So farewell then, privacy...

[ffutures]

Noticed in Maplin's current advertising flyer - three radio-controlled aircraft with built-in cameras, two helicopters and a fixed-wing aircraft.

The cheapo helicopter is £49.99 and basically a toy - 40M control range and the camera is only 0.3MP recording to an SD card. The other helicopter (£149.99) has 100M control range and a 5MP camera, and transmits video to its operator. And the plane (£199.99) appears to have remote control and autopilot capability, transmits video up to 400M, and again has a 5MP camera.

I'm willing to bet that the paperazzi are already finding uses for this kit. Fly the copter up the outside of a hotel where your favourite Hollywood star is staying, send the plane over that really private nudist beach used by the royals, etc. etc.

What's the next stage? Weaponisation? Probably not easy, these things don't have much payload capability, but certainly a possibility. Wouldn't surprise me to see them with toy weapons, e.g. laser tag guns and receivers. And of course you could use something like that to paint a target for something more lethal...

I think the only writer who foresaw this really early was Charlie Stross, some of the possibilities are discussed in Accelerando (I think). Be very interesting to see where the technology goes.

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Keep lots of pigeons?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Or (as the Duke of Wellington said when Victoria asked him how to keep birds out of the Crystal Palace) "Sparrow hawks, your majesty."

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

In the sense of military defense, obvious counters would be small-caliber automatic weapons (given the size of the mini-drones, weapons down to 2mm or so would probably be highly effective), similarly tiny SAM's, or armed interceptor mini-drones. In terms of privacy, though -- I can see problems with air defense battles erupting over the homes of celebrities in built-up urban areas. Probably, a combination of new legislation (or better yet, re-interpretation of existing law) and law enforcement by police also equipped with such tools would work best.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Since the fixed wing aircraft is made mostly out of styrofoam it may be able to take a surprising amount of damage - bullets might go straight through if they don't hit anything vital. Legislation may be a better bet.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Legislation works well for civilian life, but even there you need effective law enforcement, which means that either the targets or the police need to have some sort of countermeasures. Perhaps mini-fighters or AAA/SAM's, but using nonlethal methods? A mini-drone could be fouled by a net or foam which would be laughable to a full-sized drone.

On the battlefield, of course, you'd need to jam the enemy drones or shoot them down. Small explosive bullets, perhaps? Rip a wing clean off and the target's going to stop flying, and the effect would be even more dramatic if the hit was to the fuselage.

Of course the enemy drone operators would respond by nap-of-the-earth flying, which could be very nap-of-the-earth with planes this small. So the defenders would have to be very careful where they were shooting, or they could do more damage to their own camp than they were doing to the drone, or that the drone would be capable of doing!

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Animal rights group take on illegal pigeon shooters with drone, and get shot down!

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/11/19/213223/activists-drone-shot-out-of-the-sky-for-fourth-time?sbsrc=md

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

You couldn't make that up!