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Welcome to the Drone Age
THE scale and scope of the revolution in the use of small,
civilian drones has caught many by surprise. In 2010 America's
Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) estimated that there would, by
2020, be perhaps 15,000 such drones in the country. More
than that number are now sold there every month. And it is not
just an American craze. Some analysts think the number of
drones made and sold around the world this year will exceed
1 million. In their view, what is now happening to drones is
similar to what happened to personal computers in the 1980s,
when Apple launched the Macintosh and IBM the PS/2, and
such machines went from being hobbyists' toys to business
essentials.
That is probably an exaggeration. It is hard to think of a
business which could not benefit from a PC, whereas many
may not benefit (at least directly) from drones. But the practical
use of these small, remote-controlled aircraft is expanding
rapidly. These involve areas as diverse as agriculture, landsurveying,
film-making, security, and delivering goods. Other
roles for drones are more questionable. Their use to smuggle
drugs and phones into prisons is growing. Instances have been
reported in America, Australia, Brazil, Britain and Canada, to
name but a few places. In Britain the police have also caught
criminals using drones to scout houses to burgle. The crash of
a drone on to the White House lawn in January highlighted the
risk that they might be used for acts of terrorism. And in June a
video emerged of a graffito artist using a drone equipped with
an aerosol spray to deface one of New York's most prominent
billboards.
How all this activity will be regulated and policed is, as
the FAA's own flat-footed response has shown, not yet being
properly addressed. There are implications for safety (being
hit by an out-of-control drone weighing several kilograms
would be no joke); for privacy, from both the state and nosy
neighbours; and for sheer nuisance—for drones can be noisy.
But the new machines are so cheap, so useful and have
so much unpredictable potential that the best approach to
regulation may simply be to let a thousand flyers zoom.
[Source: The Economist September 26th 2015- adapted]
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