The skies over the United States were a little more crowded than usual following a test by the Department of Defense that sent more than 100 drones scattering across the sky, according to a report from the BBC. A total of 103 of the miniature, unmanned flying vehicles were released from a trio of Three F/A-18 Super Hornets, a popular Navy fighter aircraft. Called Perdix drones, the flyers have a wingspan of just 12 inches and move entirely autonomously--no human control required. Footage of the devices in action from October 2016, taken from Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, was recently released by the Department of Defense. In it, the drones can be seen being released into the sky and swarming together, making use of the collective brain that controls them.

Perdix are not pre-programmed synchronized individuals, they are a collective organism, sharing one distributed brain for decision-making and adapting to each other like swarms in nature,

As a young reporter writing about technology in the mid-nineteen-nineties, I got my hands on a Nokia phone. It was small, gray, and a bit heavy, with the usual twelve-button keypad that was part of every phone interface. From a crowded New York street, I made a call to my mother in India. It was expensive--a few dollars per minute--but the fact of that call was life-changing. I walked back to the office, pondering the possibility of work and communication anywhere, not chained to the phone in our homes or at our desks.

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon may soon be unleashing a 21st-century version of locusts on its adversaries after officials on Monday said it had successfully tested a swarm of 103 micro-drones. The important step in the development of new autonomous weapon systems was made possible by improvements in artificial intelligence, holding open the possibility that groups of small robots could act together under human direction. Military strategists have high hopes for such drone swarms that would be cheap to produce and able to overwhelm opponents' defenses with their great numbers. The test of the world's largest micro-drone swarm in California in October included 103 Perdix micro-drones measuring around six inches (16 centimeters) launched from three F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, the Pentagon said in a statement. "The micro-drones demonstrated advanced swarm behaviors such as collective decision-making, adaptive formation flying and self-healing," it said.

It was a disappointing holiday season for French drone maker Parrot. The company announced Monday that it will lay off about 290 employees -- or more than a third of the employees currently working on drone-related projects -- after it missed fourth quarter sales targets by about 15 percent. Parrot's drone line has always straddled the line between executive toys and high-end gadgetry, and according to the company's announcement, the first order of business in 2017 will be to refocus its product offerings to concentrate on the most profitable areas. Parrot cites extremely low margins in the consumer drone space as the main reason for the layoffs, so we won't be surprised if we see fewer one-off jumping, flying and seafaring minidrones as the company continues to grow up with more prosumer-level devices like the Bebop 2 or the fixed-wing Disco in the future. As Recode notes, Parrot's main competitor DJI has been dominating the consumer drone space by slashing prices and cutting into profit margins, which it can pull off because it also owns the manufacturing facilities in Shenzhen.

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon may soon be unleashing a 21st-century version of locusts on its adversaries after officials on Monday said it had successfully tested a swarm of 103 micro-drones. The important step in the development of new autonomous weapon systems was made possible by improvements in artificial intelligence, holding open the possibility that groups of small robots could act together under human direction. Military strategists have high hopes for such drone swarms that would be cheap to produce and able to overwhelm opponents' defenses with their great numbers. The test of the world's largest micro-drone swarm in California in October included 103 Perdix micro-drones measuring around six inches (16 cm) launched from three F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, the Pentagon said in a statement. "The micro-drones demonstrated advanced swarm behaviors such as collective decision-making, adaptive formation flying and self-healing," it said.

"We received close to 200 entries from women-led startups who are at the forefront of VR and AI. These ventures are building virtual limbs, self-driving non-automotive vehicles, 3-D immersive cameras, drone technologies and wearable tech for gaming. It's vitally important that women and their companies get properly supported so that their perspective on these life changing products is brought to market," said Allyson Kapin, founder of Women Who Tech.

Amazon is developing technology that will allow a flock of drones to fly in convoy, allowing the machines to cover longer distances and carry heavier loads. The company has been granted the patent for a a large and robust flying drone, which is made up of several smaller drones. The Amazon Technologies Inc. patent says that individual modules could detach from the collective drone body once they were no longer required, allowing them to operate independently to deliver smaller parcels. The patent description explains that a collective aerial drone would be capable of transporting'virtually any size, weight, or quantity of items.' The average drone can typically fly continuously for up to 30 minutes and can only transport items weighing up to 10 pounds. Last month the company revealed that it had made its first aircraft delivery and claimed to have dropped off the package just 13 minutes after it was ordered.

Japanese researchers have developed a real-time drone-locating system that uses an onboard laser sensing device and artificial intelligence that enable it to operate even where GPS fails. The technology developed by Kyoto University researchers led by Masatoshi Hamanaka allows a drone in flight to determine its position and altitude based on geographical features beneath it, detected by a laser-based sensing device and analyzed by AI technology. Under the system, data on the geographical features from the onboard sensor is compared with existing data in a geographical database to determine the drone's position. The technology has a margin of error of a few dozen meters, but this is a practical level for drones that fly at 30-40kph, the researchers said. They aim to raise the accuracy of the system and make it viable for practical use within three years.

The infrastructure to support traditional deliveries has been strained ever since the growth in online orders. What's more, the projected growth will exceed anything UPS, FedEx and the like can currently support. Because of that, companies like Amazon have been working on both an air-drop solution using drones to autonomously drop packages at customers doors, while others have been working on delivery robots.