Eric Schmidt is at it again:
... In comments made to the Guardian, Schmidt called for international regulation of civilian drone technology and, going a step further, for an outright ban of inexpensive “everyman” minidrones. Schmidt’s comments are the most forceful yet by a technology executive on the need to protect individuals’ privacy from a promising high-tech growth sector....
Read full article at link above.
At the University of Michigan on Wednesday, researchers for Darpa announced they’d created a very small chip containing a timing and inertial measurement unit, or TIMU, that’s as thick as a couple human hairs. When the satellites we rely on for navigation can’t be reached — whether they’ve been jammed or you’re in a densely packed city — the chip contains everything you’ll need to figure out how to get from place to place. It’s got gyroscopes, accelerometers and a master clock, to calculate orientation, acceleration and time.
Read complete article at: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/04/darpa-navigation/
More here:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/gallery/2013-03/check-out-rhinestone-covered-drone-replica?image=0
From Slashdot:
Mr_Blank writes
"Organizations like the EFF and ACLU have been raising the alarm over increased government surveillance of U.S. citizens. Legislators haven't been quick to respond to concerns of government spying on citizens. But Texas legislators are apparently quite concerned that private citizens operating hobby drones might spot environmental violations by businesses. Representative Lance Gooden has introduced HB912 which proposes: 'A person commits an offense if the person uses or authorizes the use of an unmanned vehicle or aircraft to capture an image without the express consent of the person who owns or lawfully occupies the real property captured in the image. ('Image' is defined as including any type of recorded telemetry from sensors that measure sound waves, thermal, infrared, ultraviolet, visible light, or other electromagnetic waves, odor, or other conditions.)' Can you foresee any unintended consequences if this proposal becomes law?"
Another reader notes that New Hampshire has introduced a similar bill: "Neal Kurk, a Republican member of New Hampshire's House of Representatives knows that those drones present a growing privacy concern, and in response has introduced a bill that would ban all aerial photography in the state. That is, unless you're working for the government. The bill, HB 619-FN (PDF), is blessedly short, and I suggest reading the whole thing for yourself." Here's part of the bill: "A person is guilty of a class A misdemeanor if such person knowingly creates or assists in creating an image of the exterior of any residential dwelling in this state where such image is created by or with the assistance of a satellite, drone, or any device that is not supported by the ground."
Article at: Slashdot
From Ars Technica
Unmanned aircraft crash. In fact, they crash a lot—though there's no recent specific data, the Congressional Research Service reported last year that despite improvements "the accident rate for unmanned aircraft is still far above that of manned aircraft." And while many of those accidents can be attributed to hostile fire or terrible flight conditions, a significant percentage of drone crashes is caused by human error. A December 2004 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) study of Defense Department drone crashes found human factors to be a causal factor in about a third of the cases the researchers examined.
But as four human factors engineering researchers have found, sometimes the accidents are by design. That is, the design of the systems that operators use to fly the drones are so bad that they invite accidents. A recent Ergonomics in Design article reported that a small but significant number of crashes could be directly attributed to bad ergonomics on ground control station hardware. These factors may have played a major part in crashes that were attributed to other causes.
Take, for example, one drone crash in 2006. As the operator brought the drone in for a landing, he meant to flip the landing gear button on the control joystick but accidentally hit the nearby ignition switch instead—shutting off the engine in mid-flight. The $1.5 million drone plummeted to the ground, a total loss. On another occasion, glare on a screen was so bad that a drone operator couldn't read an alert and mistook it for a landing signal—again killing the engines before the drone had landed.
Read more here
The World Wildlife Fund is turning to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in a bid to tackle an upsurge in illegal poaching of rhinos, elephants and tigers carried out by increasingly sophisticated and well-equipped cartels. The WWF provided two hand-launchable UAVs to the government of Nepal in 2012. In December, Google awarded the organization $5 million to develop more advanced UAV systems. It is hoped that these systems will reduce the poaching of endangered mammals and save the lives of the park rangers assigned to protect them. Ars spoke to WWF's Crawford Allan to learn more the UAV system, dubbed SMART, that is now in development.
Read full article at: Ars Technica
Federal authorities step up efforts to license surveillance aircraft for law enforcement and other uses, amid growing privacy concerns.
Article at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-domestic-drones-20130216,0,3374671.story
Excirpt from NYT: They can record video images and produce heat maps. They can be used to track fleeing criminals, stranded hikers — or just as easily, political protesters. And for strapped police departments, they are more affordable than helicopters.
Read article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/technology/rise-of-drones-in-us-spurs-efforts-to-limit-uses.html
OAKLAND, CA—The Alameda County Sheriff's Department made its first public pitch on Thursday to the county’s Board of Supervisors (PDF) to authorize the purchase of “one to two drones,” coming from a $31,000 state grant.
Read full article at: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/heres-the-drone-the-county-sheriff-wants-to-fly-over-your-backyard/
When you see this quadcopter drone flying at you, don't run or shoot it down -- it's coming to help. A lot of drones serve as spies, assassins, or toys. But if all goes well, rescue workers and emergency response crews could soon deploy the Incredible HLQ (pronounced "hulk") drone that actually helps humanity by zipping up to 50 pounds of provisions per trip, by itself.
(read article at http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2013-02/meet-quadcopter-humanitarian-drone)
A tiny new open source drone kit made by Bitcraze is buzzing its way to market this spring, targeted at hackers and modders who want to explore droning indoors as well as out.
Read more at http://www.wired.com/design/2013/02/crazyflie-nano/
