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Google Testing an Airborne Camera Drone

mbone writes "The Blogoscoped site carries news that Google has purchased a German 'Microdrone' for evaluation (here is the original German version). These devices can take off, fly a mission, and land automatically using GPS. They can carry night-vision cameras or even 'see-through-walls' Far IR cameras. Of course, the maker of these drones assures us that they cannot be a 'Big Brother in the sky' because that is 'verboten.' Is it just me, or is Google entering dangerous airspace here? It seems like the ruckus from a backyard-after-dark addition to Street View could completely overshadow the legal tussles Google has already encountered with its street-level photography." Reader Jaymi clues us to another airborne effort a couple of Google employees are mounting with some help from NASA Ames: the NexusOne PhoneSat project — to determine if low-cost mobile phone components can withstand space travel.

10 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. You'd better watch out by qpawn · · Score: 3, Funny

    It sees you when you're sleeping, it knows when you're awake, it knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.

    1. Re:You'd better watch out by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2, Funny

      It sees you when you're sleeping, it knows when you're awake, it knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.

      So you're saying that Santa Claus is real? That Google is Santa Claus?

      This could get complicated.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  2. Pull! by spywhere · · Score: 5, Funny

    If I see it above my street, I'll put up a cloud of birdshot...

    1. Re:Pull! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      or perhaps a home made SAM? (microcontroller, ir sensor, model rocket).

      The beauty of the Internet is that anything anybody just thought of... has been done last week

  3. Re:heh by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Pull the trigger and it's garbage.

    Sounds like an idea for a website, send in your photos of your downed Google drones, with you standing there holding it up like a 10 point buck. Googlefail.com or some such.

    --
    Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
  4. Opt-Out file? by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can't you just place a robots.txt file on your property to tell the GoogleDrone not to index it?

  5. Re:Can != will by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Yes, but that's Microsoft. Google doesn't have a proven privacy record.

  6. Re:Privacy by FlyMysticalDJ · · Score: 3, Funny

    As long as I can hit them with a crowbar or use my zero-point energy field manipulator on them, I don't see a problem...

  7. Re:Can... by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Exactly! They've got this "do-no-evil" clause that protects us from them!

  8. Re:Privacy by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Funny

    but I don't think I'm alone in saying that I trust my "neighbor" more than I trust law enforcement or shadowy military organizations.

    You don't know my neighbor.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.