My quadcopter cost about $600, and the gopro about $300. You need to figure out how to attach the camera, which is why I'm making my own frame now. But now I'll bet you could be at least up to speed with me for $800.
Sure, lofting a pro-quality cinematography camera anywhere near a protest, especially CoS, would be madness. I was just thinking of the budding film-makers who see $2K, get excited and then die of sticker-shock when they price the cameras.
That sounds like the way to go. The low-end AR Parrot is cheap quality and they don't stand behind their product at all. (Although some modders do really cool stuff.)
Drone hunters: Why are Americans lining up to shoot down drones? | Christian Science Monitor News reports about government spying – including the use of drones in the US – are worrying many Americans. In protest, one tiny Colorado town is issuing "drone hunting" licenses. www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0907/Drone-hunters-Why-are-Americans-lining-up-to-shoot-down-drones-video
US drone market comes under fire as it tries to take off | The Financial Times By Geoff Dyer Manufacturers of unmanned aircraft have seen the value of their market soar to more than $5bn in just a few years as the Pentagon and the CIA have increasingly relied on drones in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan and in the deserts of Yemen. But what was seen recently as an even bigger commercial prize, using drones for anything from helping police in the US find lost children to delivering tacos, is now under threat even as the domestic market is on the brink of taking off. The drone industry is facing a backlash in scores of US states over privacy worries. With demand from the US military potentially reaching a plateau, drone manufacturers are gearing up to sell to domestic customers when commercial airspace opens up in 2015. It is a market which executives hope will be worth tens of billions of dollars. According to the Teal Group, an aerospace and defence consultancy, the global market for drones – or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as the industry calls them – is likely to double over the next decade from $5.2bn to $11.6bn by 2023. Congress decided last year that drones should be integrated into US commercial airspace from 2015, opening up a vast potential market for the industry, even though many of the rules surrounding domestic use have still to be established. Continued with open comments at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8a2ea13e-3034-11e3-80a4-00144feab7de.html
Retired US drone operator tells of the turmoil he feels after killing by remote control | The Telegraph http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...y-remote-control/story-fni0xs63-1226746447041
I'm not suggesting anyone in the US actually shoot down a drone, as I believe it's illegal to do so if it belongs to law enforcement or the government; however, if it were necessary to do so in self-defense, ammunition modified to fragment on impact would be best to use, to avoid a successful subsequent ballistics test.
Is it possible that at this late a date, one of the Computer Games outfits hasn't rendered a "Take Out The Drones" game of some kind? I've seen no mention anywhere, but I do miss a lot sometimes...
Government document identifies 20 people killed in Pakistan in a 2009 drone strike | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has obtained a document identifying 20 people killed in a single 2009 drone strike. Nobody killed in the strike had ever been named before. In addition, during a recent trip to Pakistan the Bureau also met locals who were able to provide more details of the strike. The information is being collected as part of the Bureau’s Naming the Dead project, which aims to identify people killed in drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas, in an attempt to bring more transparency to the conflict. Launched in October, the project has named 614 individuals. Our data suggests more than 2,500 people have died in the strikes. The document, which was created by Pakistani local government officials names most of the people who died in one of three strikes to Kurram Agency, part of Pakistan’s tribal areas to the north of Waziristan – the area where the vast majority of such bombings take place. Many of those who died in the strike have been described as militants, but eye witness reports gathered by the Bureau also suggest that children died. Continued with open comments at http://www.thebureauinvestigates.co...le-killed-in-pakistan-in-a-2009-drone-strike/
Today: discussions By Adrian Chen Promoted by Gawker Ask Former Air Force Drone Operator Brandon Bryant Anything During his six years as a U.S. Air Force drone sensor operator, 27-year-old Brandon Bryant helped kill, by his estimation, 1,626 people in combat, mostly from bases in the U.S., thousands of miles away from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Years later, he's dealing with PTSD and speaking out about the realities of drone warfare. Got a question for Bryant? Ask it at the bottom of the post. Bryant will join us at 2pm EST to answer your questions. Bryant was profiled in a remarkable GQ story this month by Matthew Power. Seriously, go read it. More: http://gawker.com/
