
Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything - WardPlunet
http://gigaom.com/2013/12/01/consumer-drones-are-coming-and-they-will-change-everything/
======
ChuckMcM
So much more they could have said but did not. When do we see the first set of
drones that fly into AT&T Park and land on a ledge somewhere letting someone
outside the park watch the game? When do we have a drone at 399' run out of
charge and fall down doing property damage or injuring someone and the owner
never claims their drone back? When do we get Papparazi chasing celebrity
weddings with drones? (I believe I read a report of this already, at least on
the property of a celebrity). Fly it up to the roof of your target at night
and then just settle in for a day's worth of filming? And of course when will
we have a bad actor use a drone to assassinate a world leader or opposition
leader, flying up to them and detonating a small directional charge.

Yes, they are going to change everything and it will be equal parts good and
bad. I expect them to end up being illegal for non law enforcement to own.

~~~
Futurebot
How about insect-sized assassination drones?
[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/wha...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/what-
is-the-political-equilibrium-when-insect-sized-drone-assassins-are-
available.html)

Excerpt:

"Not bee drones, rather drone drones, with military and terrorist
capabilities. There is already a (foiled) terror plot using model airplanes.
How easy would it be to stop a mechanical “bee” which injects a human target
with rapidly-acting poison?"

~~~
ChuckMcM
Well you can fantasize of course :-) Actual small flyers with both useful
range and telemetry are still science fiction. The number to watch is the
energy density / energy consumption ratio. Dragonfly like devices can
currently get airborne and fly a few 10s of meters, but that is without any
cargo capacity at all.

Not that someday it won't happen, rather that today you could carry a 12 ga
shotgun shell around with a camera that lets you see where you are. All of
that tech is 'off the shelf' today. Hence the more immediacy of the change.

------
bambax
The article is shallow, but the title is right! I have a DJI Phantom (1) with
a GoPro attached to it, and it's fantastic. What's fantastic also is that
since the arrival of the Phantom 2, the price of model 1 has dropped by about
40%.

It's a really cool machine because it flies high and far away (unlike the
Parrot which is just a toy).

------
ck2
If you think cheap drones for consumers won't be abused, note there are many
thousands of incidents of people purposely pointing green lasers at aircraft
in the USA each year.

~~~
Estragon
Why is pointing a laser pointer at a plane a big deal?

~~~
krapp
It can blind the pilots.

~~~
Estragon
Huh, I always assumed that was just more security hysteria, but it looks like
you are right.

[http://www.laserpointersafety.com/page52/laser-
hazard_diagra...](http://www.laserpointersafety.com/page52/laser-
hazard_diagram/laser-hazard_diagram.html)

------
thatthatis
I can't wait for the drone delivery businesses to pop up.

Food from across town, delivered hot in 15 minutes. EBay now: now only $.75
per delivery thanks to near zero human delivery labor.

Couple a drone quad copter with a google self driving car and we've got the
makings of an excellent robot slave industry.

~~~
purringmeow
I've always fancied the idea of drone-waiters. There won't be any need of
truck/cab drivers soon too.

A lot of jobs will be lost in the future, because of automation. I don't know
if that's good or not, however.

~~~
thatthatis
Every time human labor is replaced by machines this question gets asked. So
far, over many centuries, the answer has unequivocally been: over the long
run, replacing humans with machines is incredibly good. The bad is short lived
but real - people have to switch jobs, often for lower work because they are
too old to amortize new skills training.

Short of skynet, I celebrate humans being supplanted.

~~~
toomuchtodo
It only works until 51% of the population is unemployed and in the streets
cold and hungry.

The pitchfork business is going to boom at that point.

~~~
thatthatis
Over the past 150 years or so we went from ~90% of the labor force working in
agriculture to between 1 and 10% working in agriculture.

That's a shift of about 80% over two generations.

~~~
toomuchtodo
We were also able to find jobs for those who no longer worked in ag. It
appears there is concern (quite a bit, actually) that we may no longer be able
to find jobs for those displaced by software and robotics (automation).

