I am not a supporter of drones since they won't fix the issue. I think the laws on the books a need to be fixed and we should keep the drones away from us. it just seems like another excuse to push a new technology into the mainstream sadly.
I take exception to the final paragraph of the article. Here it is, to refresh everyone's memory:
Border security is important, and it's great to see progress on immigration reform after decades of deadlock. But it's important to make sure that policy makers don't go for a technology quick-fix. Before expanding the nation's drone program, advocates need to demonstrate that drones are effective, safe, and respect civil liberties.
It would be better to open all borders, worldwide. Maintaining the system of sovereign nations that posture and fight is not productive. Let people go where they want, and do what they want. It's time to change, not just a couple of small policies, but the paradigm behind them.
Not grandstanding, I think. Drones are this administration's weapon of choice for dealing with people they don't like. Surveillance and assassination by drone are so much less personal...those running the things might just as well be playing a video game. When something goes wrong, oh well, throw in another quarter.
Overkill is right. I understand the political motivation behind making dramatic gestures at border security, but the more we can limit the amount of money and effort wasted the better. Border crossing is on a sharp decline; net immigration from Mexico is probably in negative figures by now (economic calamities work both ways), and there are much easier and safer ways of entering the States without appropriate documentation -- especially if your're not starting in Mexico.
Ongoing undocumented immigration is a much lesser problem than figuring out what to do with the people already here. Fortunately the recent proposals tackle that question too.
That must have been a great conversation! Who knows what mysteries lie beneath the sea? I love the stories about these types of fish that have "died," only to reappear every once in a while from being extinct. Mind you, no one would like to run up against one of those giant squid, I don't think!
I had this same conversation w/my Son about Jules Verne....When he wrote his 20K league under the sea, who'd know that today we'd be able to go to the depths that we have gone. How we harness and transform it is something that we have to constantly be aware of....
Indeed..and that's the direction we're going--I am sorry to be really direct..but such tactics are being "perfected" overseas right now with the drone wars. I am frankly scared of the day when we're faced as depicted in Battlestar Gallatica where the machines become smarter...Kurzweil reminds us that it is going to be possible--but the possiblity of it should scare us all--whether we are geeks or not (and I consider myself one and proud to declare it!! ):-)
Wow, mpourayan, I am going to read that from start to finish later tonight. Skimming through was scary. As you say, chills down spine material. We see drones being used by so many law enforcement departments: One local police department has bought several near me, for example, and I wonder how much training they get, not only in operating these devices but in the related surveillance monitoring/storage, etc. I don't want a drone hovering over teenagers' swimming parties for the entertainment of some unseen operators, for example.
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Social media has been with us for a decade -- but employer policies and the law are anything but firm about the most appropriate usage of this powerful tool.
Businesses often struggle to decide which domain to use. When it comes to purchasing a domain name, you have plenty of extensions to choose from, ranging from .com and .net, to .me, and even .mobi. But which one should you pick?
I've been writing about how the next evolution of the Internet might just be an advertising revolution, and how corporate IT can stay involved as the enablers and providers of the technologies that make this possible.
In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
