Hard-hatted scientists, engineers, earthquake safety experts and news media witnessed the tests Wednesday. Small drones flew in and around the building to map the structure and assess damage. More than 250 sensors, more than 40 video cameras, and a GPS system were also in the building, gathering data. Some sensors are sensitive enough to detect movements caused by the wind.

Tall grass hid the advancing cadets from my perch in building 7. The tall grass hid nothing from the drone the defenders flew over their position, a Parrot AR 2.0, a common model used by civilian fliers. A minute later, after the drone pilot filmed the crawling cadets, instructors called in mock artillery fire. The cadets' position was compromised, and while the rest of their platoon advanced to take the buildings, these 10 cadets instead spent an hour in the sun contemplating what they could have done about the drone. The answer was standing right behind them.

When you think of Autodesk, you probably think of desktop software and traditional manufacturing, but the company is trying hard to change that perception, and today it announced the first three investments from its 100 million Forge Fund, which includes a 3D robotics drone company, an on-demand machine shop service and a platform for building smart connected Internet of Things devices -- sexy enough for you? Autodesk, which was founded in 1982, has been looking for ways to shake things up and one way was launching the cloud-based Forge development platform at the end of last year, along with the 100 million fund to encourage companies to start building interesting applications on top of it. This week, the company is holding its first developer conference, Forge DevCon, and these three companies certainly represent a sharp departure from your run-of-the-mill 1980s CAD software. Each company -- 3D Robotics, MakeTime and Seebo -- have existed for some time. In fact, 3DR has been around since 2009 and has collected more than 126 million in funding.

It has housed soldiers, scientists, and even ravers, but Fort Alexander near St Petersburg now lies abandoned. Magnificent drone footage shows the fortress, named after a Russian Emperor, in its current forsaken state. The structure was built between 1838 and 1845 on an artificial island in the Gulf of Finland. Dramatic drone footage shows the derelict Russian'Plague Fort' near St Petersburg in the Gulf of Finland During the Crimean war the fort guarded the Imperial Russian Navy base in Kronstadt against British and French fleets. But it was never involved in hostilities and lost its military value soon after construction.

In the never-ending search for the real Sasquatch, a man believes he has captured footage of a Bigfoot sighting in Southeast Idaho. The drone video taken by a resident shows what appears to be a hairy, two-legged creature running across a clearing before entering a wooded area and disappearing. The footage was shot near the Hawkins Reservoir west of Downey in Southeast Idaho. The reservoir is located approximately 35 miles south of Pocatello. Sasquatch, is that you?: The drone video taken by a resident in Southeast Idaho shows what appears to be a hairy creature running across a clearing before entering a wooded area and disappearing At around 25 seconds into the two-minute video, the figure can faintly be seen running through the grass.

How do you bring a bad drone down? New kinds of drones that can fly autonomously can't be stopped with traditional techniques, the US Air Force has warned. It's put out a call for ideas to yank drones right out of the sky. Millions of drones are sold worldwide each year. Most are flown for fun, but a few have been put to criminal use: carrying cameras to bedroom windows, flying into secure airspace over nuclear power stations, and smuggling contraband into prisons.

While many companies are racing to perfect autonomous driving technologies, no one really meddles in the "flying drone taxi" category. But now, that may change. The world's first passenger drone capable of autonomously carrying a person in the air has been given clearance for testing in Nevada. A Chinese company called EHang, the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems (NIAS), and the Governor's Office of Economic Development have all partnered to put EHang's drone through testing and regulatory approval. The drone--the electric Ehang 184 passenger drone--premiered in the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this January.

SHENZHEN, China (Reuters) - A housing boom in China's wannabe "Silicon Valley" of Shenzhen risks undermining the city's tech boom as young professionals consider moving out to avoid the highest residential prices in the country. In the space of four decades, Shenzhen has transformed itself from a fishing village into a manufacturing center and now a tech hub - attracting top firms and young talent in sectors including technology, advertising and design. But a property frenzy, which has driven prices up by 580 percent in the past 10 years, is beginning to weigh on the city's competitiveness, tech firms, professionals, industry groups and officials say, just as it strives to develop new economic drivers and pull away from old-economy manufacturing. The tech hub has drawn some of China's top names including internet giant Tencent and telecoms firm Huawei, plus emerging new leaders such as DJI, the world's biggest commercial drone maker, and gene mapping company BGI. If these firms and those that are part of the tech-hub's ecosystem of startups struggle to attract talent because of high housing costs, they could start to doubt if Shenzhen is the right location for their operations.

SANAA, YEMEN – Yemeni security officials say a suspected U.S. drone has killed three alleged al-Qaida fighters in an airstrike in the central Shabwa province. The officials said Monday that the overnight attack hit the men's vehicle as they were traveling near the town of Haban. The officials also say that in the onetime al-Qaida stronghold of Mukalla, on Yemen's southern coast, Emirati and other troops from the Saudi-led coalition who are primarily fighting Yemen's anti-government Shiite rebels conducted raids on homes seeking al-Qaida operatives. They say some 150 were detained. Activists close to al-Qaida say the men were being tortured in prisons run by Emirati forces.

Although it tends look to the sky, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) came back down to Earth to develop RoBattle, an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) that may soon be tasked with the type of risky missions typically assigned to foot soldiers. IAI's UGV is built to be maneuverable, dynamic, and tough. Six wheels with independent suspension enable RoBattle to scale obstacles, such as rubble and small walls, to access areas that would typically be out of reach for other robots. A modular robotic kit allows the machine to be modified and adapted with remote vehicle control, navigation, and real time mapping abilities, depending on its operational needs. RoBattle can operate independently or as support unit for convoy protection, decoy, ambush, attack, intelligence, surveillance, or armed reconnaissance, according to IAI.