Jefferson Graham reviews GoPro's new Karma drone, an affordable flying camera with stellar video quality. LOS ANGELES -- Welcome to the Drone Wars, where longtime action camera manufacturer GoPro has joined No. 1 drone manufacturer DJI with its own take on a flying camera. The bad: Karma is actually heavier than we are led to believe from marketing videos, (2.2 pounds vs. 1.6 for the new $750 DJI Mavic) and some of the cool operational drone features from the Mavic just aren't there in the Karma. That said, DJI knows drones, and GoPro knows photography. The Karma trumps the Mavic with a superior camera, but Mavic is the better drone.

Police drone footage shows extent of the damage at the Royal Clarence Hotel in Exeter, Devon, after it was gutted by fire.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. I really don't know much about this beyond what's in the video, but we don't see a lot of Russian robots around here, so: It looks to be a project from the Russian equivalent of DARPA, designed to go into space by 2021. This video of Agile Justin feeling up different kinds of rods was a finalist for both "IROS Best Paper on Cognitive Robotics" and "IROS Best Student Paper": This is cool because until this point, building pneumatic robots required making molds and casting custom parts.

Most quadcopters, especially of the entry level, boxy design, all look alike. So to distinguish models between manufacturers, companies give them distinctive colors, like gray or green or red, and fancy names, like Phantom or Ghost or Hero or Solo. Dronemaker Autel Robotics, whose own bright-orange quadcopter is sometimes dubbed the "flying pumpkin," took this one step further, dressing obsolete drone models up in costumes to match their names, and then firing a bunch of pumpkins at them.

Researchers with the Army and General Dynamics Land Systems are now testing concept vehicles for a Stryker-mounted laser weapon to protect soldiers from missiles, mortars, and artillery. A UK-developed system capable of jamming signals to small drones is going to be trialed by the US aviation authority. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules.

Drones, initially developed for warfare, are being co-opted to provide revolutionary off-grid healthcare to those who live in the most remote parts of the world. The drone was developed by Vayu, a company founded by Daniel Pepper, which aims to bridge the gap between far-flung villages and healthcare that is so often centrally available, but out of reach for local inhabitants. He recognised it was a major challenge for patients to travel to hospitals because of weather conditions, transport and family traditions there, and so he created Vayu with funds from governments, healthcare organisations and NGOs. Vayu's drones, which took two years to develop, are used to serve and connect rural villages to central hospitals. The company hopes to enable the off-grid villages to diagnose and treat the conditions via drone-delivered test samples and vaccines, preventing unnecessary deaths and illnesses.

The use of drones with cameras will now require a license under Sweden's surveillance laws. The use of drones with cameras will now require a license under Sweden's surveillance laws (stock image) Japan also tightened its rules on drone used in 2015, after a drone carrying radioactive materials was landed on the roof of the Japanese Prime Minister's house The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules.

A security researcher has devised a method of hijacking a wide variety of radio- controlled airplanes, helicopters, cars, boats and other devices that use a popular wireless transmission technology. The attack was developed by Jonathan Andersson, manager of the Advanced Security Research Group at Trend Micro DVLabs, and targets a "wideband, frequency-agile 2.4GHz signal protocol" called DSMx. This protocol is used in radio-control (R/C) toys, including in drones, that are owned by millions of users. Andersson's attack exploits weaknesses in DSMx and was presented in detail Wednesday at the PacSec security conference in Tokyo. The researcher built a device that he dubbed Icarus, using off-the-shelf electronic components and software-defined radio (SDR).

Before you ever see a package dropped onto your doorstep from the sky, drones are going to force us to wrestle with some thorny questions about privacy. New rules from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration for the commercial use of unmanned aircraft lighter than 55 pounds have opened the door to what could be a massive industry. It's much bigger than delivery drones, which are not yet practical or legal in the U.S. First we'll see more drones doing things like surveying real estate and inspecting infrastructure such as roofs, high bridges, cell towers, power lines, and wind turbines. But our new drone reality has privacy advocates spooked: low-cost vehicles and sensors are likely to spur widespread adoption of a technology that can be used for persistent aerial surveillance, and bad actors could exploit gaps in existing privacy laws. It's also not clear which government entities, if any, are responsible for addressing drone-related privacy concerns.

A Swedish industry group says a court ruling that drones with cameras must have a license under the country's surveillance laws "is a huge blow" to recreational and commercial users. Gustav Gerdes, head of Unmanned Aerial System Sweden, says Friday's decision by the Supreme Administrative Court could put 5,000 jobs in danger -- from drone operators to those handling footage. He said Wednesday that Sweden was among the first countries to ban camera drones with no surveillance license, adding permits can be expensive and difficult to get. The European Aviation Safety Agency recently released a rough, non-binding text for drone regulation, leaving it up to EU members states to decide whether to require licenses for drones with cameras. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.