Domestic companies are coming up with a series of new services that leverage the latest in drone technology. MicroAd Inc., a Tokyo-based online advertising company, has unveiled a service called Sky Magic to produce sound-and-light extravaganzas. Drones illuminated with LED lights can project logos, words, shapes and pictures in spaces above large-scale events. At its roll-out event in Chiba in April, five drones flew in a formation depicting an inverted image of Mt. Fuji as a live shamisen performance was held in front of an audience of some 1,300.

EHang 184, the world's first passenger drone, capable of autonomously carrying a person in the air for 23 minutes, has been cleared for testing. The approval was given out by the Nevada governor's office to develop and test the vehicle at the state's Federal Aviation Administration-approved drone test site. The electric EHang 184 passenger drone by Chinese firm EHang was unveiled at CES in Las Vegas in January. The Chinese company said that the EHang 184 Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) is a 142-horsepower "personal flying vehicle" that can transport a single person at an altitude of more than 11,000 feet, China's People's Daily Online reported. According to BBC, Macquarie consultancy senior analyst Douglas McNeill gave his opinion of the flying drone concept.

There is no need to worry about whether robots might start taking our jobs. Three of the world's 10 largest employers are already replacing tens of thousands of their workers with robots: Foxconn, a key manufacturing partner for Apple, Google, and Amazon, is the world's 10th largest employer and it has already replaced 60,000 workers with robots, according to a recent note written in part by analyst John Seagrimat CLSA. Walmart, the third-largest global employer with 2.1 million workers, wants to replace its warehouse stock-checkers with flying drones that can scan miles of shelves in a fraction of the time. And the US Department of Defense, the No.1 global employer, is already; flying the world's largest fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles - drones, basically - in its various Middle East conflicts. The US DoD has at least 7,362 RQ-11 Ravens in operation for instance.

In Panama, indigenous tribes are turning to a modern tool to help protect their homes: drones. Vast rainforests, which once covered more than half of Panama's land surface, are shrinking – eaten away by development, both official and unofficial. Forest land is becoming mines, hydroelectric projects, farmland, cattle habitat, and the site of illegal logging. In response, seven indigenous tribes, whose members live in autonomous zones known as comarcas, have begun sending up drones to keep an eye on their forests. Three members from each tribe received a month of training on how to use the drones, Reuters reports.

Recently a drone filmed a pair of whales feeding for perhaps the first time. Bryde's whales (named after the Norwegian merchant who built the first whaling stations in South Africa) reach a maximum length of over 54 feet. That's humongous, and should make it easy to observe them. The vastness of the ocean disagrees, and happily hides the whales in their vast tropical water range. Until recently, Bryde's whales had rarely been observed feeding in the wild.

U.S. drone operators had been stalking the baby-faced British terrorist for days with infrared cameras and other sensors before the order came to kill him. As night fell on April 25, a U.S. warplane dropped a guided-bomb that obliterated the SUV occupied by 23-year-old Raphael Saihou Hostey near Mosul, Islamic State's stronghold in Iraq. Hostey, a recruiter for the militants, was targeted by a U.S. military campaign that has singled out and killed more than 120 Islamic State leaders, commanders, propagandists, recruiters and other so-called high-value individuals so far this year, officials said. The leadership attacks have picked up recently due to intelligence collected by special operations teams on night raids, from captured militants, and from intercepts of emails, cellphones and other communications. The focus on Islamic State's command and control structure, including its recruitment and funding systems, has helped weaken the Sunni extremist group as Iraqi, Syrian and Kurdish forces press the militants on the battlefield.

Sending packages by airplane is nothing new, but the task could soon be taken over by drones. DHL recently completed of a three-month-long test of its automated drone delivery system, the Parcelcopter. It works with a combination helipad and mailbox dubbed Skyport, which can automatically load and unload the drone's payload when it lands and store it in one of the station's lockers. Testing took place between January and March of 2016 in Bavaria, Germany. The idea was to see if the drone could be used to deliver packages to areas that are remote and where standard delivery takes a long time.

British military drones bringing death from above could be capable of firing on targets without the need for a human operator. A new drone being developed by French and British military contractors for use by the RAF, is being built with capabilities of selecting and engaging targets using artificial intelligence. While human intervention is required under international law, the Taranis drone could potentially become fully autonomous if the laws change, taking humans out of the loop and leaving the decision-making to the machines. A new drone being developed by French and British military contractors for use by the RAF, is being built with capabilities of selecting and engaging targets using artificial intelligence, removing the need for humans in the decision-making process. Developed by BAE Systems, the Taranis drone is named after the Celtic god of thunder and is designed to stealthily approach and attack targets, without being detected.

In a statement following their meeting, Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan's special adviser on foreign affairs, said the discussions were candid. According to the statement, the two sides restated their positions. Pakistan affirmed that the drone strike breached its sovereignty and compromised an already stalled Afghan peace process; and the United States reiterated its accusation that Pakistan is providing safe havens for the Taliban in Pakistan.

Video captured from drones has become the must-have money shot when selling high-end real estate. Equipped with a camera, the unmanned aerial vehicles soar over homes, giving prospective buyers a bird's-eye view of the property along with sweeping vistas and skylines. Recently, however, intrepid agents and drone pilots have turned them loose inside estates to capture the majesty of the great indoors: exhilarating descents past chandeliers that continue through cavernous living rooms before launching viewers straight out windows to behold cityscapes. "If you've got the space, using drones inside can be magical," Realtor Bret Parsons said. "One client said that they never realized how beautiful their home was until it was shot by a drone. And now they joke that they don't want to sell it."