On TikTok, Chinese manufacturers are advertising signal-blocking weapons with the breezy cadence of consumer lifestyle advertising. "Pew, pew, pew!" a woman wearing sneakers and high-waisted pink trousers says cheerfully in a video uploaded to TikTok. She is standing on what appears to be an industrial rooftop while demonstrating how to use a black device resembling an oversized laser tag gun. "Jamming gun, good," she adds, flashing a thumbs up. These days, nearly any product imaginable is available for purchase on TikTok straight from Chinese factories, ranging from industrial chemicals to mystical crystals and custom pilates reformers.

Nearly 1,500 US police departments operate drones but only about a dozen routinely dispatch them in response to 911 calls, according to ACLU research. Drone maker Skydio aims to see that change, with a new model launched last week called the X10. The goal, cofounder and CEO Adam Bry said during a launch event last week in San Francisco, is to "get drones everywhere they can be useful in public safety." The new drone is capable of flying at speeds of 45 miles per hour and is small enough to fit into the trunk of a police car. It has infrared sensors that can be used to track people and fly autonomously in the dark.

WASHINGTON – Ukraine has broadened a request for controversial cluster bombs from the United States to include a weapon that it wants to cannibalize to drop the anti-armor bomblets it contains on Russian forces from drones, according to two U.S. lawmakers. Kyiv has urged members of Congress to press the White House to approve sending the weapons but it is by no means certain that the Biden administration will sign off on that. Cluster munitions, banned by more than 120 countries, normally release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area, threatening civilians. Ukraine is seeking the MK-20, an air-delivered cluster bomb, to release its individual explosives from drones, said U.S. Representatives Jason Crow and Adam Smith, who both serve on the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee. That is in addition to 155 mm artillery cluster shells that Ukraine already has requested, they said.

Drones of all sizes are being used by environmental advocates to monitor deforestation, by conservationists to track poachers, and by journalists and activists to document large protests. As a political sociologist who studies social movements and drones, I document a wide range of nonviolent and pro-social drone uses in my new book, "The Good Drone." I show that these efforts have the potential to democratize surveillance. But when the Department of Homeland Security redirects large, fixed-wing drones from the U.S.-Mexico border to monitor protests, and when towns experiment with using drones to test people for fevers, it's time to think about how many eyes are in the sky and how to avoid unwanted aerial surveillance. One way that's within reach of nearly everyone is learning how to simply disappear from view.

The United Nations's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary killings presented a new report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. Agnes Callamard's investigation focused on the legality of armed drones including one that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani near Baghdad's airport on January 3. It concluded the United States acted unlawfully in carrying out the attack. The US, meanwhile, denounced her findings. Callamard spoke to Al Jazeera about her probe and the future of drone warfare.

In the midst of South Africa's five-week extended lockdown, footage has emerged of a drone collecting data and enforcing social distancing. It offers a fascinating first-person view of AI-based software in action and yet another example of drones fighting against COVID-19. The footage comes from local South African publication Sowetan Live. A mayor within the largely rural Limpopo Province of South Africa has employed drone technology to monitor social distancing and enforce lockdown rules. Similar to implementations in other countries, this drone uses a public address system.

When it comes to the issue of managing drones (Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or UAS) the US Department of Justice wants Americans to know it's on the case. In 2015, the DOJ published what was meant to be a comprehensive policy governing how US Government departments and law enforcement use drones to take account issues such as privacy, law and the Constitution. Four years on and things have moved on a bit, prompting tweaks addressing more recent concerns, including misuse, access to airspace, and the cybersecurity of the drones themselves. Large parts of the 2015 policy and its 2019 update sound almost identical. On privacy, both policies limit departments gathering drone data that contains personally identifiable information (PII) to 180 days unless there's a specific reason to keep it longer.

The world's leading producer of camera drones, DJI has demonstrated a technique to gather information about a nearby drone, precisely locating its pilot through a smartphone. It employs a protocol called "Wi-Fi Aware", which makes the information about nearby drones available to anyone looking up for flying drones. The company said it would increase " safety, security, and peace of mind", along with preventing disruptions and security threats. However, the idea is being dismissed by security experts as they are of the opinion that it is not sufficient to fight illegal drone use and that the sophisticated hackers would easily manage to bypass the detection. With ransomware emerging as a service and being easily available, it's reasonable to expect hackers finding ways to circumvent the DJI's protocol.

The growth in the profile of drones has surely by now moved out of the folder marked "Fad." Where once flying model aircraft was seen as a fairly niche hobby, enjoyed by men with sensible jackets and thick-rimmed glasses, now seemingly everyone wants to get in on the drone act. Drones are now used extensively to carry out inspections or survey and map terrain in harsh or hazardous environments. For work on power lines or oil rigs, the benefits to the health and safety of human workers are clear. After all, why would you send a human up a tower to assess a fault when it takes a camera-equipped drone 10 seconds to get there?

On Sunday, police said both individuals had cooperated fully and were no longer suspects, adding that they were continuing to follow leads in their investigation. The airport offered a £50,000 ($63,200) reward for any evidence that leads to the conviction of those responsible for the disruption, police said. Drone use around commercial flights is a growing safety concern for regulators. Prosecutions when drones are flown too close to commercial planes are rare, and some instances of drone sightings by commercial airliners have turned out to be inaccurate. This month, authorities in Mexico investigated a potential collision of an Aeromexico jetliner with a drone.