Tech | January 16, 2011 | 16 comments

Attack of the Drones

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Billy_Tarter
If you thought the TSA's new "naked scanners" and enhanced pat-downs were invasive and obnoxious, you haven't seen anything yet. Cue The Ride of the Valkyries and pan to the horizon: here comes the attack of the personal drones.

The age of personal robots has long been predicted, and it appears that with respect to personal drones, that age is already upon us. The biggest and most publicized entry into the market has been the Parrot AR.Drone, a "quadricopter" with an onboard video camera sending a real-time feed to your iPhone (which also acts as the controller). Marketed as a video game and with a price tag of just $300, the applications are really endless. Let the flying and spying begin.

Another option is the Pteryx UAV, fully autonomous and more like a traditional plane than the AR.Drone. Billed as a photomapping tool, there are certainly many other possible uses. Amateur paparazzi rejoice!

What happens when historically unobtainable high technology like this becomes inexpensive and easily accessible by the average person? Is there any hope at all for the already terminally ill notion of "privacy"? At some point in the future, these personal drones could be outfitted with cameras that can see around corners. They may have onboard computers that can recognize faces and expressions, and act autonomously based on that information.

And that, to many, is the most ominous aspect: that some of these drones act of their own accord and make their own decisions. As Hewy pointed out in a recent column, the militaries of the world are moving at lightspeed to equip their autonomous drones and robots with the latest weaponry. Closer to home, when your neighborhood nutjob mounts a weapon onto his personal drone — it's only a matter of time, really — and sends it out to do whatever it wants, what kind of a body count will you read about in the headlines? Sadly, it seems inevitable that something terrible will have to happen before preventative measures are taken.

*** Full links to sources and more information can be found at the original article below ***

http://talkingskull.com/article/attack-of-drones
  1. groups:
    Community,   News and Politics,   Tech,   Technology,   5 more
  2. tags:
    Privacy Rights,  Privacy,  drones,  Parrot,  5 more
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