Barely a week goes by these days without me seeing something about a cool home built drone project on sites like Hack a Day, and a couple of weeks ago the Open Source Hardware Users Group (OSHUG) had a meeting dedicated to drones. I really liked the idea of using Kinect as a controller for an ARDrone:

Sadly the chaps from OpenRelief weren’t able to make the meeting, but they sent along an excellent video of what they’re up to that more than made up for things (and means that you can see as much as I did of the great work they’re doing):

I can see loads of potential for these things as kids and hacker toys, and the possibilities with mesh networks and the Internet of Things is enormous. Unfortunately there’s a down side… Drones have been an effective tool in the ‘war on terror’ for some time, but the tables could turn as the forces of consumerisation turns them from the asymmetric weapon of 1st world governments into the asymmetric weapon of anybody. The first time I read of this concept was in Scott Adam’s ‘The Religion War‘, but I’m told that there are earlier SF references such as David’s Sling by Mark Stiegler. The overreactions by law enforcement have already started, which prompted me to talk about the topic at the recent London CloudCamp ‘Independence Day Special’:

I concluded by saying that we need to start the debate on policy now – before something that causes a knee jerk reaction happens.