First Blog

Drone surveillance.  It is only a matter of one year or two before drones are deployed as “eyes of the police” in troubled cities.  This may be a very good thing.   Drones will have a regular “beat,” just like foot police used to.  Each drone will patrol specific streets.  Once programmed they will need no pilot in control back at the station, just a monitor for activity. They will create video records, identify perpetrators, and probably indirectly reduce crime.     But these little city-size drones need power.   What we will see in the months ahead are drone-charging stations, located high above the city streets, on tops of buildings.  Drones will navigate to them automatically, charge up quickly, and be back on patrol.  Sort of like a coffee-donut break.  Remarkably, and this is only a guess, the charging stations will be called “nests.”  Cheap and tireless, these drone-cops will become a backup for beleaguered in situ officers. Watch carefully.  The possibilities are en

Note.   Just a few days ago... "A  pilot claims he saw an unmanned aircraft hovering dangerously close to a passenger jet above New York—prompting safety fears as well as an FBI investigation."  Though this may be nothing more than a toy in the air, it does signal a rather deep concern by Americans about drone intrusion in their lives.  Is airborne surveillance really here?    (See: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/03/05/fbi_investigating_pilot_report_of_drone_sighting_by_jfk_airport.html) ____________________________________________________ Drones are a tool of the modern age.  They have benefits.  They have faults.  They have become the secret agents of the past whose role was to observe and thwart, as needed.  They are a modern technology with which no governmental leader has a real, life-long experience.  They are new.    Indeed, their scope of use is evolving as the minutes tick. Types.   Some drones are outfitted to only monitor the country-side and