that does sound fascinating. it's the type of subject that just presses onto every issue about what it means to somehow want to work towards some sort of greater good, and the darker side of it all, maybe. I believe him when he says that he has PTSD, that is for sure. His story is something altogether, and i am sure that any comments he may make are pretty insightful, as he has probably seen it all, first hand, giving him that sort of priceless "crash and burn" type of expertise.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism launches drones podcast November 15, 2013 The Bureau is launching a podcast that will provide regular comment and interviews on the covert drone war. We will be producing a podcast every fortnight as part of our extensive coverage of the US’s secret drone campaign in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Each package will include a report from Alice Ross, who leads the Bureau’s investigation into drone warfare, with analysis on recent drone-related news and events. There will also be interviews. In the first of these podcasts Alice Ross talks about the Bureau’s investigations into the covert drone war, including the Naming the Dead project. Jack Serle, who runs the Bureau’s extensive drones databases, discusses how the Bureau goes about assembling its data. The Bureau has been covering the use of drones in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia for more than two years. Data collected by the team forms a public record of every reported drone strike in these regions along with the numbers of reported casualties of such attacks. The drones team was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism this year, with the head of the judges John Pilger praising the project as ‘pioneering’ and ‘truly extraordinary’. In September the Bureau launched Naming the Dead, in an attempt to increase the public understanding of how drones are being used in the remote tribal areas of Pakistan, by naming people who have been killed in strikes in this area. All the Bureau’s work on the covert drone war can be viewed on the Covert Drone War project site. You can subscribe to the Bureau’s podcast through iTunes. Or you can stream it or download from here. Source: http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/11/15/the-bureau-launches-drones-podcast/
The Drone Census flies again | Muckrock Today marks the official launch of the second round of MuckRock's Drone Census project. In the first iteration, MuckRock found drones in some unexpected places, from large police departments to small research agencies. In collaboration with Motherboard, we intend to find, count and map every single UAV flying in domestic skies. Check out the launch announcement over at Motherboard and the first pieces to come out of our second round of records requests, including one small-town Georgia police department that received Justice Department funds to buy its first drone but hasn't received the appropriate approval to actually fly it. Watch the project sites at MuckRock and Motherboard over the coming weeks for updates and analysis on who has drones, what they're doing with them and whether privacy concerns are being taken into account. A bit about the Drone Census: No one, including federal airspace overlords, seems to know with any authority just how many drones are flying around domestic airspace. The Federal Aviation Administration has prophesied that there could be upwards of 30,000 drones in the air by 2030, but its lists of which government players are flying UAVs at present vary considerably. So we’re going to count the drones. All of them. And you’re going to help. Continued here: https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2013/nov/25/introducing-motherboard-muckrock-drone-census/
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald 2h CIA's most senior officer in Pakistan outed in protest over civilian-killing drone strikes http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/27/cia-officer-pakistan-imran-khan-party
Thanks for the Drone Census link. I submitted a request re the Dept of Homeland Security (since I figure that if anyone is using drones, they must be). As of July 2010, the Customs and Border Protection division of the Dept of Homeland Security is operating 5 Predator drones along domestic US borders: 4 out of Sierra Vista AZ, and one out of Grand Forks, ND, with one more planed for Corpus Christi, according to this paper by the Congressional Research Service: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RS21698.pdf (see page 1). In addition, as of April 2013, the FAA had issued 300 certificates to local agencies of various kinds, including "... There are over 300 total, including those issued to the following entities: City of Herrington, KS; Cornell University; Department of Energy Idaho National Laboratory; Eastern Gateway College Community College—Steubenville, OH; Miami-Dade Police Department; Mississippi Department of Marine Resources; North Little Rock Police