For years, GoPro was the silent partner in the camera drone revolution. Slung beneath DJI quadcopters or hobbyist-built models, the hardy camera took all the footage, but the flying machines themselves got the credit. Tired of playing second fiddle in a growing industry, GoPro is putting itself back in center stage with a new unmanned vehicle of its own. The drone was announced in October, but now it has a name: Karma. I guess Karma's a drone.

Drones were supposed to be a revolution. In the last decade, decreasing costs and greater availability of small, remotely controlled unmanned flying machines promised a new era of public safety, rescue work, agricultural efficiency, aerial photography, and amateur dentistry. (Okay, maybe not that last one). Whatever technological frontier the early drone age was supposed to be is now heading toward an end. Today, the Department of Transportation announced it wants to start registering drones.

For the Navy, flying robots just aren't enough anymore. To truly fulfill the maritime combat branch's mission, designers are making unmanned flying machines that can land on the sea and swim beneath it. The imposingly named “Flimmer”, created by the Naval Research Laboratory, is one such robot, with flippers on the ends of its wings that fold up for flight. It turns out Flimmer isn't the only transforming drone in the works. Boeing was granted a patent for a “Rapid Deployment Air And Water Vehicle,” or, a drone that flies and then swims.

Drones, as low-cost flying machines, make great rescue tools. They can look and go places people can't--or at least can't go safely--and with infrared cameras, they can sometimes see beyond what human eyes can. In Houston, the World Animal Awareness Society plans to use them to track stray dogs, combining a drone's utility as a mapping device with its rescue abilities.

Secretly, a lot of drones are cell phone parts disguised as flying machines. Advances in cellular technology, like miniaturized powerful batteries, cheaper smaller cameras, and sensors like accelerometers have all found their way from our pockets to the skies. Now, a new drone eye wants to shed cell parts like a vestigial tail, and instead make drones fly on sight alone.

Earlier this week, flying barely under the wire of its 2013 deadline, the Federal Aviation Administration announced the six states it had selected as test sites for domestic drone use. The goal is to figure out how unmanned aerial vehicles can safely work in U.S. skies alongside commercial planes, news and police helicopters, cropdusters, and the whole range of peopled flying machines. Twenty-four states applied, eager to lead the country in developing commercial uses for drones and grab a slice of what the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International predicts will be an $82 billion industry by 2025.