This self-flying drone phone case has a camera attached to help people take perfect selfies from any angle. The quirky contraption known as'SELFLY' wraps around any smart phone and then can be unclipped and allowed to glide around independently, so users can get perfect social media snaps from a variety of angles. Funding is currently being sought for the device on Kickstarter, with backers able to reserve their own for $99 (£79). It is a flying camera that can fold into a 9mm thin phone case. HD video is recorded to RAM and stored as raw data.

When you think of the rapid evolution of technology, the first thing that comes to mind is likely self-driving cars or artificial intelligence, not the real estate industry. But just because the real estate industry is not at the forefront of the technological revolution, it doesn't mean there aren't exciting new developments happening in the sector – and some of them can benefit you as a real estate investor. Nearly every industry has benefited from the advent of "big data," but what does that really mean for real estate? Together, these factors mean we're now able to access and analyze higher volumes of data more quickly. As a result, real estate data companies can now deliver more insightful information to the investment community faster, allowing investors to make better decisions.

Mechanical masterminds have spawned the Bat Bot, a soaring, sweeping and diving robot that may eventually fly circles around other drones. Because it mimics the unique and more flexible way bats fly, this 3-ounce prototype could do a better and safer job getting into disaster sites and scoping out construction zones than bulky drones with spinning rotors, said the three authors of a study released yesterday in the journal Science Robotics. For example, it would have been ideal for going inside the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, said study co-author Seth Hutchinson, an engineering professor at the University of Illinois. The bat robot flaps its wings for better aerial maneuvers, glides to save energy and dive bombs when needed. Eventually, the researchers hope to have it perch upside down like the real thing, but that will have to wait for the robot's sequel. Like the fictional crime fighter Batman, the researchers turned to the flying mammal for inspiration.

GoPro CEO Nick Woodman introduces the foldable Karma drone during a press event in Olympic Valley, Calif. in September. Six days after the release of GoPro's first-ever drone in October, Brian Warholak was itching to get airborne. As an employee at a Chesapeake, Va.-based government contractor, Warholak, 43, had few opportunities during the workweek to fly his new toy. But on Friday, he left his desk early, unpacked his GoPro Karma from its carrying case and set it on a manicured lawn near the company parking lot. In the video of Warholak's aeronautic excursion, the drone lurches upward, pausing for its master to pan the attached camera.

The 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical cleric and U.S. citizen who was killed in a drone strike in 2011, was reportedly among those killed Sunday during a raid in Yemen. The Guardian reported that Nawar al-Awlaki was killed after suffering a gunshot wound to the neck. The girl's grandfather told the paper that he did not believe the girl was targeted. "I don't think this incident was intentional," the former government minister said. He told the paper that the location of the strike was confusing because it was not a hotbed for Al Qaeda, rathera tribal sheikhs fighting the government, which is supported by Iran-backed Houthis.

For roboticists working in the field of biomimetics, copying a bat's complex flight patterns has been a difficult problem to solve. Or, as Caltech professor and Jet Propulsion Laboratory researcher Soon-Jo Chung put it during a press conference, "bat flight is the holy grail of aerial robotics." And according to a new research paper published by Chung and his JPL colleagues in the journal Science Robotics this week, that holy grail has officially been discovered. Robotic birds and winged insects are relatively easy to create, but with over 40 joints in their wings, bats offer a new level of intricacy. By simplifying that wing structure into just nine key joints covered by a flexible membrane, however, the team successfully created the first Bat Bot.

Delivery drones still face an uncertain future, but there's at least one scenario where they make a lot of sense: Flying robots can be ideal for bringing small, high value, time-sensitive goods to people in low-infrastructure areas. As specific a situation as that sounds like, it's an enormous opportunity, and has the potential to make a huge difference in rural areas and disaster relief missions with deliveries of food and medical supplies, for example. One challenge with that, however, is that while drones are cheap to operate, the up-front investment is significant, especially if you need to make a lot of deliveries quickly, like right after an earthquake. With this sort of thing in mind, DARPA has funded several companies under its ICARUS (Inbound, Controlled, Air-Releasable, Unrecoverable Systems) program to create cheap, disposable drones that are designed to deliver a thing to a place and then be forgotten about. One of the companies receiving DARPA funding is San Francisco research firm Otherlab, which does weird robotics-y stuff with creative materials, among other things, and they've come up with a design for a drone they're calling APSARA: Aerial Platform Supporting Autonomous Resupply/ Actions.

In what would make an excellent sidekick for Batman, scientists have built a fascinating, unconventional flying robot that moves its wings and flies just like a bat. Covered with a thin, silicon skin, the flexible wings of this mechanical creature-- called Bat Bot-- can move like bat wings do, making use of nine different artificial joints (real bats have far more joints). Anyone who's ever seen a bat flap around at dusk knows they are incredible flyers, and Soon-Jo Chung, one of the flying robot's creators, said that he gets "mesmerized" by bats' impressive flight skills, with their quick turns and perching. "Bat flight is the holy grail of aerial robotics," Chung, an associate professor at CalTech and a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. The flying robotic creation is very different from a typical artificial flying device, like a quadrotor drone that uses spinning propellers.

Islamic State (IS) is now using drones to wreak havoc amongst Iraqi soldiers in Mosul, Iraq according to a report by the Associated Press. Iraqi security forces first reported seeing IS drones in 2015, but the sightings have become more frequent in recent months. Investigators from the AP conducted a search of a warehouse in Mosul earlier this week and uncovered parts of drones, receipts of supplies purchased and reports on IS missions. Islamic State appears to have an open budget, spending thousands of dollars a month on drone materials according to the AP report. It has purchased drones from stores and advanced their technology to fit their requirements or even bought supplies to make their own.

It swoops, flaps and dives just like the animals it was designed to mimic. Inspired by the flexibility and agility of bats and their wings, a team of engineers has come up with an autonomous flying robot with the same skills – one that could ultimately be used to survey building sites from the air. Aerial robots have previously taken inspiration from insects and birds, but bats are a tougher challenge for roboticists because of their complicated skeletons and irregular flight patterns. "Bats have a very complex body morphology compared to birds or insects. Their wings are very articulated, with many joints," says team member Alireza Ramezani at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.