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When the tech (and materials, refab costs, etc) get low enough, suburbia is going to get a whole lot more interesting...
This after Google makes a huge investment in robotics companies. Their future potential competitors in this space are in peoples' garages right now. This is Google pulling the ladder up after them.
"How would you feel if your neighbour went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their back yard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?" Pretty much the same way I feel about Google Streetview? Or Google Glass?
However, as other's have noted, we already have remedies for those sorts of things, and things like someone filming via a telescope pointed at your house (you call the cops). I can get the slippery slope argument Schmidt is making, but you could make the same argument about just about any already-available concealable tech device, from radio transmitters to spy cams to the web cams in every laptop with exploitable software. We do have growing pains with all of those things, and so we inevitably get people that exploit them who the law isn't fully able to deal with (or even catch), but with all the benefits they also bring, it isn't worth trying to ban these things over that fact.
What an interesting choice of words.
He might want to read the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution (just as a good place to start).
"How would you feel if your neighbour went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their back yard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?" Pretty much the same way I feel about Google Streetview? Or Google Glass?
[1] http://www.informationweek.com/applications/google-launches-...
Its one thing to make it illegal to use drones to harm other people; and another thing to say that only Google, Amazon, and the U.S. Government can own drones.
I'm not a legal expert, but I think it's already illegal to use drones to harm other people (unless you work for the government).
EDIT: I'm not criticizing the parent comment. This is a legitimate question! (As usual!)
There are incredible opportunities for doing cool things with drones, but a framework for managing their use seems perfectly reasonable to me.
> Eric Schmidt...warned of the potential of new technology to "democratise the ability to fight war" Umm, isn't that supposedly a good thing? There's a reason that most modern governments are composed of elected representatives to make military decisions.
Sounds like he's trying to prevent the democratisation of an upcoming technology.