Department, AR; Ogden Police Department, UT; Ohio University; Seattle Police Department; Texas A&M—Texas Engineering Experiment Station; Texas Department of Public Safety; Texas State University; University of Connecticut; University of Florida; U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service; Utah State University; Virginia Tech. See Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Federal Aviation Administration, http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/uas/." That information is from here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42701.pdf (page 3) That paper is also a font of information on the capabilities of federal surveillance drones: "...The U.S. Army recently acquired a 1.8 gigapixel camera for use on its drones. This camera offers 900 times the pixels of a 2 megapixel camera found in some cell phones. It can track objects on the ground 65 miles away from an altitude of 20,000 feet. US Army unveils 1.8 gigapixel camera helicopter drone, BBC NEWS (December 29, 2011 6:11 p.m.), http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16358851" They also seem to be looking into the ability to track individual vehicles by using plate recognition technology: Customs and Border Protection Today, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Support Border Security (July 2004), http://www.cbp.gov/xp/CustomsToday/2004/Aug/other/aerial_vehicles.xml As well as facial recognition capability: Clay Dillow, Army Developing Drones that Can Recognize Your Face from a Distance, POPSCI (September 28, 2011), 5:01 p.m.), available at http://www.popsci.com/technology/ar...es-can-recognize-your-face-and-read-your-mind Finally, the FAA paper that forecast 30K drones in less than 20 years is available here: FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, FAA AEROSPACE FORECAST: FISCAL YEARS 2010-2030, at 48 (2010), available at http://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecasts/2010-2030/media/2010 Forecast Doc.pdf. Happy reading.
So now drones will only kill innocent civilians in undeclared acts of warfare if they LOOK like terrorists.
Send your hobby drone up to take video of top European politicians, what could go wrong? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24104647 Try that in the United States, and you probably won't see daylight for a long time.
Amazon unveils futuristic plan: Delivery by drone | CBS News Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had a big surprise for correspondent Charlie Rose this week. After their 60 Minutes interview, Bezos walked Rose into a mystery room at the Amazon offices and revealed a secret R&D project: “Octocopter” drones that will fly packages directly to your doorstep in 30 minutes. It’s an audacious plan that Bezos says requires more safety testing and FAA approvals, but he estimates that delivery-by-drone, called Amazon “Prime Air,” will be available to customers in as soon as 4-5 years. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-unveils-futuristic-plan-delivery-by-drone/
OK, that's one drone scheme that I cant resist. How many people will order stuff just to see the drone come to your house? I know I will...
animals will attack it Thieves will watch where it lands and grab the product People sliced up by the 8 rotating blades of doom will sue etc. etc.
Hmm. Can they track the drone if I steal it? Could you hack it in mid-flight? So many possibilities...
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald 33s Yemeni Officials Say US Drone Strike Hits Convoy Heading to Wedding Party, Killing 13 People http://abcnews.go.com/International...shes-sunni-militants-northern-rebels-21193101 One official said that al-Qaida militants are suspected to have been traveling with the wedding convoy. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/yemen-officials-u-s-drone-kills-13-wedding-article-1.1545829 Here's an update from Reuters: Fifteen people on their way to a wedding in Yemen were killed in an air strike after their party was mistaken for an al Qaeda convoy, local security officials said on Thursday. The officials did not identify the plane in the strike in central al-Bayda province, but tribal and local media sources said that it was a drone. "An air strike missed its target and hit a wedding car convoy, ten people were killed immediately and another five who were injured died after being admitted to the hospital," one security official said. Five more people were injured, the officials said. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/12/us-yemen-strike-idUSBRE9BB10O20131212
