Drones in the News: What You Need To Know
Whether or not you have a drone, chances are pretty likely that you’ve seen them in the news lately. There’s been an explosion in the drone industry for the last few years or so, and the capability and quality of these little machines have now taken up a much larger spectrum of potential thought.
Some of the news articles about drones you may have seen would be about laws and injuries, military applications, gifts for different age groups, or even for professional and personal possibilities. If you’re thinking about getting a drone, then reading those news articles becomes that much more critical.
WMCH drone photo by Clément Bucco-Lechat via wikimedia commons
Laws and Injuries
One thing to be absolutely certain of before choosing to make a drone purchase is that there are definite risks of injury when using them. You see news articles all the time about people being injured by the propellers – kids, adults, even sports superstars. There were a bunch of articles about a famous baseball player last year who got hurt playing with his drone and had to sit out several games. The threat is real, even though it’s not necessarily life-threatening.
Military Applications
Then there’s the matter of using drones for military applications. It’s a gray area morally when it comes to using drones as part of the military. As surveillance machines, they don’t run afoul of too many people’s sense of propriety. However, once you start using drones to hurt people, that becomes more of an issue. There have been countless warnings about wars using robots, and that’s really where drones fit into the equation. The better that the quality of drones get, the more potential military applications there will be at a lower price, which translates directly into newsworthy material.
Gifts for Different Age Groups
Around holiday seasons, you’ll see news about drones being the most exciting gift you can buy for different age groups of people. They are pretty simple to control if you get the basic ones, and then the larger more complicated ones can be truly interesting for adults to use. The news often gets mixed up with advertisements for these particular types of machines, so be sure to expect that possibility.
For Professional and Personal Possibilities
Other times that you might see drones in the news is if they have some professional application. For instance, a company may use a drone to get spectacular visuals for certain movie, or for an event that they’re having. Or, you might see a TV news broadcast about someone who had a wedding where a drone operator took some of the event photography and videography. There are a tremendous number of useful personal and professional applications for these devices, and occasionally they will become newsworthy events.
Author: Anna Johansson
