The following article, "Chicks Who Dig Machines - Lady Coder Edition," introduced Lady Coder and a device which seemed to be a Qualcomm Drone.
However, the actual innovation from Qualcomm isn't the drone but rather the circuit board which drives it. (Wired: New Qualcomm Tech Could Lead to the Ultimate Drone)
Here's the abstract regarding Qualcomm's SoC (i.e. System on a Chip):
The Qualcomm Snapdragon Flight puts a Snapdragon 801 SoC with a quad-core 2.26GHz processor, dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, support for real-time flight control systems, a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver, 4K video processing, and support for speedy recharging onto a little board that’s the size of a business card.
“The board, including the Snapdragon 801, is combined with advanced drone software and development tools, making Snapdragon Flight more like a reference design than anything else,” Talluri writes. “Drone or robotic developers and OEMs using Snapdragon Flight can create more innovative designs with advanced features in faster time-to-market and with reduced development costs. This is achieved because Snapdragon Flight integrates virtually all the key elements developers need, and they’re already optimized to work together.”
However, the actual innovation from Qualcomm isn't the drone but rather the circuit board which drives it. (Wired: New Qualcomm Tech Could Lead to the Ultimate Drone)
Here's the abstract regarding Qualcomm's SoC (i.e. System on a Chip):
The Qualcomm Snapdragon Flight puts a Snapdragon 801 SoC with a quad-core 2.26GHz processor, dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, support for real-time flight control systems, a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver, 4K video processing, and support for speedy recharging onto a little board that’s the size of a business card.
Right off the top, 'ultimate drone' is a silly way to say it as the next thing to come will be another chip which is faster, more clever, more capable, etc. Nevertheless, this one seems to offer robust increases in doing what drones already do.
Here's the sexy part as it implies a great deal of software integration and this means cowboys can use the SoC as the host for maybe a Raspberry computer which talks to it.
The implication is tremendous flexibility but there's not enough detail in the abstract to determine the limits of it.
It would be improper to fail to note the danger of this. Using a hub processor of this capability or higher in combination with support processors to perform specialized functions results in a high brain-weight aerial device with an array of capabilities limited only by weight as in the drone's ability to lift them.
Nightmare of the First Nature: one processor (e.g. Raspberry) is programmed for facial recognition. There's already a 4K camera on the Qualcomm board so it would be relatively easy to turn a drone into an individualized stalker and with capabilities far beyond those of some creep who tries to peep through your windows.
The nightmare is in reference to something someone could build in his basement, typically the favorite lab of serial killers. It seems they always live in basement apartments with a lot of cats and no-one can believe such a nice young man would so such a thing. Watch out for those basement guys, especially if they have cats.
It would be prudent to consider what various hacker networks have done with computers already. Note they have already hacked car operating systems. For this one they don't have to hack anything as they can get one for themselves and, if they're any good at coding at all, make it do any malicious thing they like.
For your philosophical consideration, there needs to be a kill switch in these things which cannot be overridden by the owner. The philosophical aspect is who controls the kill switch.
Update:
Recommendation from the Galactic Peace Tour and Resistance Movement is to design the kill switch so the original vender has control. In this example, Qualcomm would hold the kill switches for all the devices it has sold. The state has a right to obtain a court order to force the vendor to use the kill switch on one or more drones but the vendor has a right to resist. If that resistance constitutes a true military threat then the military will solve it rather than the court.
From here at the Rockhouse, this proposal is thought to be the one most palatable to liberals and conservatives insofar as the final authority does not exist at the state level but rather is held in private hands.
The general philosophy is the part least likely to be acceptable in that the vendor retains accountability for any lethal or potentially lethal device it sells even after the sale is complete.
Update:
Recommendation from the Galactic Peace Tour and Resistance Movement is to design the kill switch so the original vender has control. In this example, Qualcomm would hold the kill switches for all the devices it has sold. The state has a right to obtain a court order to force the vendor to use the kill switch on one or more drones but the vendor has a right to resist. If that resistance constitutes a true military threat then the military will solve it rather than the court.
From here at the Rockhouse, this proposal is thought to be the one most palatable to liberals and conservatives insofar as the final authority does not exist at the state level but rather is held in private hands.
The general philosophy is the part least likely to be acceptable in that the vendor retains accountability for any lethal or potentially lethal device it sells even after the sale is complete.
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