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Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

gigaom.com

11–20 of 46 posts

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#12
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.

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#13

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.

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.

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#14

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.

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.

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.

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#15
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.

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#17
post #3

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

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,…

Beginning airline pilots are paid dogfood wages, approved to fly commercially, and have about half the week off. Could they fly drones for profit?

Re: Consumer drones are coming, and they will change everything

#18
post #12

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)…

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-...

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