Though I doubt they're for sale...or cheap.
Posted on 12/19/2012 6:24:11 AM PST by posterchild
The Air Force has spent more than $1 million to help develop a small and versatile robot dragonfly. But in a move to raise funds for the Dragonfly, the developers are offering the public the chance to own their own flying robot Dragonfly for $119.
“This means you can do amazing aerial photography, spy on people, secure your house or use it as the next-gen gaming platform,” says Emanuel Jones, co-founder of TechJect, in a promotional video for the project on the Indiegogo website.
Jones and project founder Jayant Ratti started TechJect after first developing the Dragonfly at the Georgia Institute of Technology with a grant from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
They say the current prototype weighs less than an ounce, or the weight of one AA battery. And if you believe the project’s developers, it offers several more practical uses than your typical “one-trick pony” aerial drone, including a smaller frame and more powerful battery life.
“This could be the next generation in spy tools. Even James Bond would want one of these,” Ratti says in the video, noting it is specifically being developed for use by the military and local law enforcement agencies.
So, what would the average person want with a tiny spy drone the size of an insect? The Dragonfly comes equipped with high-definition cameras and can be operated with an iPhone.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I need three.
If this can work well outside I could save a lot on Gas by using one of these to check out the fence line here on the farm rather than drive all over it.
It only weighs 1 ounce, so I hope it isn’t windy where you are.
It looks highly breakable.
>>If this can work well outside I could save a lot on Gas by using one of these to check out the fence line here on the farm rather than drive all over it.
If not, it seems like there would be a business opportunity there for someone to do that on a regular basis for a number of clients using something sturdier. They could feed it to a password protected website.
Impressive.
Though I doubt they're for sale...or cheap.
I was thinking the same thing for our place.
With an IR camera, it might be helpful when the dogs start growling at something “out there” in the dark too.
Thanks, I will put that on my Christmas wish list...
“So, what would the average person want with a tiny spy drone the size of an insect? The Dragonfly comes equipped with high-definition cameras and can be operated with an iPhone.”
So, when you’re unloading the kids from the soccer match and all the groceries in the trunk what’s to stop the pedo up the street from flying one of those in your house to watch your kids undress, bathe and otherwise conduct their business?
Or watch your prepubescent kids swimming in their own fenced in back yard? Unlimited viewing time with no social constraints for staring at the ‘nubile’ 12yr olds.
Or your creepy ex who has a restraining order. And thinks you might be moving on with someone else?
Or your nosy neighbor who thinks you might own an illegal gun. Or wants pictures of your ‘prepper stash’?
Or the voyeur you work with who just wants video of you having sex.
LEOs can search your home for gun cases and/or ammo boxes now w/o your knowledge. Just fly one in the door as you’re leaving.
It says it can be controlled by an iPhone. I wonder if that means via bluetooth. If that is the only communication then the range will be severely limited.
You can use it for good. Like to inspect hard to reach areas of your home. Or watch movements of rioters or brown shirts heading your way. Or check out that bump in the night without risking your own neck.
It’s a tool. Use it for good or evil - your choice.
Frankly, it would be wise to assume that most of these are already possible (except perhaps for the drone flying into your house) by government (at all levels) and by any person with a small bit of technical ability who has the interest/ambition.
This device just lowers the barriers to entry a bit - it doesn’t do anything that other devices don’t already do.
If you think the majority of uses of this particular thing will be ‘for good’ you haven’t been paying attention to the news cycle.
I’ll also opine this: The very FIRST time something like this is used to get video of someone like the the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge doing the nasty you had better bet the development of electronic bug spray will go into full overdrive. You can also bet that civilian use/posession of the same will be made illegal.
For $100 each the PTB’s can have hundreds of thousands of these and put one in each ‘suspected terrorist’s house. That would be your house btw. Posting on FR will be (and probably already is) a sign of terroristic intentions. Hope you’re OK with LEOs getting video of your daily activities without a warrant.
And just like you can use them to check on rioters coming your way (ears are good with this btw, i’ve been in social unrest before), the LEO’s can post them in your garage. You know, in case you put a gun in the trunk of your car. Or sort your recyclables properly. Or have a low flow head on your shower. Or a 5gal flush toilet. Or spank your kids.
It’s an arms race that will, ultimately, eliminate the usefulness of any firearms. The pursuit of which was the entire purpose of the war(s) in Iraq and Afghanistan. Peasants will lose this one. Big time. We lack multibillion dollar R&D budgets.
The ‘surveillance’ purpose will quickly morph into the ‘tactical elimination’ purpose. Your guns will be useless. Well, you could use them to club rabid dogs or snakes.
The Chinese come out with ten new micro quadcopters every week.
