U.S. drone strikes against suspected al-Qaida targets have been commonplace in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, as a retaliatory measure against the group. The use of unmanned aircraft as well as air strikes in the Arab world's poorest country rose dramatically under President Barack Obama, with data from the Britain-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism showing spikes in attacks, especially in 2012 and 2016.

SANAA, Yemen – Yemeni security and tribal officials say suspected U.S. drone strikes have killed three alleged al-Qaida operatives in the country's southwestern Bayda province. They say the two Saturday strikes killed Abu Anis al-Abi, an area field commander, and two others. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information. U.S. drone strikes against suspected al-Qaida targets have been commonplace in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington as a retaliatory measure. Saturday's strikes were the first to be reported since Donald Trump assumed office as Barack Obama's successor.

Massimiliano "Max" Versace traces the birth date of his startup to when NASA came knocking in 2010. The U.S. space agency had caught wind of his military-funded Boston University research on making software for a brain-inspired microprocessor through an IEEE Spectrum article, and wanted to see if Versace and his colleagues could help develop a software controller for robotic rovers that could autonomously explore Mars. NASA's vision proved no easy challenge. Mars rovers have limited computing, communications, and power resources. NASA engineers wanted artificial intelligence that could rely solely on images from a low-end camera to navigate different environments.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. Most afternoons, from outside our windows that look out over Shenzhen's giant electronics market in Huaqiangbei, we can hear a familiar high-pitched hiss. The source is a large plane-like drone, circling endlessly just above us.

I'll try to step it up a bit. Remember the office delivery robot from the '70s??? Looked something like this: It was Ted and I and our merry band of pranksters that stole a can of spray UV paint, and in the middle of the night rerouted the robot, so that its route ended in the…elevator. There it spent the rest of the day riding between floors. Amazon announces 100,000 new full time jobs they'll be creating. Maybe they know something about robots we found out in the 1970s.

A U.S. Air Force pilot grasps a flight control and weapons firing stick while preparing to launch a MQ-1B Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), from a ground control station in the Persian Gulf region on January 7, 2016. At 12:01 p.m. on January 20th, drone geek Maynard Holliday won't be a Pentagon robot expert anymore. One of the roughly 4,000 Obama appointees out of a job on Friday, Holliday is wrapping up two and a half years of work designing and buying drones for the Pentagon. A self-proclaimed Star Trek-loving science nerd who grew up obsessed with the thought of one day traveling into space himself, today Holliday's much more interested in a smaller kind of'space race' happening here on Planet Earth. As he shuffles his way out of Washington, he says he's got one big worry about the future of military drone warfare: What happens when and if killer drones go on autopilot?

The rise of e-commerce over the last 10 years or so has forced retailers to adapt to the changes demanded by consumers. E-commerce growth continues to accelerate and outpace growth in the brick-and-mortar channel, and online sales accounted for almost 20% of total US sales this holiday season, based on preliminary estimates. In addition, department stores have offered discounts and promotions as a key tool to drive demand and bring consumers into stores. Over time, this strategy can dilute a store's brand and leave stores looking picked through. Also, it trains consumers to wait for discounts instead of buying products at full price. There has been a significant number of store closures in the last few years, and we expect that to accelerate in 2017 and in the following few years. As the department store channel shrinks, and more brands fight for less space, we think brands will need to be more creative, flexible and diversified in their approaches. One way brands can disrupt the more traditional wholesale channel without taking on the significant real estate risk that comes with opening their own stores is to open pop-up stores. With pop-ups, brands have complete creative control of the brand experience and how their messaging is communicated to consumers. They can tell the story they want to tell and explain in their own voice what the brand stands for. In some cases, brands use pop-ups more as an advertising tool than as a place to transact commerce. These kinds of pop-ups usually offer some kind of special experience to draw consumers into the store. Pop-ups can also be set up in locations other than malls, allowing brands to reach their target customers where they are. Retailers and brands can also use pop-ups to test the waters in the most expensive shopping areas, often at discounted rents, while landlords can use the temporary stores to show off the space to prospective long-term tenants. Mall operators are receptive to pop-ups, as they bring something new and unique to consumers. Real estate firm Related Companies has used pop-up shops at the Time Warner Center in New York City to provide a fresh feel and add variety for consumers.

We've got new smartphone teasers, anti-drone guns in action, an even faster Tesla Model S, and so much more. Months after its stunning recall, we still don't know exactly why Samsung's most recent phablet had a tendency to overheat. The company's internal investigation has apparently reached a conclusion however, and its results will be revealed in a livestreamed press conference this Sunday night at 8PM ET. Swiss authorities have added another security measure for this year's World Economic Forum in Davos: anti-drone guns. Bloomberg spotted local police preparing HP 47 Counter UAV Jammers to make sure no unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) gets too close to the venue, whether it's sent by a spy organization or just a nosy onlooker.

Iris Automation Inc. has raised $1.5 million to bring "sense and avoid" technology, and truly self-flying capabilities, to drones used for industrial tasks. Even for human pilots, identifying obstacles and deciding precisely how to maneuver a fast-flying aircraft around them poses a serious challenge. Iris' technology analyzes and draws insights from videos captured by cameras onboard a drone in real time. "We're designing this to work like a human pilot's vision and decision-making process," says Iris Automation CEO and co-founder Alexander Harmsen. Iris Automation, a Y Combinator company, is not alone in the quest to develop computer vision systems that can make unmanned aerial vehicles, and eventually other robotics and vehicles, truly autonomous.

Stealth bombers and armed drones launched airstrikes Wednesday night against two Islamic State encampments in northern Libya in an expansion of the air war there, according to the Pentagon. The attacks were authorized by President Obama two days before he leaves office and are a reminder of the continuing turmoil in the oil-rich nation where a U.S.-led air war helped insurgents overthrow strongman Moammar Kadafi in 2011. Islamic State militants in Libya have established what officials say is the group's largest and most powerful affiliate outside its core areas in Syria and Iraq, although its area of control has shrunk considerably over the last year. B-2 bombers targeted two desert camps about 30 miles southwest of Surt, a port city on the central Mediterranean coast that U.S.-backed Libyan forces recaptured last year from the militants. U.S. officials said dozens of militants had escaped from Surt to the desert camps.