After months of vague teasers and delays, action camera maker GoPro has officially unveiled its first drone, the Karma. It will launch on Oct. 23 for 799.99. That package will include the Karma drone, its accompanying controller, six propellers, a battery, a charger, a stabilizer and harness, a grip, a mounting ring and a case. It will be compatible with GoPro's Hero 5 Black, Hero 5 Session and Hero 4 cameras. The drone folds up to fit in its case, which can be worn as a backpack, making it easier to transport than some other more cumbersome drones.

GoPro Inc., known for its rugged camcorder for outdoor adventurers, has unveiled a compact drone designed to record people's treks from above. The Karma enters the burgeoning market for consumer drones as one of the first models to be more than a toy, but the quadcopter is coming out a time when several cities and businesses are restricting such aircraft from their skies. Where it is allowed, the 799 Karma, carrying a separately sold GoPro, is sure to produce majestic images, with dramatic shots lending interest to even the dullest of objects. The drone comes with a grip and backpack, both of which serve as mounts. "It's so much more than a drone -- it's Hollywood-caliber stabilization in a backpack you can wear during any activity," Chief Executive Nick Woodman said Monday during a media event inside an opaque tent assembled on the Squaw Valley Ski Resort's parking lot.

The newest additions to the Dutch National Police (DNP) are North American "immigrants": bald eagles that are specially trained to take down airborne drones. The initiative is a first for law enforcement, according to DNP officials. They announced in a statement, released Sept. 13, that the DNP is currently the only police force in the world to include raptors on its roster for drone defense. For the past year, the DNP has tested eagles' prowess against flying drones, collaborating with a private company called Guard from Above that trains raptors to snatch drones out of the sky. The tests were so successful, the DNP reported, that the police force recently purchased juvenile bald eagles that it plans to train.

The miniaturization of electronic and electro-mechanical systems, including sensors, computers, and flight controls enable designers to create innovative'flying sensors.' Sensors that can deploy autonomously or under human supervision to extend human perception – vision, hearing and situational awareness. Given the small dimensions of such platforms, they can be operated by a single person who carries several such pieces in their pouches. Although small drones – helicopters and multirotor – are commercially available for several years, they have yet to find their right place in the military. Limited payload weight and endurance, unreliable communications – particularly over the extended range or in urban terrain, and environment congested electronic interference and limited power on board, are all limiting factors for the military use of commercial systems. Some small multirotor drones are designed specifically for military purposes.

A breakthrough will allow machines to learn by observing. This Turing Learning, as its inventors have named it, promises smarter drones that could detect militants engaging in behavior that could endanger troops, like planting roadside bombs. Still in its infancy, the new machine learning technique is named for British mathematician Alan Turing, whose famous test challenges artificial intelligences to fool a human into thinking he or she is conversing with another human. In Turing learning, a program dubbed the "classifier" tries to learn about a system designed to fool it. In certain ways, Turing Learning resembles many existing machine-learning systems.

FILE - This Aug. 29, 2016, file photo provided by Sharper Shape and SkySkopes shows a Sharper A6 drone before a test to fly over power lines in eastern North Dakota near Blanchard. The drone is specially designed for utility asset inspections. The drone is being tested as part of a project by Xcel Energy to see of unmanned aircraft can help crews restore power to areas hit by natural disasters. Officials with the company hope to be flying beyond visual line of sight by the end of the year.

So many people are registering drones and applying for drone pilot licenses that federal aviation officials say they are contemplating the possibility of millions of unmanned aircraft crowding the nation's skies in the not-too-distant future. In the nine months since the Federal Aviation Administration created a drone registration system, more than 550,000 unmanned aircraft have been registered with the agency, said Earl Lawrence, director of the FAA's drone office. Speaking at the first meeting of a new government-industry drone advisory committee, Lawrence said new registrations are coming in at a rate of 2,000 a day. The FAA began issuing drone pilot licenses to commercial operators less than a month ago. Already, 13,710 people have applied to take the pilot exam, and 5,080 have passed it, Lawrence said.

ESPN's first experiment with drone racing coverage must have been successful, as it's committing to robotic sports in a big way. The TV network has unveiled a multi-year broadcasting deal with the Drone Racing League that will have both ESPN and ESPN2 airing races in the Americas, starting with the 2016 season. The series broadcast kicks off on October 23rd at 9PM, and will spread five races over the course of 10 episodes. It all comes to a head with two DRL World Championship episodes on November 20th. Drone racing TV is crossing the Atlantic, too. Sky has landed its own deal that will bring DRL competitions to TV this fall through the Sky Sports Mix channel, with a race coming to London in 2017.

Allan Martison is the COO of Starship Technologies. Walmart is experimenting with autonomous shopping carts. Domino's, Uber and Auro are heavily invested in autonomous driving research. Robots are serving as security guards, performing surgery, checking inventory at grocery stores, assisting in warehouse work, delivering our room service and even hunting for underwater treasure. As robotics begins to leave controlled environments and navigate the real world alongside humans, the question remains: How will this affect the way we interact, work and talk to not only robots, but one another?

This week and the next two, Slate celebrates its 20th anniversary by looking both forward and backward at once. The forward-looking part is The Next 20, in which we asked our writers to find the future in events from the last two decades: the first drone strike, the Nader campaign, an overlooked indie movie from 1996. The rear-gazing side of things is The First 20, which digs into Slate's history and archives; Nathan Heller kicks it off with a characteristically soulful essay asking what a digital magazine's archive even is.