Drone Potential

                Unmanned aircraft have been around for many years. Military forces have been developing and employing UAVs, or drones, to complete various tasks and missions, ranging from simple reconnaissance to bombing raids, without needlessly endangering the lives of soldiers. Drones are not so different to other novel technologies in the past that originated for military or government purposes, like radio and personal computing, in that they also have enormous potential for commercial and consumer purposes. Many hobbyists have adopted the technology and produced drones of their own with their spare time and personal resources to complete both practical and fun tasks.

                Some hobbyists have even turned to crowdfunding campaigns in order to manifest their dreams for drone technology into reality. One such group of hobbyists is AirDroids, whose sole product is a compact, foldable, and easy-to-use quadcopter drone that can take pictures and record video from cinematic heights. It sounds simple enough, but AirDroids quickly managed to raise over a million dollars through kickstarter for their idea; hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the budget they were initially polling for. It could probably be said that crowdfunding resources like kickstarter help modern technology hobbyists innovate and deliver a product much easier than, say, those who tinkered with the first personal computers, limited to sharing ideas with other like-minded hobbyists and funding with either their own pockets or generous investments from what few intrigued corporate leaders were willing to take a chance. AirDroids’ website can be found here: http://www.thepocketdrone.com/

                Larger corporations have indeed also harnessed the power of drones to enrich their services or, at least, some are looking into it. Amazon is a notable example. As one of the leading online catalogs for just about anything, Amazon understands that getting packages to their customers quickly and effectively is very important and, in the future, they plan to use drones to make this process even more automated and, therefore, secure. Eventually, Amazon Prime users will be able to have their packages handled and delivered right to their doorstep by a drone equipped with GPS and tracking technology. Their packages may be passed between several drones communicating in Amazon’s network along the way, depending on where the package is shipped from. Although it may still sound like a complicated process, the drones could work constantly through the week and thus delivery times for products from Amazon could become significantly shorter.  

                And then, there are some organizations that dream to make a big difference in the world with drone technology, rather than simply capitalizing on automation and efficiency. Since its formation last year, Facebook’s Connectivity Lab has been developing technologies to help improve internet connectivity for communities across the globe. One of the ideas that the Lab is developing involves using a drone as sort of a flying signal tower or in-atmosphere satellite. This drone would be a massive aircraft, sized comparably to a Boeing 747 plane. The Lab claims that this drone would be able to fly, solar-powered, for months on end and “above the weather”, circling over a community it is assigned to and beaming down signals to support internet access. Check out Internet.org, the hub for all projects of the Connectivity Lab, as well as this brief video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxX6r-xDgG4 that expands on this idea.

                Of course, and also just like almost every other new technology, there will be skeptical people who are afraid of or unprepared for the changes to society that more commercial and consumer drone use can bring. It’s easy to imagine a drone flying through the air and spying on people as they go about their day, especially since most existing consumer drones are designed to support photo and video capture. Facebook’s enormous drone concept implies potential tragedies with its sheer size. For instance, if it were to malfunction and plummet from its “orbit”, could anything stop it from damaging its assigned community below? That idea is even scarier if you can believe that anything with a signal is essentially hackable.