If you continue to automate jobs, there will eventually be very few jobs left.
How the result of this is handled will be interesting to say the least.

~~~
thatthatis
The concern is not new. It's been around for centuries.

~~~
kansface
Sure, but there is reason to believe it is different this time around. We are
close to automating away all blue collar jobs outside of the service sector.
We are also making inroads in white collar jobs too like law and medicine. At
some point, minus an apocalypse, we will be able to automate away most
meaningful work for everyone. This was not the case 150 years ago.

------
Jxnathan
"It's illegal to use drones to make money." Any specific reasoning behind
this?

~~~
Sanddancer
Probably for similar reasons why you need a commercial pilot license. If
you're going to be doing it for money, you should have more training than
someone just going to wal-mart and picking up a drone. However, as such a
training regimen has not been defined yet, the FAA has decided that it's safer
just to say it's off limits for now.

Personally, I'd love to see more effort into setting up such a commercial
program, as there are a lot of dangerous jobs that could be made safer through
drones. For example, there are dozens of crop duster accidents each year where
someone's injured or killed. Pulling someone out of the pilot seat, and onto
the ground can make that job a lot safer and more accurate. But, we can't get
there until we do the studies to figure out how to do such safely.

~~~
Jxnathan
It's odd that you can fly them around the city and bump into buildings freely,
but when the money aspect is implemented it somehow changes everything. A
sandwich or other small food delivery service seems innocent enough.

------
dfischer
On a related topic check out the following libraries to program your 'drones':

[http://www.artoo.io](http://www.artoo.io)

[http://www.cylon.js](http://www.cylon.js)

[http://gobot.io/](http://gobot.io/)

~~~
jjwiseman
[https://github.com/felixge/node-ar-drone](https://github.com/felixge/node-ar-
drone) (powers my in-browser air traffic drone augmented reality app:
[http://lemondronor.com/blog/indexphp/2013/5/augmented-
realit...](http://lemondronor.com/blog/indexphp/2013/5/augmented-reality-
display-of-air-traffic-for-drones))

------
atmosx
If one of those things, for whatever reason, blacks-out and kills someone they
will be permanently banned.

A way around this would be to permit them to fly above specific areas, via
predetermined, controlled routes, that pedestrians should avoid to minimize
the risk of accidents.

But the technology for the police (or any authority) to ID those _vehicles_
and control what they are transporting (or state of transporting) it's already
here, someone needs to put the pieces together and it's ready to go.

~~~
joering2
Um, as long as government gives permission, one death will be only statistics
and won't make a change.

Only this thanksgiving there was a little girl (civilian) killed by mistake in
Afganistan by US drone (I cannot find news on it somehow).

This is a good read as well:

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-afghan-civilians-killed-
by-...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-afghan-civilians-killed-by-drones-
in-2012-un-says/)

~~~
Sharlin
Oh, but that was a brown person somewhere far away. Everybody knows those
aren't _real_ people.

------
sean-duffy
The idea of legislation concerning civilian 'drone' use concerns me for one
reason: if there was such legislation, where would the line be drawn between a
'drone' and a recreational RC aircraft? Could this effectively outlaw an
entire hobby?

------
mentos
I'd be upset to see drones banned from our airspace before we get to realize
their full potential for good.

If this happens I think in-home drone solutions could still provide very cool
solutions. I'm sitting here on my couch and I could sure use a drink :P

~~~
jotm
I think they're already mostly banned - RC copters have been around for a
while.

I struggle to see what they can be used for right now - maybe in the future,
with a robotic hand attached to it, it can clean my roof :-), but right now
it's just an expensive toy.

------
noiv
Clicked link, searched for _airworthiness_ , came back to comment.

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r0s
This is really no more of a change then telephoto lenses.

Cool as hell, but a flying security camera is hardly revolutionary.

------
coldcode
These days everything changes everything. It's a dreadful phrase that should
be retired.

