It’s a quiet morning in San Francisco, with soft sunlight illuminating patches of thick fog billowing over the Golden Gate Bridge. A solitary unmanned aircraft—a 4-pound, battery-powered wedge of impact-resistant foam with a 54-inch wingspan, a single pusher-propeller in the rear, and a GoPro video camera attached to its body—quietly approaches the landmark.

Call them what you want—flying robots, unmanned aircraft, or drones are coming in swarms
Raphael “Trappy” Pirker controls the aircraft from a nearby hill. The bridge is within sight, but the 29-year-old enjoys the scenery through virtual-reality goggles strapped to his head...

THE HUMBLE BUMBLE BEE IS TO BECOME ROBOTIC SAY QUEENSLAND SCIENTISTS

Bees have long been renowned in the scientific world as one of the most efficient flying machines on Earth.

ARNOLD S. ……….MEET ‘THE POLLINATOR’

Now, in what may seem like science-fiction, University of Queensland researchers have studied their flight patterns in virtual reality in a bid to develop insect-sized robots.

”We are thinking this can be applied to robotics for very small flying robots,” PhD student Gavin Taylor said. ”If we had small flying robots, potentially they could act as pollinators, because bees are in global decline. But they could also be used for other things, such as in search-and-rescue flights.”

As part of the world-first Queensland Brain Institute study, Mr Taylor and other researchers tethered t...

HUNTING LICENSES FOR DRONE SHOOTS IN COLORADO USA

Deer Trail, Colorado (population 600 or so) is to vote on a local ordinance that would allow drone hunting licenses and bounties for shooting down UAVs, according to ABC affiliate KMGH-TV.

Those with a valid drone hunting license will be rewarded US$100 if they present “identifiable parts” of UAVs “known to be owned or operated by the United States federal government,” the draft ordinance states.

“We do not want drones in town,” local Phillip Steel, who came up with the draft, tells KMGH-TV. “They fly in town, they get shot down.”

If passed, the ordinance would see one-year drone hunting licenses sell for $25, and there’s talk of a novelty drone-hunting festival to boost tourism.

To Steel it’s a serious issue, however...