AeroVironment said it delivered 20 of the 5-ounce (140-gram) Snipe unmanned aircraft to its first U.S. government client in April. The company declined to identify the government agency that purchased the drones, but Aviation Week reported last year that AeroVironment was developing prototypes for the U.S. Army.

A suicide prevention group will dispatch a drone to monitor remote areas around Tojinbo in Fukui Prefecture -- whose lonely cliffs remain romanticized in popular imagination as a destination where people go to end their lives -- in the hopes that the technology will enhance efforts to minimize the suicide rate. Retired police officer Yukio Shige, the 73-year-old head of the nonprofit group, said that although there has been a decline in the total number of people leaping off the cliffs in recent years, suicide remains a persistent problem. "This year we have managed to stop five people from committing suicide but five is a very small number; it's only one per month," Shige said, adding that far more still think about killing themselves. "So far we've monitored (Tojinbo) by ourselves but with the use of drones we could reach places that the human eye can't see." The group's 16 members -- made up of retired police officers, academics and company workers -- patrol the cliffs six times a week, from 11 a.m. until sunset.

The French dronemaker Parrot is following up on its plans to shift away from consumer drones with a new Pro line rebranding a couple of its existing UAVs for commercial use. The company has refreshed its fixed-wing Disco model for aerial surveillance of farms and agricultural setups, while it's repurposed its quadcopter Bebop drone to capture building footage for later 3D modeling. The Parrot Professional line, as the company calls it, is the culmination of its moves toward courting the commercial sector. The drone maker had long been known for its popular consumer-facing AR.Drone that debuted in 2010, but in lieu of losing its market dominance to DJI, had started introducing prosumer features like FPV video goggles and "follow me" modes. Then it laid off a third of its drone production workforce in January.

Nicolas Vuignier is perpetually reinventing the wheel. As a professional skier and filmmaker, he is in two professions in which ingenuity thrives. Last year, he tied his iPhone to a string and spun it around as he skied, creating impressive 360-degree footage. Now, Vuignier has returned with a new device that allows for yet another unique shot. The camera, based on a Kickstarter project called AER, is essentially a Nerf football with a GoPro taped to the back.

U.S. Special Forces killed the head of the Islamic State group in Afghanistan last month, officials confirmed Sunday. Abdul Hasib died in a joint Afghan-U.S. operation in Nangarhar province April 27, Reuters reported. Hasib, who had been leading the faction since predecessor Hafiz Saeed Khan died in a U.S. drone strike last year, was believed the architect of several high-profile attacks, including a March 8 attack on Kabul's main military hospital that left dozens of medical staff and patients dead. Afghan President Ashrab Ghani also has accused Hasib of ordering the beheading of local elders in front of their families and the kidnapping of women and girls, who were forced to marry ISIS fighters. Two U.S. Army Rangers also died in the attack that killed Hasib, part of an operation that included drone strikes that began in March along the border with Pakistan. Last month, the U.S. dropped "the mother of all bombs" on a network of caves, killing 94 fighters.

Columnist Jennifer Jolly shows you the coolest tech for Mother's Day. From unicorn roses to selfie drones, here are unusual gadget gifts for mom. Hey! Mother's Day is right around the corner (May 14th). From Unicorn roses to selfie drones, here are all the gadget gifts no one else would ever think of -- except a mom who covers tech for a living. Moms like me love to capture every moment of our family's lives.

Battalions of insect cyborgs - stealthier than any man-made mini-drone - could soon hit the skies to join the fight against terrorism. Draper, along with Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Janelia Research Campus, have created cyborg dragonflies in an effort to aid intelligence and reconnaissance. Known as DragonflEye, the project would allow the US military and intelligence services to deploy these cyborgs as micro-drones capable of spying for their masters. In addition to the secretive nature of the drones, they're also expected to be more agile, lighter and smaller. The US military, like others around the world, has long pursued tiny flying robots to deploy for surveillance.

A glimpse into how courier services could soon become automated by drones has been revealed by IBM. A new patent application suggests the firm is working on a fleet of drones that pass packages mid-air. And the proposals could overcome a number of key obstacles for the use of drones in home delivery. A patent granted to tech giant IBM would see a fleet of drones pass packages mid-air. A customer's own personal drone would be sent out to meet the delivery drones (pictured) for the last leg of the journey, ensuring the parcel's safe delivery A patent granted to IBM would allow drones to play aerial games of pass the parcel, extending the range of drone delivery.

Amazon is expanding its R&D facilities in Cambridge, UK, with a plan to move into a new 60,000 sq ft site in the city with capacity for more than 400 staff. Cambridge University, one of the UK's top tier academic institutions, has a strong focus on science -- explaining why a raft of tech firms (not just Amazon) have chosen to site R&D efforts there. Announcing the expansion of its Cambridge development operations yesterday, Amazon said staff at the site will include machine learning scientists, knowledge engineers, data scientists, mathematical modellers, speech scientists and software engineers, with teams set to work on programs including its drone delivery effort, Prime Air; Amazon devices; and Alexa, its AI voice assistant tech. It said its existing development building in the city, at Castle Hill, will be used primarily for research and development related to its drone delivery efforts, once the new One The Square R&D facility opens this fall. The new R&D building is located in the business district adjacent to Cambridge train station, putting it less than an hour by rail from London.

The Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System is an unmanned ground vehicle for reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition missions. From April 11–15, 2016, at the United Nations Office at Geneva, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) conducted a third year of informal meetings to hear expert testimony regarding a preemptive ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). A total of 94 states attended the meeting, and at the end of the week they agreed by consensus to recommend the formation of an open-ended Group of Government Experts (GGE). A GGE is the next step in forging a concrete proposal upon which the member states could vote. By the end of 2016 a preemptive ban has been called for by 19 states. Furthermore, meaningful human control, a phrase first proposed by advocates for a ban, has been adopted by nearly all the states, although the phrase's meaning is contested. Thus a ban on LAWS would appear to have gained momentum. Even the large military powers, notably the U.S., have publicly stated that they will support a ban if that is the will of the member states.