RoboCup is an international scientific initiative with the goal of advancing the state of the science of intelligent robots, AI and automation. The annual RoboCup event will take place from 15-21 July in Salvador, Brazil. The RoboCupRescue League is an important element of the competition and focuses on the challenges involved in search and rescue applications. We caught up with Adam Jacoff, co-founder of the RoboCupRescue league, former RoboCup Trustee, and chair of the organising committee, to find out more. The RoboCupRescue League is now in its 25th year hosting competitions and workshops all around the world.

Roadway-related incidents are a leading cause of flood fatalities nationwide, but limited flood-reporting tools make it difficult to evaluate road conditions in real time. Existing tools -- traffic cameras, water-level sensors and even social media data -- can provide observations of flooding, but they are often not primarily designed for sensing flood conditions on roads and do not work in conjunction. A network of sensors could improve situational flood level awareness; however, they are expensive to operate at scale. Engineers at Rice University have developed a possible solution to this problem: an automated data fusion framework called OpenSafe Fusion. Short for Open Source Situational Awareness Framework for Mobility using Data Fusion, OpenSafe Fusion leverages existing individual reporting mechanisms and public data sources to sense quickly evolving road conditions during urban flooding events, which are becoming increasingly frequent.

The California Legislature passed a bill earlier this month to require human safety drivers in heavy-duty robot trucks for at least the next five years. On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom killed it. "Considering... the existing regulatory framework that presently and sufficiently governs this particular technology, this bill is not needed at this time," the governor said in a veto message. The bill was sponsored by the Teamsters union and backed by highway safety advocates. Opposed: driverless technology companies, Silicon Valley lobbyists, and various chambers of commerce and business leadership groups.

As humans, we have given our best into critical thinking to improve our lives, bringing us into the age of information and communication technology. We have also devised means and ways to prolong and save human lives from unforeseen circumstances and cut back on response time to emergencies. This perhaps is why life expectancy has improved for people, especially in developed nations. In recent times, we are using technology to improve our healthcare and general wellbeing. So, this is to let you get a glimpse of some high-techs we [humans] have developed, already in the works, or need to establish that can save more lives and further improve our general wellbeing.

In coping with an emerging crisis, the need for accurate and actionable information is paramount for effective response – but there has never before been a scenario like the current COVID-19 pandemic. Responders are looking to new technologies including IoT and AI to help tackle this outbreak, but their deployment may have a far-reaching impact on our privacy. How can these technologies contribute to response, both globally and locally – and what privacy concerns could they raise, both now and in the months to follow? The evolution of IoT and AI has grown to the point where these technologies can now be called on to make a real contribution to responding to a crisis manifesting both globally and locally. Globally, modern analytics can learn about the factors of spread that can help analysts identify where actions need to be taken.

Andrew Weinert and his colleagues were deeply frustrated. After Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, the researchers from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory were hard at work trying to help the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) assess the damage. In hand they had the perfect data set: 80,000 aerial shots of the region taken by the Civil Air Patrol right after the disaster. But there was an issue: there were too many images to sort through manually, and commercial image recognition systems were failing to identify anything meaningful. In one particularly egregious example, ImageNet, the golden standard for image classification, recommended labeling an image of a major flooding zone as a toilet.

First responders will be able to use drones equipped with Augmented Reality technology to better deal with emergency situations. Drones have been getting a really bad rep of late, specially in the United Kingdom, after rogue operators managed to shut down operations at both Gatwick and Heathrow airports, effectively ruining Christmas for thousands of travellers and prompting widespread clamour for greater regulation against them. Yet like all technology, it's not the tech itself, but what you do with it that counts, and which makes it a force for evil – or for the greater good. The other side of all the fear and annoyance that drones can cause in the wrong hands are the life-saving applications that companies like Edgybees are working on. Edgybees was initially founded as AR video game enhancement software, then pivoted to specialize in rescue drone technology that collects geospatial data and overlays information onto video feeds to bring emergency responders accurate and real-time information.

Facebook has been using artificial intelligence to detect if a user might be about engage in self-harm. The same technology may soon be used in other scenarios. Facebook has been using artificial intelligence to detect if a user might be about engage in self-harm. The same technology may soon be used in other scenarios. A year ago, Facebook started using artificial intelligence to scan people's accounts for danger signs of imminent self-harm.

Imagine thousands of "talking" drones, able to act as one to perform high-level rescue missions in the face of imminent danger. Sounds like a scene straight out of a Hollywood movie, but in a University of Pennsylvania lab, engineers have produced just that. "Swarm" drones, which can navigate on their own and coordinate with one another using sophisticated metric technology, could become the next fleet of emergency responders. These devices can function as a rescue unit to investigate an active crime scene or natural disaster – capturing images and other data that could help law enforcement plan next steps from a safe distance, said Penn researcher and team member Giuseppe Loianno. "Imagine in the case of a fire, the drones can be sent," said Loianno.

Columnist Jennifer Jolly shows you the coolest tech for Mother's Day. From unicorn roses to selfie drones, here are unusual gadget gifts for mom. Hey! Mother's Day is right around the corner (May 14th). From Unicorn roses to selfie drones, here are all the gadget gifts no one else would ever think of -- except a mom who covers tech for a living. Moms like me love to capture every moment of our family's lives.