In episode four of season two, we talk about some of the major issues in AI safety, (and how they’re not really that different from the questions we ask whenever we create a new tool.) We take a listener question about time series, and we talk with Nick Patterson of the Broad Institute about everything from ancient DNA to Alan Turing.

In October, the White House announced that it will deploy a Predator drone unit to Cameroon. We have obtained the first photographic evidence of this drone outpost, which was erected in the northern city of Garoua. Here’s a close look at what we found.

In a transaction valued at $45 million, iRobot has sold its Defense and Security division to Arlington Capital Partners. Sean Bielat, who takes over as the CEO, says the new company will be the largest independent provider of ground-based robots to the Department of Defense.

The European Land Robot Trial (ELROB) will mark its 10th anniversary in 2016. Registration now open.

On Friday November 13th, AJung Moon from the Open Roboethics initiative (ORi) delivered a statement at the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) Meeting of States Parties.

According to the Autonomous Undersea Vehicle Applications Center, a non-profit industry advocacy organization, there are 251 unique configurations of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) in service today, including 144 different vehicle platforms. That number is likely to grow in the coming years as the technology improves. Here’s what you need to know about them …

AI researcher Toby Walsh gives a talk at TEDx Berlin on Killer Robots. Walsh will be participating in a side event and media briefing for the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots at the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly’s First Committee Meeting on Disarmament and International Security on October 20.

Inspired by the 2011 Fukushima accident, euRathlon is a civilian outdoor robotics competition focused on realistic cooperative disaster response scenarios. In the first day of the trials, aerial, ground and marine robots had to deal with the very real conditions of a demanding coastal environment. Watch the Day One recap video.

Inspired by the 2011 Fukushima accident, euRathlon is an outdoor competition design to drive research on cooperative search and rescue response for land, sea and air robots. Previous single-domain euRathlon competitions focussed on land (2013) and sea (2014). This year’s Grand Challenge brings the air, land and sea challenges together. Learn more about the challenge and the participating teams …

The Icelandic Institute of Intelligent Machines (IIIM) has become the first R&D centre in the world to adopt a policy that repudiates development of robotic technologies intended for military operations.

FSR, the biannual single track meeting on field and service robotics, is on now in Toronto. With 42 papers on a range of applications and keynotes by Chris Urmson (Google[x]), Paul Newman (Oxford), Sanjiv Singh (CMU), and Ryan Gariepy (Clearpath Robotics), lots of ground will be covered. Robohub’s Hallie Siegel is on site at the event – check out the live tweets below.

The DRC is not about robots going off to mitigate disasters on their own – it’s about honing the interface between humans and robots so we can take best advantage of what each has to offer. With hundreds of people coalescing around a common goal at this event, an inspiring community has arisen.

DARPA’s latest Challenge reaches its climax on 6 June 2015, when 25 finalists compete for $3.5m of prize money in what’s possibly the most anticipated robotic contest ever. Since its inception in 2012, the event has lost its top competitor and the challenge is now even tougher. Here’s what you need to know to enjoy the event, in one handy guide.

When the DARPA Robotics Challenge first began to coalesce from an idea to a plan, we knew that we wanted to create a lasting legacy not only for robot hardware capabilities, but also for robotics simulation software. To help with these efforts, DARPA contracted with the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) in 2012.

Experts from all over the world are gathered at the United Nations in Geneva today to debate questions surrounding lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) for the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). The CCW runs to April 17 – follow the live tweets and check back here for updates.