Drones For Journalism Not War
Posted in: Today's ChiliDrones are starting to be used for more than war and espionage these days. Even journalism schools are trying to harness them, by offering classes on drone reporting, despite that this practice is illegal for professional journalists.
Domestic US drone regs are still strict about their use, and while some companies would love nothing more than having Big Brother have their eye in the sky watching you, there’s something to be said about using drones for improving journalism, not in order to invade the privacy of others. In the Drone Journalism Labs of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Missouri, students are learning how to fly UAVs, collect video footage and phtoos, interpret the FAA regs and grapple with ethical questions.
The hope is that drones could be used for things like water sampling, drought surveillance, and controlled fire tracking.
[via FastCompany]
Drones have become ubiquitous in the last 10 years because they are cheap to produce, operate and they can avoid exposing a pilot to potential enemy fire and capture during reconnaissance missions. That’s why everybody want some, but in reality it’s not so easy and only a handful of countries have operational drones, and even less actually build working ones. 