A defence company has invented a new futuristic'rifle' that stops rogue drones by hacking into them - and forcing them to fly back to their pilots. DroneShield has developed a software similar to'Google Maps' for drones that instantly locates any drones - and sends them back to their pilots. The firm has previously worked with the British Army and provided assistance to the 2018 Korean Winter Olympics, and their tech is in use at airports. CEO Oleg Vornik remains tight-lipped on the exact cost of the system, but confirmed it ranges from five to seven figures. Mr Vornik also says the system could be used to protect airports from drone incursions - such as the one that brought chaos to Gatwick Airport, bringing it to a standstill for 33 hours before Christmas.

The self-driving car world is a secretive one, where software, hardware, and testing methods are jealously guarded (and occasionally spark a major lawsuit). But this week, we got a glimpse into what these developers have actually been up to, thanks first to a newly released batch of "disengagement" reports every autonomous vehicle outfit testing in California provides to the state at the end of each year. The disengagement data isn't too helpful, but the reports do reveal a serious spike in would-be AV testing, among other tidbits. More intel comes from SoftBank's latest move in this space, a nearly $1 billion investment in AV startup Nuro. In non-robo news, we get a tour of all the tools and tricks that keep Nascar races racy, and bid adieu to the 380, Airbus' freakishly large passenger jet.

Last fourth of July, as fireworks burst across the night sky near the Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, S.C., convicted kidnapper Jimmy Causey tucked a lifelike dummy into his bed, sneaked out of his prison cell and completed a daring escape. It wasn't until three days later, when Texas Rangers found Causey holed up 1,200 miles away, that authorities offered an explanation for how he had obtained the equipment for the breakout, including a pair of wire cutters used to snip through four fences that encircle the maximum security prison. "We believe a drone was used to fly in the tools that allowed him to escape," Bryan Stirling, director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, told reporters at a news conference. A lengthy investigation confirmed that an accessory role was played by a small, off-the-shelf drone. And with that, law-enforcement and national security officials added "prison breaks" to the potential ill uses lurking in a technology widely available at retailers including Amazon and Walmart.

WARNING - GRAPHIC CONTENT: You may find some of these images distressing. When James Andrews' friend invited him over to the beach earlier this month to try out his drone, it appeared to be any regular Saturday. It was James' first experience with the small unmanned aircraft but it ended in disaster, nearly blinding him and leaving him with serious injuries. "It all happened so quickly. I didn't realise what it could actually do," James, 43, told the BBC.

Commercial supersonic air travel could return in just half a decade after a Richard Branson-backed company aiming to replace the concord announced it will begin test flights next year. Boom Supersonic has said initial test flights for its 1,451mph (2,330kph) aircraft, nicknamed the'baby boom', will begin by the end of 2018, with both subsonic and supersonic tests taking place in the US. Supersonic flight tests will be conducted near Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California in partnership with Virgin Galactic's The Spaceship Company. If the firm's full-sized, 55-seater aircraft is approved, the first passengers could be making a supersonic journey across the Atlantic by 2023 at a top speed more than 100mph (160km/h) faster than the infamous Concorde. Boom Supersonic has said initial test flights for its 1,451mph (2,330kph) aircraft, nicknamed the'baby boom', will begin by the end of 2018, with both subsonic and supersonic tests taking place in the US.

Anyone who buys a drone in the UK may have to register it and take a safety test for the first time under new measures to prevent potential collisions with passenger jets. Measures proposed by ministers also include criminal liability for anyone who flies a drone in "no-fly zones" surrounding airports and prisons, and an increase in fines, which currently cannot exceed a maximum £2,500. Ministers also want to make drones electronically identifiable on the ground, in order to make it easier for police to track devices to their owners. The government has estimated that the drone industry will be worth £127bn by 2025, but ministers believe it will only be a success if it is done safely and with the consent of the public. While there are already strict rules for drone users, the unmanned aerial vehicles, which can operate either under remote control by a person or autonomously by onboard computers, have become increasingly widespread, and are cheaply available in high street shops and on Amazon.

A passenger jet taking off at Liverpool airport narrowly avoided a collision with a drone that came within 5 metres (16ft) of the aircraft's wingtip, an investigation has found. The pilot spotted the large, black and yellow drone immediately after the Airbus A319 took off, but it was so close there was nothing he could do to avoid it, he told a UK Airprox Board review, which found that "chance had played a major part" in avoiding a collision. The drone pilot could not be found. But members of the board who wrote a report on the incident said it should have been obvious that the unmanned vehicle was endangering the passenger jet, "even if the operator was not'aviation-minded'". It was one of four near misses in a month between drones and commercial passenger airlines recorded by the UK Airprox Board.

NAGOYA – A passenger jet being developed by Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. aborted its second attempt to head to the United States on Sunday when an air conditioning problem that thwarted its first bid reoccurred. The Mitsubishi Regional Jet, which has been mired in a series of development delays, left Nagoya at around 1 p.m. for Hokkaido, its first planned stop. But it was forced to turn around two hours later, according to Mitsubishi Aircraft, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. The company said it has not decided when the jet will make the next attempt to fly to the U.S. as it needs to identify the cause of the problem. Mitsubishi Heavy aimed to take the MRJ to the U.S. for certification testing by the end of this month.

No one knows for certain what will happen if an errant drone crashes into a passenger jet. Who wants to find out for sure? Better to keep drones and planes well out of each other's way. One important step is for Congress to pass the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that's working its way through the Senate this month. Among many other things, the bill adopts some of the strictest regulations for commercial and hobby drones yet. It's way past time to start getting a handle on these flying robots.

"This is one more incident that could have brought down an airliner, and it's completely unacceptable," she said in a statement. Operators also must keep their drones away from other aircraft and groups of people. The FAA has received at least 42 reports of drones flying unsafely near LAX, the nation's second-busiest airport, since April 2014, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis last fall of federal data released by Feinstein. The data shows nearly 200 pilot reports of close encounters involving drones in California alone during the past two years, the most of any state, according to the Times. In a 2014 letter to the FAA, Feinstein cited three instances in which drones flew dangerously close to passenger planes near major airports -- two on the same day in May of that year at New York City's LaGuardia Airport and LAX, and another at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York in March 2013.