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The US military M67 grenade weighs 400 grams.

A small drone like draganflyer-x6 can carry up to 270 grams (like a small digital camera)

http://www.draganfly.com/uav-helicopter/draganflyer-x6/

Nice for densely populated places, but for more suburban places those services don't really exist, except for pizza delivery. And it's possible that those also aren't necessarily delivered in the most cost effective fashion. You could purchases several of the super high end multirotor copters for the salary of one bike messenger, let alone anyone using cars to deliver. And it could, in theory, deliver far more quickly than a person possibly could.

I think the big problem is weight. We need copters that can easily carry 20-50lbs. These days the upper end of the requirements is an expensive video DSLR with a heavy lens and articulating mount, maybe 5lbs?

Not even a snake oil salesman... a snake oil department!

http://www.draganfly.com/uav-helicopter/draganflyer-x6/

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You should just buy one of these bad boys.

http://www.draganfly.com/uav-helicopter/draganflyer-x6/

Military grade and can stay aloft more than 7.2 seconds, while capturing realtime HD video that can be transmitted to a cool pair of goggles on the ground.

Plus, you can whip it out of a backpack in 10 seconds. :-D Cool!

http://www.draganfly.com/video/gallery/show-single-video.php?video_number=2&product_id=DF-X6&r=837

You should just buy one of these bad boys.

http://www.draganfly.com/uav-helicopter/draganflyer-x6/

Military grade and can stay aloft more than 7.2 seconds, while capturing realtime HD video that can be transmitted to a cool pair of goggles on the ground.

Plus, you can whip it out of a backpack in 10 seconds. :-D Cool!

http://www.draganfly.com/video/gallery/show-single-video.php?video_number=2&product_id=DF-X6&r=837

I'm in a place with no good aerial photography and have considered doing it myself and adding the streets to openstreetmap. What's a good known system to get started with this?

You might check out TFA. They have a system to sell you (no prices).Draganfly will sell you one for about 10 grand. A quick consultation with Google gives prices from $400 up. I looked into this a while back for pretty much the same reason. A decent system that could get high enough to get over trees / hills / etc. and hold a big enough camera to get reasonable resolution would be closer to the 10K than $400. If you wanted to make a significant fraction of it yourself (like the camera mounts) you could get the price down a bit, but not a whole lot.

A good camera platform is still pretty pricey. Cheaper than a (real) helicopter for sure, but still takes some cash.

The news agency used a stock photo. The actual photo (clickable) is here [www.isna.ir].

and here http://ing.dk/artikel/106472-engelsk-politi-brugte-en-foererloes-drone-under-en-anholdelse?utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nyheder

and here http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_13608730?source=rss

and here http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20091021/COMMUNITY_NEWS/910209967/-1/RSS01

and especially here http://www.draganfly.com/uav-helicopter/draganflyer-x6/

In Iran, we don't have actual photos like in your country.

Yes, if you scroll down, you can find the exact photo the Iran news release used: http://www.draganfly.com/images/overview/DF-X6/Draganflyer-X6.jpg.

For an Iranian project, it's odd that they have a Canadian address.

This is what they "built:"
http://www.draganfly.com/uav-helicopter/draganflyer-x6/

"Iranian aerospace scientists have built an unmanned flying saucer..." Or just copied a picture from a website from a company that actually does.

Like this then?

actual picture is from a commercial product:
http://www.draganfly.com/images/overview/DF-X6/Draganflyer-X6.jpg

True, but as other posters have pointed out, that photo does not match the description of the Iranian plane (described as a quad-rotor)

As mentioned above, that photo is actually a DraganFlyer X6 built by DraganFly in Saskatoon, Canada.

Instead of being from a B-movie, it's the winner of Popular Science's "Best of What's New 2008": http://www.draganfly.com/uav-helicopter/draganflyer-x6/

That picture is of a commercially available UAV. http://www.draganfly.com/images/overview/DF-X6/Draganflyer-X6.jpg

I'm pretty sure that picture is of a draganflyer X6.

Not impossible they've installed custom additions (custom autopilot, radio links, etc)

Perhaps the "flying saucer" is a mis-translation on FARS' part..

Why send men to where there is no air? Something like this will do the job better: http://www.draganfly.com/

This is probably bigger than you're thinking, but cool none-the-less: Draganflyer.