One Word – Drones

One of the truly great scenes in movie history: 

But “The Graduate” is 47 years old, and just a few fun facts – Dustin Hoffman was 30 years old when he made the movie – a little old for a guy just graduating from college.  And Ann Bancroft who played Mrs. Robinson – the older woman who seduced Hoffman – was only 6 years older than Hoffman. Doris Day was the original choice to play Mrs. Robinson, and Ronald Reagan was in the running to play Hoffman’s father.  So, anyway, getting back to my point, if The Graduate were re-made today, maybe the guy would substitute “drones” for “plastics.” 

According to this opinion piece from Wired, it’s expected to be an $11.6 billion industry by 2023. So, yea, any recent college grads out there may want to get on board so to speak.

But the Wired piece makes a compelling argument in favor of upgrading and streamlining regulations that affect the development and production of the drones. The key concerns seem to be with maintaining some sort of line between drones made for military use and drones made for commercial use. Not surprisingly, there are tight export controls on military drones, but because the military/commercial distinction is a little blurry, the industry is erring perhaps too much on the side of caution when it comes to exports.

And the Federal Aviation Administration has been slow to address the need for clarity when it comes to air space issues.  This would explain why we don’t see the skies thick with these things flying about,

but it also explains why Amazon can’t ship my latest book order in like an hour.

I won’t drone on any longer here, but the applications, in areas like newsgathering are exciting to think about.  More to come I am quite sure.