The number of drone related media releases, stories, contacts and media requests I have had over the past few weeks has gone into overdrive.

Australia Post’s announcement that they would trial drone deliveries in remote areas brought the story back to Australia and although this is a great thing for them to trial and definitely part of a future landscape for them, I am skeptical if there is real intent or just hype behind this announcement.

On a side bar the more interesting things in Australia Posts’ announcement is their trial of 3D printers in their retail stores and their $20 million innovation and invention partnership with Melbourne University, but back to drones…

In last week’s regular segment with Hong Kong Radio’s  Phil Whelan we chatted about why Wal-Mart, Google, Facebook, Amazon and others  are all going crazy over #drones, and what the imminent American drones registration legislation might mean for drone registration worldwide, but equally as fascinating is the seemingly endless list of ingenious tasks people are already using drones for including:

Cattle Mustering

Construction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvN9Ri1GmuY

Emergency Medical Delivery

How about drones finding and fixing street potholes.

What about Police taser drones, or how about criminals using drones to spy on whether police vehicles are coming?

The list is endless and we are just at the beginning of this revolution.

I’m not quite convinced that we will have to swat away swarms of these pesky electronic mosquitoes in our near future, although 1 million recreational drones are expected to be sold in the USA and 50,000 in Australia this Christmas, but we will definitely become increasingly comfortable with their presence as they move from remote and regional, hard to get to, war-torn and disaster areas into our cities and towns.

Have a listen to these interviews and then share your thoughts and uses for drones.

David Dowsett – ABC Wide Bay – Monday 2nd November – 8 minutes 39 seconds

Phil Staley – ABC Far North – Monday 2nd November – 15 minutes 50 seconds

Anthony Tilley – Austereo WA – welcome on board as a regular – Tuesday 3rd November – 5 minutes 34 seconds

Clare Blake – 4BC – Tuesday 3rd November – 17 minutes 21 seconds