Yuneec's Breeze is a "flying camera" that's easy to operate. Yuneec's Breeze is considered a "flying camera, and sells for 499. PALOS VERDES, California: There's a new drone in town, and the company that makes it, Yuneec, says it's a total breeze to fly. No flight experience or even flight controller is needed--you operate it all on your smart phone, with an app. Yuneec doesn't even call the Breeze a drone, but instead a "flying camera," one which the company suggests should be used for group shots and selfies.

The Pentagon is developing its own'AI soldier drones' that can hunt down the enemy and even fly inside buildings to give military bosses a look inside. A 1m Army award, awarded through a new Pentagon tech-focused'Defense Innovation Unit Experimental' project, is for a nine-month'prototype project in the area of Autonomous Tactical Airborne Drones'. It will work with a secretive firm called Shield AI to develop the systems. One of Shield AI#'s drones in action: It can create a 3D map of a room and send it back to controllers. It is believed the units could be sent into buildings by special forces soldiers to create 3D maps, one of which is shown here.

If your drone weighs more than 250 grams, airlines and pilots think you should get a drone pilots' license before you fly it in the European Union. They're worried about the number of near misses between drones and helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft, and they see greater regulation of drone use as the best way to improve safety. They also want more tests to be conducted to determine the damage that drones may cause to manned aircraft, much as is already done to reduce the threat of bird strikes. In a letter signed by 10 international associations for airlines, pilots, airports, and other organizations, they make little distinction between commercial and leisure uses of drones. All drones should be registered at the time of purchase or resale, they said, because knowing the devices can be traced is likely to make pilots behave more responsibly.

The Royal Navy has tested an unmanned speedboat near Tower Bridge in advance of a naval drone exercise off the UK coast this autumn. To the delight of tourists, Tower Bridge swung open to let through the sleek, low-slung craft, known as Mast (Maritime Autonomy Surface Testbed). Accompanied by the patrol craft HMS Archer, the 32ft-long Mast spent an hour on Monday weaving between pleasure boats and goods barges at a moderate pace, heading up the river towards Westminster before returning downriver. Although it is capable of navigating and avoiding collisions autonomously and can be operated via remote control, Mast had a coxswain on board to take control if needed because of Port of London bylaws, which also limited the speeds at which it could travel. Mast is being developed with research funding from the Ministry of Defence's science and technology laboratory, to explore how well such vessels function autonomously.

DJI's Adam Najberg recently told Engadget that if the average consumer is going to buy a drone, "size is going to be an issue. Judging by a recent leak, the company may not be just musing about such a product. Drone site Heliguy leaked an image of a small camera drone that collapses down for easy transport. If accurate, it could be called the "Mavic," a name DJI recently trademarked. At 1.43 pounds, it would be by far DJI's lightest camera-equipped drone; the second smallest DJI Phantom 2 Vision weighs 2.6 pounds.

If you want drones to deliver packages and food to your doorstep in the future, they'll need to break free of the limitations of WiFi. That's one major reason why AT&T is gearing up to test drones on its LTE 4G network, which are powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon Flight platform. As you can imagine, it'll involve figuring out how to ensure drones stay connected to AT&T's network, even when they're beyond operators' line of sight. On top of deliveries, the carrier says its testing could also let drones tackle things like inspections, rescues and exploration. "Not only do we aim to analyze wide-scalable LTE optimization for safe, legal commercial SUAS use cases with beyond line-of-sight connectivity, but the results can help inform positive developments in drone regulations and 5G specifications as they pertain to wide-scale deployment of numerous drone use cases," said Qualcomm CTO Matt Grob in a statement.

A drone-racing ace charts his own course as the sport goes mainstream. Carlos Puertolas maneuvers an X-shaped drone high above a grassy field in a Los Angeles park, then spins it sharply to face the ground and sends it full-throttle into a suicide dive. He takes his hand off a radio controller and peels off a pair of opaque white goggles. Puertolas is an aloof but unassuming Spaniard who stands about 5?8?, with a tuft of gray in his bangs and a rough chinstrap beard. In his day job he's a top animator at DreamWorks, but he's in this park testing a model designed especially for him by the Florida drone-kit company Lumenier.

Sure, the feds finally made it reasonably easy to get a drone pilot's certificate, but it's clear they still see unmanned aviation as a dodgy proposition. Among the many questions that come with any new tech is a basic limitation: The radio links and Wi-Fi that control the aircraft limit range to a few thousand feet, and aren't robust enough for reliable drone control over long distances. So the new rules, which took effect last month, limit drone use to visual line-of-sight operation, hamstringing operators interested in delivery, search-and-rescue, and remote-inspection operations. The solution may lurk in your own line-of-sight--on top of water towers and rooftops, or shrouded by poorly faked roadside "trees." Qualcomm Technologies and AT&T announced today they're collaborating to make wide-ranging drone operations reliable and safe, using current 4G LTE and future 5G networks.

Researchers have filmed an extremely rare white southern right whale calf off the coast of Western Australia.