Unmanned Aircraft Will Test Air Traffic Control

coondoggie writes "While the skies aren't exactly buzzing with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) just yet, experts are warning their explosive growth will require military and public officials to address the issue sooner than they might think. The four chiefs of service aviation and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) branches told the Army Aviation Association of America's unmanned aircraft symposium last week that the military should crystallize combat air control regarding UAVs, while domestic authorities must work out access and use of UAVs in domestic airspace. "I'm surprised we haven't had a collision yet," said Rear Adm. Joseph Aucoin, director of the Navy's aviation plans and requirements branch."

Comments

let them eat cake !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone but me see the OLPC XO-1 as an insulting "let them eat cake" sort of message to the world's poor?

Hands Across America, Live AID, the Concert for Bangladesh, and so on. The American (and world) public has witnessed one feel-good event (and the ensuing scandals) after another. Each one manages to assuage our guilt about the world's problems, at least a little. Now these folks think that any sort of participation in these events, or even their good thoughts about world poverty and starvation, actually help. Now they can sleep at night. It doesn't matter that nothing has really changed.

This is how I view the cute, little One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO-1 computer, technology designed for the impoverished children of Africa and Alabama. This machine, which is the brainchild of onetime MIT media lab honcho Nick Negroponte, will save the world. His vision is to supply every child with what amounts to an advertising delivery mechanism. Hence the boys at Google are big investors.

Before you cheer for the good guys, ponder a few of these facts taken from a world hunger Web site. In the Asian, African, and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called "absolute poverty." Every year, 15 million children die of hunger. For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for five years. Throughout the decade, more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well fed, one-third is underfed, and one-third is starving. Since you've entered this site, at least 200 people have died of starvation. One in 12 people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. Nearly one in four people, or 1.3 billion--a majority of humanity--live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people. Let's include Negroponte and the Google billionaires.

So what to do? Let's give these kids these little green computers. That will do it! That will solve the poverty problem and everything else, for that matter. Does anyone but me see this as an insulting "let them eat cake" sort of message to the world's poor?

"Sir, our village has no water!" "Jenkins, get these people some glassware!"

But, wait. Think of how cool it would be! Think of how many families will get to experience the friendly spam-ridden Information Super Ad-way laced with Nigerian scams, hoaxes, porn, blogs, wikis, spam, urban folklore, misinformation, sites selling junk from China, bomb-making instructions, jihad initiatives, communist propaganda, Nazi propaganda, exhortations, movie clips of cats playing the piano, advertising, advertising, and more advertising. Do you now feel better about the world's problems, knowing that some poor tribesman's child has a laptop? What African kid doesn't want access to Slashdot?

Of course, it might be a problem if there is no classroom and he can't read. The literacy rate in Niger is 13 percent, for example. Hey, give them a computer! And even if someone can read, how many Web sites and wikis are written in SiSwati or isiZulu? Feh. These are just details to ignore.

Every time I bring up this complaint to my Silicon Valley pals--usually as we race down I-280 in their newest Mercedes-Benz S Class sedan while listening to their downloaded music from their iPod to the car's custom stereo--I get flak. They tell me, "It's a start. Computers will save the world from poverty. You are just jealous you didn't think of the idea."

Yeah, that's it. I'm jealous.

Apparently, saying anything negative about the OLPC XO-1 computer amounts to heresy in this community. You may as well promote NAMBLA or the KKK. People don't want to consider the possibility that their well-meaning thoughts are a joke and that a $200 truckload of rice would be of more use than Wi-Fi in the middle of

Re:let them eat cake !!

[woof69]

Thats a random first post!

Re:let them eat cake !!

[bwd234]

How the hell is this moderated "troll"? Because you, the moderator, doesn't agree? I wasn't "trolling". I was stating the fact that what he said, however offtopic, was insightful. How can you disagree with the fact that providing computers instead of food, clean water, clothing, etc. to staving children is a good idea?

These children are dying by the thousands...hell, millions and without proper food, water and healthcare aren't going to grow up to live the wonderful rich fullfilling life that these computers are promising them.

I just hope these computers are made from organic materials so when the kids are starving they can eat the computers instead of all the worthless food that we didn't send them!

Feel free to mod as your personal agenda permits.

Re:let them eat cake !!

[jimicus]

Children who are raised in a mixed neighborhood, with both poor and wealthy see the economic disparity, and are exposed to the culture of wealth. They have opportunity to better consider their position, and will realistically evaluate the costs of becoming wealthier. They are far, far more likely to decide that they don't want to be poor as adults and exert the appropriate effort necessary to make this happen.

Come on, that's been known for years. In the 1982 film Annie, for example:

Warbucks: I was born in liverpool, in a railroad switchhouse. My younger brother died of pneumonia because we had no money for medicine. It was then and there I decided I would be rich. Very, very rich.
Annie: Good idea.

(Do I get bonus karma for backing up up my POV with a quote from a cheesy film?)

Re:let them eat cake !!

[kiddygrinder]

Let me phrase it in terms you may understand. Computers can generate food, food in most cases does not, it simply feeds today and makes the production of food pointless, economically speaking. However you are not actually seeing the real truth here, these computers are not sent as a replacement for food; they are sent in addition to any other aid that is sent. The only way you can rightfully say that they are wrong to send these laptops over there is if you can either prove that it's decreasing other types of aid or you have a better way of stimulating their economy (the main goal of this laptop project) that you can prove is more efficient.

Re:let them eat cake !!

[CRCulver]

Due to its connection to the Internet, it becomes a replacement for an unlimited number of text books and reference material. Wikipedia, anyone?

The first post already mentioned Wikipedia etc., namely the fact that there isn't much Wikipedia material in the languages of many impoverished people. Project Gutenberg isn't going to help a classroom of third-graders in need of instructional material in their own language.

The only effect the OLPC project could have on these peoples if it were meant to flood them with Wikipedia-like resources for classroom use is language imperialism. There's nothing wrong with learning English, but for a language to survive the vast majority of classroom instruction across a community must be done in the native language of the community. The OLPC project has, though, given admirable attention to indigenous language issues.

Re:let them eat cake !!

[guisar]

Wish I had mod points- an excellent discussion. In addition, the OLPC has brought this discussion to the forefront- without the project nobody would be having these discussions. Would anyone argue that distributing OLPC among the poor of the Americas, Europe and industrialized Asia would be useful? The red herring raised as an objection to the OLPC always seems to be some hypothetical starving African in the bush- that's pretty much a very small demographic among the computer deprived.

I was really glad to hear students in Alabama (http://www.jasonbradbury.com/jason_bradbury/2007/11/latest-developi.html) will be getting the OLPC. I was stationed in Montgomery, AL- not exactly the third world but there's a DoD school on the base. I found out why during orientation to the area. I actually though the Montgomery school (on the other side of the base fence from the DoD school) was the relic of the old DoD school and asked why it hadn't been demolished already. It was that bad. An OLPC won't give the students who had to attend that school better teachers, books or buildings but it might give them a better view of the wider world.

Re:Drop the sexist language, please

[bucky0]

It's not sexist. Part of the reason I enjoy speaking English more than, say, Portuguese or German (languages I'm also fluent in) is because there's no gender. Declining nouns/articles all the time in those other languages is a bitch, don't bring it here.

My mailman happens to be a woman. Mailman does't have gender, so that works out fine.

Re:Drop the sexist language, please

[JaredOfEuropa]

My mailman happens to be a woman.

In that case it's a "femailman" (according to Bart Simpson anyway).