Google Testing an Airborne Camera Drone 182
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.
You'd better watch out (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.
Pull! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:heh (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.
Opt-Out file? (Score:5, Funny)
Can't you just place a robots.txt file on your property to tell the GoogleDrone not to index it?
Re:Can != will (Score:1, Funny)
Yes, but that's Microsoft. Google doesn't have a proven privacy record.
Re:Privacy (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Can... (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly! They've got this "do-no-evil" clause that protects us from them!
Re:You'd better watch out (Score:3, Funny)
So you're saying that Santa Claus is real? That Google is Santa Claus?
This could get complicated.
Re:Privacy (Score:4, 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.
Re:Pull! (Score:1, Funny)
The beauty of the Internet is that anything anybody just thought of... has been done last week [hackaday.com]