Fighting Fire From the Sky

exceed writes: "Yahoo! News has an article on an unmanned robotic airplane that is able to circle around wild fires for up to 24 hours, sending data and images back down to earth via satellite. The Altus II, created by NASA, employs cutting edge technology usually seen in military aircraft, giving fire officials a real-time view of fires that can burn over hundreds of thousands of acres. The plane could map dozens of fires and topographical features in a day, never endangering a pilot."

Comments

privatized surveillance planes

[perdida]

I am cool with this as long as it rmains in the hands of government agencies, but not if these robitic planes are used for corporate surveillance, investigations of straying spouses, etc. etc.

The more this tech gets into use, and now the unmanned plane is going towards civilian applications, the more we need to irease privacy education in our culture.

Let's discuss these issues now and pass appropriate legislation. I don't want to spend all day craning my head into the sky, or watching corporations engage in surveillance arms races.