Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe has unveiled a campaign to utilise emerging technologies, including drones and artificial intelligence, to increase productivity at construction sites by 20% by 2025. According to Japanese newspaper The Japan Times, Abe announced the plan at the inaugural meeting of a think tank tasked with formulating new growth strategy policies. The panel of government officials and industry experts is expected to announce details of the construction productivity strategy before the end of 2017. The government intends to ramp up the use of drones and AI to increase the efficiency of surveys on centrally funded infrastructure projects, such as tunnels, bridges and dams. Faced with an ageing population, Japan is already leading the world in advancing the use of autonomous vehicles, with construction drones set to be used to automate groundworks for the 2020 Olympic games.

The first thing that might come to mind thinking of drones is their military application. Unmanned flying weaponry, however, is not a new approach. In the 1860s, balloons loaded with explosives and sent with the prevailing winds towards enemy targets, were used as the first drones. Today, they have become such an innovative technology that its use has extended to the civilian and commercial sector, becoming a part of our everyday life. Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or by the public referred as drones, have the potential to solve problems, improve safety and save costs across a number of industries, throughout the developing world and in disaster relief scenarios.

Ultimately, Aerialtronics, via Watson, will be able to measure cell phone tower signals as well as conduct antenna position analytics. IBM's Watson is getting into the commercial drone market in a deal with Aerialtronics, a Netherlands-based maker of unmanned aircraft systems. Aerialtronics is using IBM's Watson Internet of Things (IoT) platform for inspection services across a wide range of industries. Under the deal, Watson will connect its visual recognition application programming interfaces, IBM's cloud, drones and high-definition cameras to perform inspections on assets such as wind turbines, oil rigs, and cell towers. The general idea is that drones can do the visual inspections so humans don't' have to climb towers.

The future arrived on Monday, wrapped in a tortilla. Chipotle burritos were delivered via drone to waiting Virginia Tech students in the first of a series of tests that could be giving foodies a taste of things to come. The drone delivery arrived just before 1 p.m., according to Roanoke Times journalist Jacob Demmett, who managed to capture the landmark moment on video. The flying burrito tests were not open to the public, presumedly so the recipients wouldn't have to share their bounty with other hungry students. The burrito drone descended to about 10 feet over a grass patch before lowering a large white package to the ground on a string.

While driverless cars may be a few years away, it appears self-driving shopping carts are right around the corner. Walmart has been awarded a patent illustrating'disc-shaped' robots that use sensors and cameras to transport and navigate shopping carts throughout stores. This application comes two months after reports surfaced that the firm was developing driverless carts that scan a customer's shopping list and then guide them to the aisles and shelves. Walmart has been awarded a patent illustrating'disc-shaped' robots that use sensors and cameras to navigate shopping carts for customers throughout shopping centers. Walmart was awarded a patent called'Shopping Facility Assistance Systems, Devices and Methods' is the patents title which was filed on March 4, 2016.

Ever imagined being able to order a burrito and have it delivered by a drone? Well, Google has you covered. The search giant, which is now under the parent company Alphabet, began testing drone food deliveries using Chipotle burritos at Virginia Tech this week. A drone was spotted Monday flying overhead before lowering a large white package to the ground, the Roanoke Times reports. Virginia Tech was approved as a test site for drones by the Federal Aviation Administration in 2013 and the school provided safety oversight for the Google tests, according to the Times.

At the recent VentureBeat MobileBeat conference on July 13, a panel of executives assembled to discuss the impact of emerging technologies on the future of commerce. Three executives from high-profile companies - Holger Luedorf, senior vice president of Business Development at Postmates; Nichele Lindstrom, director of Digital Marketing at Whole Foods Market; and Eric Moujaes, senior director of Global Digital Product at McDonald's - chimed in and gave their insights on what they believe to be the most overhyped and promising technologies that will impact commerce in the near term. Their perspectives fell on the spectrum of the slightly surprising (drones will not be the future delivery vehicle of choice) as well as in alignment with current'hot' trends (chat bots look to be in like flynn). All three executives' opinions shed light on the potential future of our role as consumers and on businesses as providers in a'brave new world'. With companies like Amazon and Google forecasting the use of drones for delivery (any day now), people may be expecting these unmanned aerial vehicles to be a serious part of the future of commerce, but McDonald's Eric Moujaes believes differently.

The reliance on drones--and the tendency to regard them as the default tool for taking out jihadi suspects on the battlefield--subsided in Obama's second term, in part because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were winding down, in part because the drones weren't having the dramatic effect that they seemed to promise. It turned out that killing a key terrorist or destroying a terrorist hangout--while sometimes fruitful and always tempting--has little impact on the course of the war. Al-Qaida had a seemingly endless line of No. 3–ranking officials to replace the ones just killed. And to the extent terrorist groups have been decimated on the battlefield, it's been due to a combination of conventional airstrikes and forces on the ground. And sometimes, in drone strikes, innocent people get killed, not because the Hellfire missile veers off course but because the intelligence was poor, the images were fuzzy, someone has made a mistake about who was (or wasn't) in the crosshairs. And when innocent people get killed, new terrorists--their husbands, cousins, fathers, sons, or neighbors--are often created.

Drone racing's rise to prominence is hardly a surprise. The sport combines a new, rapidly improving technology with skilful pilots and bombastic, three-dimensional courses. If you've ever watched a heat, either in person or online, you'll know it's an exhilarating spectacle. With this in mind, it's no bombshell to hear that Sky has made an investment in the Drone Racing League (DRL), a professional outfit backed by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross. As part of its 1 million cash injection, Sky will be showing the entire tournament on its new Sky Sports Mix channel in the UK.

On April 13th 2016, Norway's Prime Minister was hosted in Singapore by Norway's leading multinational company DNV GL. The PM unveiled -The Hive- a fully autonomous drone docking station developed by SwarmX a one year old startup. Pulkit Jaiswal the 23year old CEO of SwarmX who I interviewed over skype as part of my coverage of the global event for tech startups Rise was understandably elated at the development. Pulkit with two other co Founders created SwarmX in April 2015. Prior to that, he spent three years building Garuda Robotics along with two other Founders.