

Drones Get Ready to Fly, Unseen, Into Everyday Life  - cwan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703631704575551954273159086.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

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Loic
What scares me the most is not the military use, it this one:

> _But the real prize may be in civilian applications. "The military stuff is
> kind of passe," Ms. Cummings said. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist from
> MIT to tell you if we can do it for a soldier in the field, we can do it for
> anybody." As a parent of a 3-year-old, she said, she could use the same
> technology to track her daughter on her way to school (she would need to
> plant an electronic bug in her lunch box or backpack). That would "bring a
> whole new meaning to a hover parent," she said. Schools could even use
> drones for perimeter control._

I don't want my kids to be controlled by drones, I don't want kids to be
looked behind on their way to school like animals. If you don't give a bit of
freedom to your kids, if you are always on their back, they will never mature
and reach adulthood. They will never have the feeling of freedom they need to
develop themselves and be great creators, scientists, whatever. They will be
sheep controlled by the sheepdog of the moment.

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tomjen3
What scares me the most is the possibility that they can be used for
assassinations; at present drones are not fast enough, manuveable enough or
stealthy enough, but thats a technical limitation that isn't likely to last
for that long.

The main fear with this is that those who are going to be protecting other
people are very unlikely to see this coming, nor to be especially prepared for
it. The secret service (who are not the only ones who do protection, or even
the main ones, but no doubt the best) are really good at closing of every
attack route that they know of, but even so it is widely known that it is
impossible or nearly so to stop an assassin who is willing to give up his own
life. With this technology, this may become true of any person who can get an
internet connection (until drones become able to navigate autonomously) and is
willing to sacrifice a drone -- which is going to be a larger number of people
that those who are willing go sacrifice their life.

I sincerely hope I am wrong, because I wouldn't like the kind of society that
would have to be created to prevent somebody from doing this, nor the kind of
surveillance methods that would be required to prevent somebody from building
a drone (if your are going to kill people, you don't care if building a drone
is technically illegal).

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anigbrowl
_The main fear with this is that those who are going to be protecting other
people are very unlikely to see this coming, nor to be especially prepared for
it._

Why, you think working in security means not reading a newspaper? I rather
suspect that the people with the high-stakes jobs hold them because they are
actually proactive rather than the sort of people who stand around waiting for
something to happen.

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tomjen3
No, I don't think that applies to people working in security.

But I know that it applies to a large number of people working in the
government.

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rsheridan6
Could these be used for last mile transportation? As a way to deliver a
letter, or perhaps even a pizza, at least during nice weather?

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sliverstorm
I don't see why not, but there'd be a payload weight limit, and if popularity
increased, you'd need some kind of routing system to keep bots from colliding.

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asynchronous13
You are correct that these issues need to be addressed, the FAA already has a
system in place to prevent aerial collisions of commercial and private planes.
I'm sure the existing regulations can be modified to be more suitable for uavs
and city-scale flight patterns. For example, stay at odd-hundred elevation for
north and east travel and stay at even-hundred for south and west travel.

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olefoo
So will we soon see a co-evolutionary arms race as ever stealthier drones are
harassed, blocked or outright disabled by ever more aggressive counter
measures?

I could see the paparazzi style flying eyes being dealt with by LIDAR
countermeasures. The tracking drones are already vulnerable to a number of the
same tactics that involve shaking a tail of any sort. I foresee some exciting
new precedents getting set from this conflict though.

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pandakar
Stephenson's Diamond Age theorizes on what happens nation-states develop nano-
drones. Funky stuff.

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olefoo
That's exactly what I was thinking of; I figured the reference would be
obvious to those who'd read the book and useless to those who hadn't though.

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modeless
Have you heard the noise these things make? They're about as "stealth" as
lawnmowers.

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asynchronous13
My startup makes small (2.5lbs) electric helicopter uavs. At 50ft you can't
hear them any more. If you are inside your car, I could position the heli
within 5-10ft of you before you might even notice.

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edave
What's your startup?

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patrickryan
After viewing the video of the MIT lab using the AR Drone I'm confused...

From the Development License of the SDK Drone API (Article 5 v):

"AR.Drone, shall have for sole purpose to be used by a User for entertaining,
game, leisure or training. The creation of applications for the use of the
PARROT Drone for military, and, without limitation, security, watching,
spying, defence, cartography is strictly forbidden."

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Vivtek
Radar detectors are sold under the same sort of disclaimer that they're never,
ever, ever to be used to circumvent speed limit laws. It's safe to say we can
all roll our eyes at this boilerplate.

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ryanwaggoner
_Several efforts to develop personal drones are scheduled for completion in
the next year._

If only scheduling innovation was so easy...

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huhtenberg
I would get one to fly ahead of me when I'm driving and monitor for the road
work and traffic congestion. That's until the car native navigation is finally
capable of collecting this information on its own. And I want a touch screen
with pinch zoom on that damn antiquated piece of hardware already. And a
satellite imagery! :)

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DjDarkman
If I would want to spy on my <wife, child, whatever> I would simply write a
GPS logger application and plant in on his/her Android/iPhone/whatever, I
think that would be more practical and cost effective, still I can't take
photos with that, so I guess this would be nice too.

