Police officers chase a suspect to his home. The suspect runs behind the house, out of sight. The officers open the trunk of their patrol car and pull out what looks like a toy model aircraft with four rotors and a video camera. They launch the aircraft, which allows them to monitor their suspect’s movements through a video feed on an iPad-like tablet and, ultimately, to apprehend him.
In Mesa County, Colo., the sheriff’s department is testing a drone called the Dragonfly X6. Ben Miller, unmanned systems coordinator for the sheriff’s office, says it’s been especially useful in search operations.
“We had a lost subject in a vegetated creek bed and we were given about a mile length of that creek to search,” Miller says. “We completed that search in just a little over an hour with two staff members.”
All those unmanned aircraft have some people a little wary. Privacy advocate Harley Geiger of the Center for Democracy and Technology says drones are basically flying video cameras.
“Drones can easily be equipped with facial recognition cameras, infrared cameras or open Wi-Fi sniffers,” Geiger says. “So when people think about drones they shouldn’t just think that a telephoto lens is the only feature that can raise a privacy issue.”
Nor, says Geiger, is it only law enforcement that could be watching: “The paparazzi, your homeowners’ association, your neighbor, a journalist can all sic drones on you as well.”
—Look, Up In The Sky! It’s A Drone, Looking At You by BRIAN NAYLOR, NPR
You might ask what we got for the trillion we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan? The peace is debatable. But one thing is for sure: drone technology advanced by leaps and bounds (see cool videos here).
A good friend of mine has been inside a number of very successful technology start-ups. He is obsessed with the commercial applications of drones. And he is not alone.
We are not talking about just miniature planes that can assist police in searching remote areas for lost people or follow your kid on the way to school (which exists today) but drones complete with artificial intelligence and facial recognition cameras. A personal drone that can beam your kid’s little league game to your desktop and tell you with your spouse is cheating on you without you even asking it to do so.
Think of Siri on steroids with aerial movement capability.
My buddy got off the plane with his family and on the way to baggage claim his kids were transfixed by a drone flying around the gate area that turned out to be from the Brookstone spent the hall. That drone was the state of the art defense technology less than 5 years ago. It now costs $300.
Civilian police can get current state of the art drones for the price of a police cruiser. That’s affordable to some now. And within a few years they will be available for a fraction of the price.
Are personal drones a good thing?
I’m not sure but they are coming.
Image: CSmonitor.com
My dentist will want one.
He really wants a nuclear bomb. I told him it would not be an ideal weapon to get kids off his lawn.
Motion tracking water cannon/super soaker would be cool for that haha.
There’s a great story out there somewhere for the GMP about the evolving image of the military pilot in America. There may be less of a need nowadays for actual human fighter pilots now that we have sophisticated drones. What does that mean for the classic image of the manly, heroic fighter pilot that Hollywood has been in love with since World War I? Can you have _Top Gun_ with guys sitting in a trailer playing video games from 3000 miles away? No, I’m not volunteering to write it. Also wondering aloud, as an Air Force brat, about the medals… Read more »
Well the benefit of UAV’s is the manoeuvrings aren’t’ limited to the g forces a human can handle but the bad thing is more military action can be undertaken without worrying if your pilot is coming home. Just build another one!
Yeah my son absolutely loves his remote control flying shark he got for xmas!
I so badly want a drone, as a tech lover I am extremely excited by what the future is bringing us. Robotics is advancing very quickly and what cost heaps yesterday is quite cheap today. Hell our phones have more power than desktops did a decade ago or so, 3d printing is now a reality (google reprap), DIY CNC machines are becoming cheap and we can manufacture things at home now with those that were much harder, much more expensive to do a decade ago. Scary thing is with robotics advancing so quickly, there is a very real danger of… Read more »