I’m just trying to correct the assumption that this development, economically, gives the peasants any sort of advantage. This is equivalent to the development of gunpowder. It took hundreds of years to give the peasants an equal chance with that technology.
The ones you and I might be able to purchase are many development cycles behind what the elites are already using (against us).
These negate several amendments in the BOR. Negate outright.
Just another sign of the times though. The pendulum is on a big downswing in the rights and freedoms of the peasant class. It might be another millenium before humans are as free as Americans were in the 1950 and 60’s to enjoy their lives, privately, in the sanctity of their own homes.
If you have nothing to hide, etc.
Note to self: Install Bug Zapper by front door.
That’s nice. A robotic flying “insect.”
Now put a sting in it.......
You know it will happen!
Not so fast. Open source the design and use a 3D printer to make them and they become cheap and ubiquitous. The next stage is developing defenses against them and the govt versions get much smaller, faster, smarter and expensive.
Lather, rinse, repeat (goto lather).
“If you think the majority of uses of this particular thing will be ‘for good’ you haven’t been paying attention to the news cycle.”
Why would I watch or care what the MSM news says about anything?
How much of this technology will be manufactured overseas? Think they’ll just ‘let’ you have it? 3D printers aren’t cheap. Are they made in this country? Are you financially secure enough to survive the coming Weimar Republic intact? If not...
Alternatively they could just make 3D printers illegal.
I’ll reiterate. YOU do not have a multibillion dollar R&D budget. I’m not downplaying any push back on this though. I’m just not hopeful is all.
The ‘sorting out’ cycle may be shorter than hundreds of years it took with gunpowder to give peasants some sort of tactical equality. It probably won’t be in OUR lifetime however. Ask yourself how able the average soviet peasant, circa 1965, would have access to the same tech as the communist elites. That’s where we’re headed.
You’ll know when they’ve perfected the *cheap* tactical elimination option. The gun controllers will go silent. Dogs that stop barking. So, clearly, we’re not there. Yet. Who knows how long we have...
I’m not a revolutionary. Just a realist. Freedom exists in humanity in very short stints in tiny little pockets of people. This one is closing rapidly. It’s the nature of things.
Fair enough. Check some crime statistics. Or the (previously convicted) pedophiles in your general area. You will be shocked at the number of them. I was. That’s just the ones they know about.
To spy on Michael Chertoff while he is sunbathing nude, of course. :)
That’s pretty cheap. Maybe I know what I’ll be making for Senior Design. A mini version of that with an infared camera...
It will happen. Maybe already has. AI is the next big leap for these. No worries about some drone joystick jockey getting squeamish about hellfire missiles down chimneys of homes that contain sleeping children.
If the price for these gets in to the $5-$10 range what’s to stop some population control psycho (Bill Gates for example) from buying 15m of them, arming them with ‘termination’ and reducing the population. For the good of Gaia of course.
No worries about bacterial or chemical kickback to his AO from that. His family safe. Yours? well, if you live in an area the Gaiaists want depopulated? Not so much with the safe bit.
The imagination ‘pregnates’ with the potential uses for these by our ‘betters’. Your having one or two is irrelevant to them. Particularly if they know how to use electronic bug spray for their safety.
...and the locusts were given the power to sting men 5 months”
Imagine these tiny devices with portable “stinging” micro-wave devices in their tails....nah...Revelation is just a myth(/s on)
I was actually going to find that particular scripture but got side tracked this morning. I’m not envisioning stinging with a microwave emitter. More like a concentrated bioweapon that terminates the target.
If I had an semi auto weapon right now i’d sell it. It’s like having a slingshot in technological comparison. Might be good for self defense but there are plenty of things cheaper and cheaper to feed to protect yourself from home invaders or car jackers. The second amendment purpose envisioned by the founders has been completely negated by this drone technology. At this point, they’re probably just increasing their stock of the things to the point of ‘usefulness’. The onrushing tyrrany has been unavoidable since the late 90’s. Sorry to tell you.
The idea that any number of semi auto weapons can do anything about the incoming tyrrany is a fairy tale. Nice and pretty to hear. Irrelevant in the real world.
Everyone who cheered when “Hadji” ‘got it’ down his chimney with a hellfire missile listen up. You and yours are next. They probably won’t even grace you with an expensive missile either. Commoditization is happening with this as I type. They’ll be dispensing with ‘terrorist right wingers’ with $5 technology.
The Revelation ‘locust” stings men and torments them, they were commanded not to kill men!
The moon howlers in our Congress are demanding gun control, and their friends over in the Pentagon are selling drones to the public.
Oh, right, only to be used for fun things, like spying on your neighbors.
Never mind. Go back to the video games and Django slaughtering all the white folks.
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