some of the people there." In recent years, there have been growing concerns about technology invading national parks, with drones and other noisy gadgets disrupting wilderness areas, wildlife habitats and other recreational areas. While the boom in drones has increasingly spoiled the natural sound that the National Park Service (NPS) is charged with protecting, there has also been a rising number of reports of social media use leading hikers to snap inappropriate and dangerous selfies, threatening wildlife and the environment in the process.