THE AGE OF THE DRONE, an eyebrow-raising new documentary reveals a game-changing revolution that’s happening overhead. The drones are here – pilotless flying bots, usually equipped with cutting-edge cameras and GPS navigation. Whether you know it or not, they’re up there – and soon there will be many, many more of them.
Episode available within Canada only. Video help?
THE AGE OF THE DRONE, an eyebrow-raising new documentary reveals a game-changing revolution that’s happening overhead. The drones are here – pilotless flying bots, usually equipped with cutting-edge cameras and GPS navigation. Whether you know it or not, they’re up there – and soon there will be many, many more of them.
In a follow-up to their earlier documentary Remote Control War, a film about the military use of drones, Winnipeg filmmakers Leif Kaldor & Leslea Mair of Zoot Pictures talk about civilian and government non-military applications of drones. Listen to an interview.
Drones are a cutting-edge growth industry. More drones are sold every three months than the entire US military uses. In Canada, Ottawa’s ING Robotic Aviation and Kitchener-Waterloo’s Aeryon Labs, both featured in THE AGE OF THE DRONE, are players in this huge new business. By 2020 the US Federal Aviation Agency anticipates more than 20,000 drones will be in the air in North America – and that doesn’t even include amateur operators. Get used to it: drones will be everywhere.
The Good
As THE AGE OF THE DRONE reveals, there’s lots of upside to the increasing use of drones. The RCMP has saved lives using their flying robots in Search & Rescue missions in Saskatoon and Nova Scotia. Amazon and Google plan to deliver goods to your door using drones, and startups in Silicon Valley are figuring out how to use drones to deliver medicine to locations where there are no roads. Farmers in Japan spray 90% of their soy crops with drones.
Drone journalism allows the world to watch the police and protesters in places like Turkey’s Taksim Square – until the drone was shot out of the air.
Episode available within Canada only. Video help?
THE AGE OF THE DRONE, an eyebrow-raising new documentary reveals a game-changing revolution that’s happening overhead. The drones are here – pilotless flying bots, usually equipped with cutting-edge cameras and GPS navigation. Whether you know it or not, they’re up there – and soon there will be many, many more of them.
In a follow-up to their earlier documentary Remote Control War, a film about the military use of drones, Winnipeg filmmakers Leif Kaldor & Leslea Mair of Zoot Pictures talk about civilian and government non-military applications of drones. Listen to an interview.
Drones are a cutting-edge growth industry. More drones are sold every three months than the entire US military uses. In Canada, Ottawa’s ING Robotic Aviation and Kitchener-Waterloo’s Aeryon Labs, both featured in THE AGE OF THE DRONE, are players in this huge new business. By 2020 the US Federal Aviation Agency anticipates more than 20,000 drones will be in the air in North America – and that doesn’t even include amateur operators. Get used to it: drones will be everywhere.
The Good
As THE AGE OF THE DRONE reveals, there’s lots of upside to the increasing use of drones. The RCMP has saved lives using their flying robots in Search & Rescue missions in Saskatoon and Nova Scotia. Amazon and Google plan to deliver goods to your door using drones, and startups in Silicon Valley are figuring out how to use drones to deliver medicine to locations where there are no roads. Farmers in Japan spray 90% of their soy crops with drones.
Drone journalism allows the world to watch the police and protesters in places like Turkey’s Taksim Square – until the drone was shot out of the air.
New technology will allow super-surveillance drones 30,000 feet up to see objects six inches across and track your movements all day long, every day. With recent NSA revelations, how far can the data go towards tracking any of us? Should we allow private Investigators to use them? The concerns about privacy have resulted in drones being banned in many US cities and states. THE AGE OF THE DRONE interviews a man selling a ‘drone hunting’ license, and another who counters that gambit with a shotgun-proof drone.
In THE AGE OF THE DRONE, lawyer and robotics expert Ryan Calo defines the drone dilemma as he sees it: “I have three concerns regarding the domestic use of drones. The first is massive surveillance by the government. The second is that private parties will use drones to harass one another. The third is that because of the backlash, the amazing potential of drones will never be realized.”
“The drones have come home from war zones and are here to stay,” says THE AGE OF THE DRONE director/co-writer Leif Kaldor. “The question is: who gets to use them, and how? Like any new technology, there will be issues like privacy and safety when you put cameras on flying, remote controlled robots. That said, drones are a blast! I fly mine around the office all the time, and use them to check the eaves.”
THE AGE OF THE DRONE is directed by Leif Kaldor and produced by Leslea Mair for Zoot Pictures in association with CBC.
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