NPR just posted a good story (web and radio) on our efforts to demilitarize drones. There are some photos of the 3DR team at work, too. Here how it starts.
SAN DIEGO — When you hear the word drone, images of warfare or high-tech surveillance come to mind. But the former editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine and a young Tijuana programmer have a different idea. They believe drones will revolutionize our daily lives.
Outside a warehouse in San Diego engineers huddle over a computer. They are about to launch a drone, a remote controlled aerial vehicle. They punch in a start and end point on a map, and it takes off.
But the quadcopter that zips by looks like a toddler’s nightstand. It doesn’t look that threatening and that’s what Chris Anderson is betting on. He believes in a decade drones will have evolved way beyond their current military uses.
“You’ll think of them being like crop dusters," Anderson said. "You will think of them in entirely new context. We’ll forget that drones were once a defense industry thing and we’ll think of it as something you’ll buy at Wal-Mart.”
Read the rest here.
Comments
This is going to be a natural progression. People, buisiness owners and engineers, are only now waking up (iinfact I think only in 2013) to how practical and benifiical "Drones" are. And as this happens, the perception of Drones will become more positive.