FILE - In this June 7, 2010 file photo, Mexican forensic experts examine the body of 14-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca under the Paso Del Norte border bridge in the city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The Supreme Court appears to be evenly divided about the right of Mexican parents to use American courts to sue a U.S. Border Patrol agent who fired across the U.S.-Mexican border and killed their teenage son. FILE - In this June 7, 2010 file photo, Mexican forensic experts examine the body of 14-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca under the Paso Del Norte border bridge in the city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The Supreme Court appears to be evenly divided about the right of Mexican parents to use American courts to sue a U.S. Border Patrol agent who fired across the U.S.-Mexican border and killed their teenage son. FILE - In this June 7, 2010 file photo, Mexican federal police and forensic experts stand next to the body of 14 year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, under the Paso Del Norte border bridge, as US officials watch from the US side at right, in Ciudad Juarez, northern Mexico.

A startup called Exyn Technologies Inc. today revealed AI software that enables drones to fly autonomously, even in dark, obstacle-filled environments or beyond the reaches of GPS. A spin out of the University of Pennsylvania's GRASP Labs, Exyn uses sensor fusion to give drones situational awareness much like a human's. In a demo video shared by the company with TechCrunch, a drone using Exyn's AI can be seen waking up and taking in its surroundings. It then navigates from a launch point in a populated office to the nearest identified exit without human intervention. The route is not pre-programmed, and pilots did not manipulate controls to influence the path that the drone takes.

Okay, so maybe the 21st century under-delivered on the whole flying car thing, but it appears we're a lot closer to another form of personal flight than you probably thought. It seems the hoverbike, a tried and true addition to any futuristic science fiction arsenal, is already a reality. Hoversurf just released a trailer for its first fully manned hoverbike, built on a heavy duty drone platform called the Scorpion 3, and it's just as cool as it sounds. The video shows off the team's successful attempt at a fully manned hoverbike -- and just seeing the speedy contraption in action is enough to get your blood pumping -- but the real star of the show here is the Scorpion 3 drone platform. Hoversurf built the Scorpion 3 platform to be used in a number of different applications, and the hoverbike seen here is just one of those.

Package delivery company United Parcel Service tested home delivery by drone in Lithia, Florida, on Monday, the first step in what the company hopes will be a move toward more automated delivery. A drone launched from a UPS car roof, flew autonomously toward its destination, dropped a package and then returned to the vehicle, as the driver separately continued on a delivery route. The Tampa-area test, which UPS said went as expected, came less than a month after UPS said it would push forward investment in automation and technology as the company, along with rival FedEx Corp, struggles with slimmer margins from e-commerce business. The system is aimed at rural routes where deliveries are spread out over a large location. It allows drivers to simply pass close to the final delivery destination on a preprogrammed route.

A Work Horse Group drone that docks on top of a UPS van being tested near Lithia, Florida. SAN FRANCISCO -- Both the drone industry and federal regulators are years away from actual legal drone deliveries in the United States. But that's not stopping companies from testing possibilities, both to get the visual of a drone with their logo out in front of the public and to see what works. UPS was the latest to try something new with drones on Tuesday when it ran a test of a truck-launched drone delivery system for rural areas in Lithia, Fla. The drone-equipped vans would only be used on rural routes, said Mark Wallace, senior vice president for global engineering and sustainability, UPS.

UPS has completed its first ever drone delivery in the US. The delivery firm used a lorry-mounted octocopter to dispatch a package to a blueberry farm outside Tampa, Florida. The drone launched itself off the lorry's retractable roof with the package in tow, travelling around a quarter of a mile to drop it off at a house before returning to the vehicle, which in the meantime had been driven to a different location. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

If your image of the future of drone deliveries involves swarms of quadcopters pouring out of Amazon warehouses like flying monkeys leaving the Wicked Witch's castle, you'll be disappointed. They're far more likely to be dispatched from trucks parked not too far from your house. Anything else is simply too big a hassle. Companies like UPS and Amazon prize efficiency above all, and deploying a fleet of drones from a warehouse in the middle of nowhere wastes time. Making them fly all the way back wastes energy.

A drone launched from a UPS car roof, flew autonomously toward its destination, dropped a package and then returned to the vehicle, as the driver separately continued on a delivery route. The Tampa-area test, which UPS said went as expected, came less than a month after UPS said it would push forward investment in automation and technology as the company, along with rival FedEx Corp. (FDX), struggles with slimmer margins from e-commerce business.

MONT-DE-MARSAN, FRANCE – Faced with the risk of drones being used to snoop or carry out attacks on French soil, the air force is showing its claws. At Mont-de-Marsan in southwestern France a quartet of fearsome golden eagles is being trained to take out unmanned aircraft in mid-flight. The roar of a departing Rafale fighter jet gives way to the buzz of a drone lifting into the air on a runway at the air base, some 130 km (80 miles) south of Bordeaux. Suddenly, a loud squawk fills the air as a beady-eyed eagle bears down at breakneck speed from a control tower 200 meters (about 220 yards) away. In about 20 seconds the raptor has the drone between its talons, then pins it to the ground and covers it with its broad brown wings.

One of the biggest challenges in building autonomous vehicles is dealing with the irregularities of physical spaces outdoors: From electric poles to winding roads and bumpy terrain, there are lots of things that can trip up your creation. With that in mind, a team of researchers at Microsoft have built and open sourced a simulation tool to help people train autonomous cars, drones and robots learn how to avoid obstacles just like they would in the real world. It's called the Aerial Informatics and Robotics Platform, or AirSim for short. Available for Linux and Windows, it lets you generate a random environment to train your bot or vehicle, experiment with various models and test in a range of scenarios right in your workshop. It's worth noting that the software isn't designed to entirely replace real-world testing, but rather to complement it by allowing you to simulate a wide range of experiments on demand and as many times as necessary. In addition to creating detailed environments that mimic the real world, AirSim also incorporates realistic physics systems to accurately simulate various lighting conditions and object clusters (such as a bunch of trees) to help train robotic models in understanding how to compute depth, avoid obstacles and deal with shadows and glare when navigating through outdoor spaces.