Micro Air Vehicles

Offwhite98 writes "Over at The Gainesville Sun they are running an article about really small planes used to watch all kinds of stuff. I am sure the common applications for these devices are pretty clear, but if you could use these for a lot of fun. Use 10 of them as flying candid cameras at a wedding or a party and you I am sure you will get interesting results." A little bigger than the Spy Fly but probably much more robust.

Always Moving?

[phraktyl]

While this is a very cool technology, and quite the advancement, I wonder how practical it is. Like large aircraft, it has many limitations on movement: forward or... forward. Take his football kickoff example: it would follow the kickoff, and then would loose the ball in the time it takes to circle around the other way.

Wouldn't this have been more useful if it were based off a more maneuverable platform such as a helicopter?

More interesting will be...

[eyepeepackets]

...the nanotech devices which are so light they don't need to fly, just float with flagellum for guidance mechanisms.

Gotta read "Diamond Age" again soon, it was a good read.

Uses....

[jhaberman]

Ya know folks... Just because something isn't very useful to the common public, doesn't necessarily mean that it is entirely useless.

I'm sure there are TONS of commercial/industrial uses that can't be predicted just yet...

Jason

Stalking

[chill]

Imagine the tabloids getting ahold of these things. Already stars have people climbing fences and using telephoto lenses.

Now, just pop a drone in the air and overfly the target. How about flying up to the window of a high rise building?

Add a microphone, instead of video camera, for a twist.

Once they get these babies to HOVER, they will be fantastic. Not that they aren't now.

Imagine automatically dispatching a micro drone to check out a disturbance/noise from the safety of security central? Your camera can't see behind the tree? Fly around it.

Add a little radar and do some 3D terrain mapping...

ad infinitum