I was going to post a comment
But some bastard buzzy thing stole my mouse!
Is there such a thing as learning too many lessons from nature? If you find the exploits of quad-copter researchers spooky, don't watch the very latest video demonstration from the University of Pennsylvania's aptly-named GRASP laboratory. Looking at how raptors like sea-eagles can catch fish without losing control or crashing …
Abduct an evil dictator while he's still being driven in his armoured car and bring him in for "negotiations", or definately not torture.
Or grab a useless "celebrity" off the street and drop him/her by "accident".
If you've played the Android game Grabatron you'll know exactly what kind of fun you can have! :-)
Life mirrors art - drone engineers watched the eagles throwing orcs off of cliffs in LOTRs, and thought "why can't we do that, and sell them to the US army?"
As with eagles & orcs, maximum operational efficiency is where you don't have to lift the enemy very far before dropping them, so best used in battles close to cliffs.
Domestic drone usage is ill-conceived, elitist, and end-runs our inherent Constitutional protections.
Here are two (2), very well-produced, videos that anchor my points:
Emmy Award-winning newscaster Shad Olson’s ‘The Great Drone Debate’, featuring US Senator John Thune:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssoOASanKao
Here’s a mind-blowing, well-done animated short that really captures our collective angst that if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then domestic drones are a superhighway to an Orwellian panoptic gulag.
http://vimeo.com/59689349
For national security purposes, Americans are already subject to warrantless wiretaps of calls and emails, the warrantless GPS “tagging” of their vehicles, the domestic use of Predators or other spy-in-the-sky drones, and the Department of Homeland Security’s monitoring of all our behavior through “data fusion centers.”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
America’s promise has always been the power of the many to rule, instead of the one. Ungoverned drone usage, particularly domestically, gives power to the one.
f* it...I'm still building one anyway, using a Raspberry Pi, 3G dongle, google maps, proximity and altitude sensors and death ray camera pretty flowers.
But not being a US citizen, I guess I won't have to worry about the constitutional impact of this.
I'll think you'll find anyone who uses a Pi/ardrone or similar in the States will find themselves automatically reclassified as an "armed militia" and dealt with accordingly.
Only the Gubermint can own Grab-drones with impunity.
Could one of these robots be programmed to harvest certain objects? Maybe anything about the size of a wallet or a credit card? Could one one yank a slip of paper say, out of someone's hand?
These robots could be the next weapon in the fight against street litter.