Is it a hummingbird or the government?

With so many new technologies being released to the military it is hard to follow everything being created. One of the most important recent inventions is the unmanned vehicle that is used to spy. These drones are extremely important to the troops in Afghanistan because they are using the drones in order to scout the roads ahead of convoys to make sure they are safe. Now there is a drone that is as small as a bird. Actually its not as small as a bird, it is a bird.

These new “humming birds” built by Aero Vironment are the future of the spy drones. It is as small as a hummingbird, flaps its wings like a hummingbird, can land and take off like hummingbird, but a remote device controls it. Inside the belly of the bird is a small camera and voice recording device. From a distance these drones look exactly like an actual hummingbird and will mainly stay undetected.

These devices are going to have several new purposes because several different government employed groups will be able to use them. The first is firefighters. Firefighters will be able to use the birds in order to scout out fire gather real time information on a large fire quickly. They will also be great in order to tell where people are the hot areas and cold areas inside a building, as well as what is safe and what isn’t. The second group will be the police officers. There are many uses of this new device for the police office. The law enforcement will be able to sue the bird in order to spy on drug deals and bust them. Also, following an earthquake the bird can be used in order to find trapped people by through surveying in tight space areas.

Most importantly this will be extremely important to the military on the ground of Afghanistan. In a battle in a tight space area, the bird will be useful in scouting around corners and find enemy barricades and hiding spots. By using the real time images the miniature bird will be able to scout out the corners with little risk to the actual military personnel. Another use will be the ability to scout down the road. Instead of having a unmanned spy drone which may be seen in the sky, this bird can be used to scout down roads. At a distance the drone would look like a bird to the eye and would quickly be dismissed by the human mind. This makes gathering intelligence and possibly seeing roadside bombs much easier.

The interesting thing is the development of this project. The new goal for the company is to fit the same technology in a small bug in order to make spy technology not even visible to the human eye. Another development in process is implanting cameras during the metamorphic period of bugs in order to create a swarm of spy bugs. This however definitely can bring up an ethical debate, but that’s not what this post is about. It is mainly about the advantages of spy technology getting smaller and smaller. As technology progresses should there be limits to which technology should invade people’s privacy and what if people never even know?

Nathan