Amazon's drone-delivery plans apparently don't stop with using flying contraptions to ferry people's purchases to their homes. Based on a patent it filed with the USPTO, the e-commerce giant dreams of launching big floating warehouses near crowded areas and happenings like sporting events. The company calls the blimp-like structures "airborne fulfillment centers," because that's precisely what they are. Amazon envisions deploying drones carrying memorabilia or food from these floating warehouses, which will have billboards for advertising, to people attending music festivals or championships. To reduce the work drones have to do, the blimps will have shuttles to lower them and the goods they have to deliver to the ground, as well as to carry stocks and even people up to the flying warehouse.

The UK government is to fund a trial of drone-based deliveries of blood and other medical supplies in Tanzania. The goal is to radically reduce the amount of time it takes to send stock to health clinics in the African nation by road or other means. The scheme involves Zipline, a Silicon Valley start-up that began running a similar service in Rwanda in October. Experts praised that initiative but cautioned that "cargo drones" are still of limited use to humanitarian bodies. The Department for International Development (Dfid) has not said how much money will be invested in the Tanzanian effort or for how long.

Drone delivery companies are steadily working to design technology that protects aerial vehicles from crowded skies, bad weather, and birds. However, Amazon is looking beyond the usual issues and at other threats, such as hacking or'a malicious person shooting an arrow' to take down the drone. The e-commerce giant has received a patent for defenses against these attacks - revealing an electronic system that detects signal jammers and a parachute-like device if it is hit by another object. Amazon is looking beyond the usually issues at other threats such as hacking or'a malicious person shooting an arrow' to take down the drone. 'A protective device such as an airbag, foam, parachute, bumper and so forth could be used in this scenario Amazon's latest patent, called Countermeasure for Threats to an Uncrewed Autonomous Vehicle, was filed on November 17, 2014.

Almost exactly a year ago, Ehang surprised the world with its supersized drone, the 184, made for carrying a human passenger or artificial organs. Nevada even gave Ehang permission to test its quadcopter in the state as of June, but that was the last we heard from the drone maker, until now. As it turns out, the Chinese company has yet to perform a single test flight in the US, and earlier this month, it had to lay off about 70 people from its team of around 300, plus there were signs of financial problems -- including canteen food issues, missed payments to suppliers and diminishing consumer drone shipment numbers -- as far back as August, according to Chinese news site Xtecher. Perhaps to reassure worried folks, Ehang decided to shed some light on the 184's latest development. According to Ehang co-founder and CMO Derrick Xiong, his company has been mobilizing "a few" 184s that have so far accumulated over 200 test flights -- some were apparently fully autonomous -- in China.

Belize has long struggled to control illegal fishing both in its waters and by vessels flagged to its country. But efforts to turn the tide are starting to pay off, says Julio Maaz, who serves as a fisheries coordinator in the country with the nonprofit group Wildlife Conservation Society. In March 2014, the European Union suspended all seafood imports from Belize, saying the country had not acted forcefully enough to prevent illegal fishing, also known as pirate fishing. But the country responded by upping its enforcement activities (including by deploying the coast guard), and the European Union restored its trade relationship by the end of that year. Further progress has been made since then, but the country still has a ways to go, says Maaz. Belize's multimillion coastal fishing industry is made up of 2,700 registered fishermen, with 650 vessels.

The International Drone Robot Contest is taking place in Incheon in South Korea. Humanoid bots battle it out in a martial arts contest while drones and rolling robots complete physical tasks.

Overhead images like this could only be captured in China. The gigantic scale of the images alone is breathtaking.

New drone owners have been warned about the risk of flying the devices as soon as they unwrap them this Christmas. Police and aviation authorities urged users to read up on strict rules about the remote-controlled gadgets before taking them for their first spin. Those caught flying drones dangerously face an unlimited fine and up to five years in prison. Last week the government announced plans to introduce a series of measures to crack down on reckless drone users following a string of near-misses with aircraft. In November the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) launched a website to publish its revised code of conduct for drone users, labelled the dronecode.

Lots of people will have unwrapped drones for Christmas, and a fair few will probably end up crashing them. So how can drones be flown safely? BBC reporter and nervous technophobe Caroline Lowbridge explains how she reluctantly learned to fly one. When my manager first told me he thought it would be a good idea for me to learn to fly a drone, I was perturbed. If I seemed reluctant, I was.

A drone belonging to a film crew was reportedly shot down Friday in the Iranian capital Tehran by the country's anti-aircraft forces after it approached the president and the supreme leader's offices. The drone was shot down as "it approached the no-fly zone" near the office of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a source told Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA), according to Reuters. The drone belonged to a documentary-making team that had acquired permission to shoot but "unintentionally started moving it towards the no-fly zone." According to Tehran's deputy governor general for security affairs, Mohsen Hamedani, the state television crew were shooting Friday prayers and "did not know about the prohibited airspace." In August, the commander of Tehran air defense forces said that the capital's airspace was under full control and "no aircraft can enter it without permission."