After The Age Of The PC, Welcome To The Age Of The PD -- The 'Personal Drone'

from the promising-start dept

Techdirt has been following the rise of small, low-cost drones for some years. A major milestone was the release of the FAA's draft rules for the devices, which came out last February. Quartz has just published an interesting report of an FAA conference on the future uses of drones in US airspace, at which the following statistic was quoted:

Federal Aviation Administration director Michael Huerta told the gathered crowd that more than consumer 500,000 drones had been registered with the agency since December.

Quartz provides some context for the figure of half-a-million newly-registered drones:

According to the FAA, it took 100 years for about 320,000 regular aircraft to be registered with US officials -- a feat that drones have surpassed in a matter of months. Granted, even the largest consumer drone is far smaller than the average plane, helicopter or hot-air balloon, but it's an impressive statistic for an agency that has been criticized in the past for moving slowly on regulations that adapt to the growing uses for drones.

As that rightly notes, there's a world of difference between today's small drones -- "consumer" in this context means anything weighing more than 0.5lbs -- and traditional aircraft. But in many ways, it's exactly the same difference between the very first PCs, and the mainframes and minicomputer systems that had existed for decades. In that respect, we can see the 500,000 registered drones as an indication that we are now truly in the age of the PD -- the Personal Drone.

The conference also touched on a key concern raised by Karl Bode last year, who was worried that over-strict regulation of drones might kill off some promising new business models. Quartz reports:

Speakers discussed the potential for drone operations beyond the line of sight in the future. And the FAA is already testing out the feasibility of delivery services like this. Last month it approved a test by the drone delivery service Flirtey and 7-Eleven to deliver some snacks to a household in Arizona.

Combined with the sizable installed base of personal drones just revealed, that's a good sign for the future of the sector if it is to continue tracking the PC industry in terms of rapid growth.

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Filed Under: drones, faa, personal drones

Because Personal Drones Aren't Subject To Enough Ridiculous Rules, A Graffiti Artist Uses His To Tag A Six-Story Billboard

from the this-is-my-'get-off-my-lawn'-speech dept

Drones are a problem. The FAA has subjected private drone use to all sorts of ridiculous stipulations. Law enforcement agencies seem to feel drone operation should be left to the pros, and are suddenly sprouting privacy concerns whenever a citizen flies one over something of theirs. Our nation's three-letter agencies want to be able to deploy drones almost anywhere without oversight, even though they've proven to be much less efficient than boots on the ground. Then, of course, there are those piloted by the CIA -- the kind that kill foreigners (and the occasional American) with almost no oversight, and what oversight there is has "bought in."

So, with drone usage by citizens still being contested by a variety of federal agencies, this sort of thing doesn't help at all.

KATSU, a well-known graffiti artist and vandal, used a hacked Phantom drone to paint a giant red scribble across Kendall Jenner’s face on one of New York City’s largest and most viewed billboards. By all accounts, it is the first time that a drone has been deployed for a major act of public vandalism.

This is KATSU's proof-of-concept. Last year, he managed to convert an off-the-shelf drone into a weaponized tagging machine by attaching a spray can to a DJI Phantom. It had previously only been deployed indoors to create art on the fly. Now, it appears to be the next step in graffiti/vandalism.

Previously unreachable areas can now be tagged by graffiti artists, although the technique is still far from artistic. An off-the-shelf drone is far more finicky than an average human's hands and wrists, especially considering the force of the aerosol spray can push a drone away from the "canvas."

As far as transgressive art/public statements of intent go, KATSU's tagging of this highly-visible, six-story billboard is, I suppose, appropriately juvenile. It's a "because it's there" statement -- an opportunity to deploy refashioned tech to hand out an old-school defacing. There's no underlying political statement, unless you consider the vandalization of an "unreachable" target to be some sort of clunky metaphor for the little people toppling the powers that be. Civil disobedience, this isn't.

What this will do is result in increased suspicion by any law enforcement officer who encounters someone piloting a drone. This isn't a positive development by any means, especially when the FAA seems more likely to let the government's (all bodies, from national to local) worst fears guide its future regulation. And this is piled on top of its pre-existing (and not entirely unreasonable) fears of airline flight interference. There are plenty of positive uses for personal drones, but most legislators and regulators won't be able to see past the spectacle of a six-story billboard being "owned" by a tiny drone and a cheap can of spray paint.

Filed Under: graffiti, personal drones