FILE - In this April 14, 2016 file photo, a drone captures videos and still images of an apartment building in Philadelphia. Federal aviation officials say so many people are registering drones and applying for drone pilot licenses, they wonder if there will eventually be millions of drones crowding the nation's skies. FILE - In this April 14, 2016 file photo, a drone captures videos and still images of an apartment building in Philadelphia. Federal aviation officials say so many people are registering drones and applying for drone pilot licenses, they wonder if there will eventually be millions of drones crowding the nation's skies. WASHINGTON (AP) -- So many people are registering drones and applying for drone pilot licenses that federal aviation officials said Friday they are contemplating the possibility of millions of unmanned aircraft crowding the nation's skies in the not-too-distant future.

AI-powered drones soon will be everywhere, monitoring crowds at major events, checking out traffic patterns on busy roads, surveying disaster sites, and inspecting airplanes. IBM is edging into this airborne safety and maintenance market early, with a deal to bring its Watson internet of things technology to unmanned aircraft systems built by Netherlands-based Aerialtronics. Data captured by high-resolution drone camera lenses will be fed into IBM's visual recognition application programming interfaces (APIs) and services on its Watson cognitive computing and Bluemix cloud-based analytics platforms. The first market for the Aerialtronics drones is expected to be for cell tower maintenance. Instead of sending humans to laboriously climb towers and report back, inspection teams can deploy drones, which quickly gain a 360-degree overview, according to IBM. The visual recognition APIs can then analyze the images captured by the drone to detect problems like damaged cabling or equipment defects.

Some are calling drone racing the sport of the future with the drones, or quads, as the racers call them, flying around obstacle courses at up to 160km/h (100mph). Christian Parkinson has been to meet two of the South African racers taking part in next month's drone world championships to find out what the sport is all about and what skills you need to get to the top.

Many things can take down a drone. Dutch National Police use eagles to snatch the confounded devices out of the air. You could argue they ought to do this all the time, but police limit the aerial attacks to drones flying over restricted areas. They've been at it since January, and earlier this week staged a demonstration that Emmanuel Dunand captured in this amazing photo. Authorities are so pleased with the raptors that they've got four sea eagle chicks poised to join the force next summer.

Action camera maker GoPro Inc. gets its big chance to rebound from a disastrous year when it unveils its first drone and other new products Monday. The San Mateo company's share price has plunged more than 70% since last July's release of a delayed and overpriced camera. GoPro has lost money three straight quarters and is set to report its first annual loss this year. Analysts say GoPro may unveil a small, camera-toting drone that automatically trails surfers, snowboarders and other extreme sports enthusiasts, whose embrace of the company's early models fueled its rise. If it's a hit, the new gadget could reset the company's image with customers and investors, and prove crucial in sparing the firm from having to sell to a larger company.

Conventional air traffic might be tightly controlled and monitored, but even with the new FAA regulations, drones and other unmanned aerial systems are mostly operating without any government oversight. And that doesn't sit well with the folks at the Pentagon, who fear that easy access to affordable drones could make them easily adaptable for terrorist or military purposes. To combat this potential threat, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, announced this week an "Aerial Dragnet" program that aims to map all small drone activity in urban settings. "Commercial websites currently exist that display in real time the tracks of relatively high and fast aircraft--from small general aviation planes to large airliners--all overlaid on geographical maps as they fly around the country and the world," DARPA's program manager Jeff Krolik said. "We want a similar capability for identifying and tracking slower, low-flying unmanned aerial systems, particularly in urban environments."

Although a beef jerky drone seems like a better use of technology than, say, a jet pack, some people had a beef with the video. A HuffPost photo editor suspected CGI was used, saying the lighting "looked off" in some of the outdoor scenes. Krivicka emphatically denied any CGI was used. To prove the drone was real, he sent a video of the drone flying toward a camera with a note that said, "Hey HuffPo, I'm Real!!!" Sadly, the Jerkybot is only in the prototype stage right now, so any dreams you have of having beef jerky hovering near you as you read this is a long way off. In fact, the visionary behind this is having a hard time envisioning when it might become available.

America's research and development department wants the ability to know where drones are, even when they can't see them. Darpa's latest program, Aerial Dragnet, is set to track all unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operating below 1,000 feet in large cities. Using sensors, these systems would'see' over and between buildings in order to trail these vehicles with the goal of combating'UAS-enabled terrorist threats' in urban environments. DARPA's program, Aerial Dragnet, will track all unmanned aerial systems (UAS) flying below 1,000 feet in large cities. Using sensors, these systems would see over and between buildings in order to trail these vehicles with the goal of combating'UAS-enabled terrorist threats' Darpa has announced a new program that will track all unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operating below 1,000 feet in large cities in order to combat UAS-enabled terrorist threats.

Terminator, the 1984 film about a time-traveling robot assassin, looms large in the popular understanding of drones. At the core of the Terminator universe is SkyNet, an artificial intelligence that nukes humanity to save itself. I only mention Terminator as a preface to this, weird and true thing about the year 2016: there is a new company making anti-drone weapons, and it calls itself Skynet. Canonically, the name makes no sense: Skynet was a system of robots hunting people, so a stand-alone anti-drone rifle to protect people from robots should really be named something more like John Connor. As for the product itself: the Skynet rifle weighs roughly 12.5 pounds, not counting its backpack power supply.

It looks like a Star Trek Bird of Prey, and acts like a drone that terrorists cannot escape: A new military aircraft that's powered by the sun and can conduct missions without landing for 45 days. Airbus Defence and Space calls the new drone the High Altitude Pseudo Satellite (HAPS), but it's been dubbed the Zephyr. It has satellite-type capabilities like extreme surveillance-- but is on demand with the flexibility and versatility of an unmanned aircraft. Unlike a satellite, the Zephyr can be landed, modified with alternative tech, and quickly re-launched to provide different capabilities as required. The Zephyr could fly without landing to provide the military with non-stop high- resolution imagery for a remarkable month and a half, and it could give teams accuracy down to 6-inch resolution. Flying at about 12.5 miles high at a fixed location, Zephyr can see over 250 miles to the horizon and provide imagery in excess of 386 square miles.