As at least three major wildfires rage across the American southwest, the people tasked with controlling them are contending with an unusual problem beyond the flames themselves: Drones. Officials say that small personal drones are increasingly being spotted flying near or above wildfires, interfering with aircraft used for aerial firefighting and firefighter transport operations. Small drones operating near wildfires put those aircraft at risk of collision. It's unclear why people are flying drones near wildfires, but it's likely they're being used to record video footage of the blazes. Firefighters spotted two drones in their air crew's operating area on Wednesday in Arizona, the Arizona Republic reports.

Sega has revealed that a new title in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is in development for release in 2017. The news was confirmed by Sonic Team executive Takashi Iizuka during a 25th anniversary event in Tokyo, according to Gematsu. It was also revealed that more information on the mysterious new game will be shown at San Diego Comic Con next month, all of which will be livestreamed online. "We at Sonic Team are developing a completely new game," Iizuka said. "The most important thing is not the fact that the series survived for 25 years, but how many games [were] developed.

Spot the robotic dog now has a smaller and more flexible cousin. The Google-owned robotics company Boston Dynamics just revealed its SpotMini: a shorter version of the computerized pup with a neck that extends like that of a giraffe. The robot weighs 55 pounds and can run for 90 minutes on a single charge depending on the task it's handling. Boston Dynamic's demo video shows SpotMini using its long neck to dispose of trash and reach household items like dishes in a dishwasher. When it slipped on a banana peel, the bot was even able to lift itself back onto its feet using its neck for support.

Self-driving car technology is advancing at a rapid pace, thanks to work by technology and automotive companies ranging from Google to Ford. While still years from being widely adopted, driverless cars are increasingly capable of handling a wide variety of driving conditions. With the basic technical hurdles out of the way, driverless car experts now face a different set of problems -- namely, ethical issues. Among the most pressing questions: What should a driverless car do if it faces a choice between putting its passengers at risk or harming someone outside the vehicle? New research reveals that people are conflicted about such a dilemma.

Longtime LEGO custodians TT Games applies its lightly irreverent block-building formula to the newest Star Wars film, adding a few new wrinkles like Multi-Builds (choose from multiple possible build piles as part of a new puzzling element) and Blaster Battles (cover-based, over-the-shoulder shootouts).

The Obama administration issued new regulations on commercial drone use Tuesday, clearing the way for farmers, businesses and other corporations to utilize "unmanned aircraft" in their day-to-day operations. The rule comes with several caveats: use of drones is restricted to daylight and twilight hours, operators are asked to avoid flying drones over people, and the aircraft are required to weigh 55 lbs. Operators--who have to be at least 16 years of age-- would be restricted to flying one drone at a time and vehicles would have to be within their line of sight. Pilots will also have to to pass a written test and undergo a security vetting process in order to operate the drones. Federal officials are willing to make some exceptions, offering applications for waivers for those who want to use their drones at night and fly over crowds.

Burner numbers might seem like a plot device best left to the writers on cheesy cop shows, but a fast-growing startup--aptly named Burner--is proving there are everyday use cases for a secondary set of digits that you can access through your existing phone via app. Online Dating: In an era when people might swipe right and swap numbers before they meet, having a secondary number can offer daters a sense of control and privacy. "We say if you give your number to someone on Tinder, they shouldn't be able to figure out who you are," says Burner CEO Greg Cohn. On Tuesday, the company announced a new feature for these users: a text bot that will ghost unwanted wooers through their burner line. Craigslisting: Phone numbers, relative to the phones they're associated with, are pretty dumb, Cohn says.

If you are a member of the dating public, you have likely ended your romance with someone--or been slowly snubbed--by a drawn-out, awkward string of text messages and silence. For the uninitiated, this practice of smothering a personal relationship to death by withdrawing from communication is known as ghosting, and there's now a pretty mean chatbot who will do this for you. Users can access the bot through Burner, an app that specializes in providing people with temporary or secondary phone numbers that are used by consumers ranging from online daters who want privacy to charter boat captains who want to separate their personal and business lives on their cell. The company collaborated with screenwriter Peter Miriani and bot-makers Voxable to launch the feature. Though the bot will usually wait anywhere from several minutes to several hours before responding with a ghosting text, for testing purposes the bot was set to go back-and-forth in real time.

A high-profile artificial intelligence research group backed by Elon Musk said it is developing a robot. OpenAI, which formed in December, said on Monday that it's working on creating an "off-the-shelf" robot that others can manufacture. The idea is to design a robot outside of a corporate umbrella as a way to speed innovation without a financial motive. OpenAI is backed by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in addition to other high-profile technology executives and entrepreneurs, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman and Jessica Livingston from startup incubator Y Combinator, and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Artificial intelligence techniques like machine learning, in which algorithms detect patterns by sifting through enormous quantities of data and then act on the findings, have become popular in recent years with companies like Google and Facebook.

This year's E3 may be over, but we'll feel the ripples for months. Here's a rundown of some of the heavily scrutinized industry trade show's biggest events and takeaways. It'll need more in the years to come, but for E3 2016 at least, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild seems like the knockout punch so many have been hoping for. The action-adventure game, which stars longtime series hero Link, transpires for the first time in an open world festooned with objectives, unique biomes and completely new-to-the-series activities. You can cook, (manually) jump, climb nearly anything and go anywhere you like in a painterly multifaceted playground as vast as any yet seen.