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20130329 Bloomberg Business Week
Image by cesarharada.com
www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-03-28/drone-makers-get...
A researcher at ENAC handles Blender drones during the 2012 UAV Show Europe, an international drone fair in France
Crowdsourcing
Drone Makers Get Help From the Open-Source, DIY Crowd
By Max Raskin on March 28, 2013
The Federal Aviation Administration isn’t expected to approve unmanned aerial vehicles for commercial use until at least 2015. Even so, manufacturers are already preparing to jump into the market—relying on the open-source movement for free research and development. Amateur designers and manufacturers are building prototypes at home, then e-mailing or posting the results, often with how-tos that can be completed using part-making 3D printers.
That’s giving far more people, including startups, an opening in the .6 billion market for drone design, which will almost double in a decade, according to the aerospace and defense consulting firm Teal Group. Online support is “quite a game-changer,” says Jeff Moe, chief executive officer of open-source 3D printer company Aleph Objects. “You have collaborative worldwide development of hardware and electronics.”
The teamwork extends from pilotless aerial vehicles that spray crops or map coral reefs to those that detect radiation. DIY Drones, an online community founded by former Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson, has more than 35,000 members and provides free access to thousands of schematics. Its pages receive more than 2 million views per month, says Anderson, whose own company, 3D Robotics, is making use of the crowd-sourced R&D. “We’ve been able to bring this huge amount of energy, ideas, and talent to bear for free that otherwise would have taken millions of dollars,” he says, citing his drone autopilot software, radios, video components, and camera controls among the designs he developed with help from DIY.
Anderson’s San Diego-based company is pitching, among other products, farm-mapping drones that he says will retail for under ,000. The vehicles, which look like small airplanes, are launched from a person’s shoulder and fly on autopilot around a field, snapping photos to provide farmers with a quick view of which crops need attention. Anderson says users in the open-source model can help tailor apps to their needs, such as programs that allow tomato farmers to analyze crop density and determine the best time for harvest. Monsanto (MON) is already using the devices to show customers data on crop yields from its genetically modified seeds.
U.S. Department of Defense officials spent .94 billion on drones in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2011, the most recent year for which data are available, including million on direct contracts for nondefense drones. Most of that money went to leading drone makers such as General Atomics, General Dynamics (GD), Lockheed Martin (LMT), Boeing (BA), and Northrop Grumman (NOC). At the same time, the Pentagon reached out to open-sourcers through UAVForge, a project of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “The U.S. military is now calling to the open-hardware community to accelerate the development of their drone technology,” says Cesar Harada, CEO of sailing-drone startup Protei. Harada says development is so expensive that the open-source model is essential for most companies. His meter-long vessel, which can sail upwind and change the shape of its hull, required help from designers, coders, and engineers around the world.
The prospect of private drones prompted House Republican Ted Poe of Texas and Democrat Zoe Lofgren of California to introduce legislation in February that would require users to obtain consent from anyone they surveil, to head off “a nosy neighbor,” as Poe put it when he introduced the bill. He added that fears of government spying were a principal concern. “There are countervailing values when it comes to the private use of drones, such as the importance of allowing private-sector innovation and creativity, as well as the First Amendment rights of photographers,” says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union.
House Republican Paul Gosar of Arizona, a member of the so-called Unmanned Systems Caucus, says that while he’s wary of “Big Brother,” he sees private drones as an engine of job growth. His constituents already use drones for help with farming and logging, he says: “There are so many applications in the private sector, and I am very enthusiastic. We want to make this very inexpensive.”
The bottom line: Drone makers, including the Department of Defense, are making use of open-source developers to save on research costs.
Raskin is a reporter for Bloomberg News. Follow him on Twitter @maxraskin.
Christmas 2008
Image by jimforest
18 December 2008
This afternoon we went out to look for a Christmas tree. We always put this off until the last minute. Christmas creeps up on you so stealthily, after all, that you don't even realize it's here until it's almost too late. And this is Holland, where the big holiday is Sinterklaas, the Feast of St. Nicholas, December 5th, which is a big-time Dutch gift-giving event that is preceded by hectic shopping. By the time Sinterklaas is over the shopkeepers are exhausted, so you don't get the frantic Christmas rush to remind you that you'd better go out and buy that tree.
Since we don't have a car, we usually shop for a tree at the stand run by a guy who sells flowers on one of the main shopping streets in Alkmaar, within walking distance of our house. Most of the time this guy has pretty decent trees up until the last few days before Christmas. But not today. Today the trees were all sorry pine specimens that I couldn't bear to pay good money for. What to do? We didn't feel like tramping all over town looking for something better. It would take too much time, which is why we put this off in the first place.
For years, Jim and I have been having this low-key dispute over real tree versus artificial. Jim has been pushing for artificial. He's the one who ends up having to hack off bits of bark to fit the thing into the Christmas tree stand. Artificial trees actually look pretty good, is his argument, and once you have one you can use it over and over again. I'm one of those nostalgic people who thinks that a plastic Christmas tree is just about the worst thing you can consider. It represents everything that our modern world has come to stand for (vacuous falseness, etc.), and besides that, it doesn’t smell like a Christmas tree. It doesn’t smell like anything..
But looking at those pathetic conifers, and then glancing over at the big department store right across the sidewalk where there was a vast assortment of Christmas products just waiting to be bought, I suggested timidly that perhaps an artificial tree wouldn't be such a bad idea. In ten minutes we were in the V & D Christmas department, deciding whether to get the 150 cm. or the 180 cm. model. It didn't hurt that they were 50% off.
On the way home, Jim tried to soothe my conscience by explaining that this way no tree will be cut down to decorate our home, we won't have to water it, and it will last until Russian Orthodox Christmas (January 7) without dropping any needles. So we set it up, covered it with lights, and decorated it with the charming little things we've been collecting for these 26 years, and I'll be darned if it doesn't look great. (Still doesn't smell like a Christmas tree, though.)
The moral of the story is this: if you're the sort of person who could never imagine living with an artificial Christmas tree, imagine it. It's not so bad! Loosen up! Make room for change! Let it happen.
Life around our artificial Christmas tree is fine. All is well. Jim's new kidney is taking good care of him, and my lone kidney is being a good sport (probably because its mate is never very far away). The kids are all doing well. Dan has been nominated the Teacher of the Year at the University of Amsterdam, Wendy is working with Musicians Without Borders and has won a valuable prize to help continue the work they're doing setting up a Rock Music School in Kosovo, Tom and Kylie are doing well at Nike in Hilversum, Cait and Bjorn were married in May and are now expecting their first baby, a girl, in late April, and Anne has switched schools and is very happy studying art at the Royal Art Academy in The Hague. . Ben continues with his home-based business helping people with their computer problems while Amy continues to direct the New Jersey Environmental Federation.
My translation work is going very well.
Jim has had a very productive writing year, with the publication of The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life and new revised editions of Praying with Icons and Living with Wisdom: a Biography of Thomas Merton.
My mother Lorraine is still living with us. At age 91 she's still making beautiful paintings, and Jim has set up a special part of his Flickr site to show them off (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/72157603780115420/).
We wish you all a blessed new year. It's going to be challenging, but we're not going to go into that except to say that you may end up having to switch to an artificial tree, or to make some kind of change you never thought you'd ever make in your wildest dreams. Be strong and keep on loving. You're not alone.
Much love,
Nancy
(writing some of this in the third person)