Declassified FBI docs detail warrantless drone surveillance | RT USA While previous reports have indicated that the FBI has sought to employ drone technology for years, newly unveiled documents from inside the agency show the extent to which the bureau believes it has the authority to conduct warrantless surveillance. Growing skepticism over the US foreign drone program and how it may be used in connection with domestic security inspired Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) to file suit against the FBI. CREW, using a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, defeated the FBI in court and compelled law enforcement to turn over a database of documents on the growing drone program. Among that stockpile released earlier this month was an extensive deck of slides titled “Legal Challenges to the Use of UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems).” The slides provide a glimpse into the FBI’s future drone plans, which the bureau clearly hopes will not be impacted by legal restrictions, and will provide instructions for agents who hope to use drones in the field now. A Justice Department inspector general report published in September indicated that the FBI has been quietly spending millions of dollars to operate a small fleet of unmanned aerial devices in recent years. Then-FBI director Robert Mueller said in June that the bureau was in the “initial stages” of writing privacy policies for its still-developing surveillance policy. However, it was later revealed that the FBI has been using drones in a limited capacity since 2006 - years before experts had previously speculated. The obtained FBI presentation slides The presentation that surfaced this month opens with a reminder that the FBI operates with “rigorous obedience to the Constitution,” especially the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure. Privacy advocates have argued that flying cameras through the air and sweeping up intelligence on unwitting subjects accused of no wrongdoing does constitute an unreasonable search. The slides also mention the exclusionary rule, a legal principle that renders evidence collected in an unconstitutional manner inadmissible in a court of law. Continued at http://rt.com/usa/fbi-internal-drone-guidelines-revealed-169/
There has also apparently been an independent audit of the FBI's drone program by the Inspector General's Office. http://www.latimes.com/nation/natio...s-2006-20130926,0,3270950.story#axzz2nN6JCFeN "...But the auditors determined that the FBI had not addressed the danger of violating privacy rights, and recommended that the deputy attorney general’s office consider writing new guidelines to curb improper surveillance by law enforcement drones." "...uditors also found that the ATF had bought drones and planned to use them. The U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration, which also fall under the Justice Department, purchased and tested drones but decided not to deploy them in active operations. In addition to buying drones for internal use, the Justice Department has awarded at least $1.2 million to local police departments to purchase small drones, but failed to track how the money was spent, the audit found." Great.
Want drone job training? Self-professed geeks are filling the UND degree program http://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/12/12/education/drone-degree-at-the-university-of-north-dakota
In Yemen, al Qaeda gains sympathy amid U.S. drone strikes | Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/13/us-yemen-us-drones-insight-idUSBRE9BC0A020131213
Basically, our drone program is free PR for terrorism. I'm not sure why people find it difficult to understand that when you murder someone's family, they aren't terribly fond of you afterward.
I'm not sure why too, but I think that you're 100% correct. This the American Way in terms of Foreign Policy. America claims to be a peace-loving country/nation but for at least 100 years, American Foreign policy has gone out of its way to manufacture enemies - enemies that will hate America (and Americans) for 100s and 100s of years - so that America can stay armed to the teeth forever. A peace-loving Nation? No fucking way. The middle-east populations regard this as giving them all at least a thousand years for revenge, making American Policy makers (and the weapons makers) extremely happy. /derail
Your face is like a car accident! It, like, crashes into stuff and then, like. . .aww, nevermind. This joke is going nowhere. Sorry.
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald 12m Yemen parliament bans drone attacks - US Government will undoubtedly treat that with great respect. http://news.yahoo.com/yemen-parliament-bans-drone-attacks-194832509.html
WikiLeaks @wikileaks 53s Google has purchased Boston Dynamics, a military drone company, and seven others. Understand Google's geopolitics: http://www-nc.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/opinion/sunday/the-banality-of-googles-dont-be-evil.html Search: http://www.bing.com/search?q="Boston Dynamics" Google Here's a good overview: What is Boston Dynamics and why does Google want robots? | The Guardian Google’s latest acquisition is one of the most advanced robotics companies in the world, and makes robots for the US military. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/17/google-boston-dynamics-robots-atlas-bigdog-cheetah Here's that article's most popular comment, which I completely agree with: To bad Google won't spend some of their money providing user and customer support. Instead they force people to join their social network and go begging for answers from unpaid moderators. They aren't getting another cent of my money.
