Drones are everywhere and when a Japanese company creates a drone to power an umbrella, we say, why not? According to Sora News 24, Asahi Power Service, the Japanese company, has created a prototype'hover parasol.' A four-rotor drone equipped with a camera and artificial intelligence is able to position itself to protect it from the sun or rain. At first glance, it feels like drone is attached to a parasol or umbrella. It looks more like a traditional umbrella, with a handle, suggesting it would only be activated in short bursts when you need both hands to perform a particular task.

A semi-autonomous drone modified with an umbrella canopy promises to shield users from the rain by automatically tracking their movements, but it's a hell of a lot pricier than a regular brolly. Drone retailer DronesDirect lists the creatively named Umbrella Drone, a specially adapted DJI Phantom 4 quadcopter, at a staggering £1,299, down from £1,499. The retailer, meanwhile, is selling the standard Phantom 4 for £997. However, a call to DronesDirect established that the Umbrella Drone is currently still in testing, and isn't available to buy just yet. The designers say the light-hearted creation came about because of the UK's notoriously unpredictable weather, and will be able to cope with even "the most adverse" conditions.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. So far I haven't gotten on board this whole "drone" thing. You mean remote controlled helicopters?

In the 1980s, astronomers discovered that objects falling into black holes in our galaxy throw off flickering X-rays before they vanish. Why this happened was a mystery. A discovery by the European Space Agency's orbiting X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton (aided by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission) has proved the existence of a "gravitational vortex" around a black hole, which solves the flickering mystery. The image above is an artist depiction of of the accretion disk around a black hole as the orbit of the material changes orientation around the central object.