In his 06Oct2014 article in New York Magazine: “Drones and Everything After,” Benjamin Wallace-Wells richly describes the incredible power that drones provide to their human operators. The ability to see the world from a few hundred or a few thousand feet up in the air is a perspective that previously was only available to those who could afford to fly in helicopters. Further, drones can fly places that a helicopter cannot (e.g., inside a fireworks display). The ability to place ‘eyes in the sky’ allows governments to spy on persons of interest (and to launch weapons at them) but also allows medicines to be delivered to remote mountaintop villages and allows searchers to locate persons missing in the wilderness.

“Send a drone up, equipped with a camera, the control in your hands and your laptop rigged to see what the camera sees, and what you feel is not displacement but extension. Each of these flying robots, more than anything else, changes your perspective. Now anyone with a drone can watch the Earth from a point of view that once implied great power.”

The full article is available online from New York Magazine here.