Everyday people are finding new ways to use drones to their advantage. For example, Longmont police in Colorado are planning on using drones to map out vehicle crashes, crime scenes, and even locate people using thermal imaging. $42,000 is being invested into only four drones, but the necessary software and technology actually costs more than the drones themselves. Luckily, Longmont police know exactly how they want to use these aircraft gadgets. They also envision the drones playing a significant role during investigations because they are able to see things that humans just can’t.

We already see drones in use today for the military, but now drones are expanding to new sectors. What drones are capable of is amazing, but rather them taking over our jobs, they are actually helping us do our jobs better and more efficiently. The Longmont police will be able to get a visual of traffic accidents and crime scenes faster with drones than it takes them to travel to the location. This allows the police to assess the situation more quickly and more closely. Obviously the drones won’t be able to physically help in those types of situations if someone is hurt or needs rescue, but its’ presence nonetheless would be beneficial for law enforcement.

I think drones are a great idea for police because their goal is to protect as many people as possible, and drones can act as an additional officer in the sky. It’s a huge upgrade for the men and women in blue uniforms as crimes occur way too often in many locations. What is interesting the most to me is that drones will be able to detect and locate missing people and criminals that police want to find. We see manhunts on the news every now and then, but they take multiple days or even weeks with just officers searching on the ground. Drones should be able to find those people whether they’re inside a building or not, and that will save a lot of time. There is the security and privacy issue with drones if they can see inside anyone’s house, but if we just think about it for police and investigation purposes only, then it’s a great improvement from what we currently have.

Sources:

http://www.timescall.com/longmont-local-news/ci_31615194/longmont-seeking-input-polices-drones

https://idealog.co.nz/tech/2015/08/five-things-drones-are-used-arent-firing-missiles-delivering-amazon-orders-or-annoying-neighbours

The world of technology could possibly see a huge advancement within the near future. Kaleido, which is a research firm, believes that the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain would be compatible with each other and potentially change the way businesses operate, among other things. It ultimately makes sense because the Internet of Things is a large network of devices and vehicles with sensors that are able to share data with each other, while blockchain is essentially a ledger that records transactions relating to devices.

The vision of this potential partnership is that blockchain could track all of the activities and authentications that IoT devices conduct. This would be beneficial for supply chain management, asset sharing networks, and even scheduling purposes of a business as many of the products are already consistently sharing data. This could potentially improve business processes and even save time as the transactions would be recorded automatically without the assistance of an actual person. In a world where technology is so advanced that it can do many things that humans can do, this idea falls right into that realization. Although this seems like a feasible idea, there are some concerns.

There’s a fear from a consumer standpoint that everything can be tracked, managed, and accessible through all of the signals in place. People are already aware that their devices can be tracked, but this idea would make sure of that. From a business standpoint, there is uncertainty that blockchain would even be able to handle all of the signals since it usually processes very slowly. Blockchain might not be capable of keeping up with everything, and that would hurt businesses instead of improving them.

To me, this very well could be revolutionary to the technology world if it does ever happen. As long as there is a way to improve the processing speed of blockchain, it sounds like this system would be quite beneficial to companies as workers focus on the product and let the technology take care of the device transactions. I could envision this as a tool that eventually everyone could adopt and have it be used in a person’s lifestyle as it keeps track of certain activities and methods. I too, however, have concerns similar to the article.

I feel like there will definitely be privacy and security issues if everything were to become traceable, despite the security concerns that already exist. As technology advances, our privacy continues to diminish and that shouldn’t be happening. So, I think we should always be thinking about how to maintain the privacy we have before it disappears all together. Meanwhile, I foresee initial issues in the business world as this system potentially rolls out. It will definitely take a while until the system would be running as smoothly as companies would like because glitches within the technology are inevitable. As time passes, the IoT and blockchain partnership has potential to speed up the growth of aspiring industries.

Kaleido Insights. Blockchain supports IoT products across three use case categories. 10   Jan. 2018

Levine, Barry. “New Report: The Internet of Things and Blockchain Tech Are Made for  Each Other.” MarTech Today, Third Door Media, 10 Jan. 2018, martechtoday.com/new- report-internet-things-blockchain-tech-made-209294.