Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

Sweden Outlaws Drones

Here in the United States, we're lovin' the drones. This should give you the flavor, in case you might have missed out:

But in Sweden, not so much. In fact, the Supreme Administrative Court decided that drones able to carry cameras would be classified as surveillance equipment – and banned.

The ruling came after examination of Sweden’s strict privacy laws; many of which have not been updated since 1979. In equating all drones with cameras, commercial and recreational alike, as surveillance tools the country effectively banned their commercial use.

A few months later, industry outcry seemed to influence the court to soften it’s position, allowing the use of camera drones with permits. Professional drone operators complain that the complex permitting system still limits their ability to work; and is hopeful that a more thorough reversal of the law will be examined next year.

In the meantime, drone operators are making the effort to apply for permits – and some agencies are proving the point that drones are critical equipment. Missing People Sweden has applied for a permit across the country, Sputnik news reports, and has appeared on Swedish Radio to emphasize the importance of drones in search and rescue operations.

In his clever 1938 story Glimpse, golden age great Manly Wade Wellman wrote about a kind of controllable, flying eye:

From a drawer in the stand, Dundonald took a small cotton-filled box. Carefully be extracted from it what seemed to be a crystal marble less than an inch in diameter. His faint smile widened. Within the small compass of this simple-looking pellet was lodged a tiny mechanism, the most delicate and revolutionary in the world.

First of all, there was within it the power to see and register images. The development of that power had required years of heart-straining research and experimentation in photomechanics. His materials had included wires and screens of the most costly elements, as minute in their exquisite accuracy as they were gigantic in their conception.

Too, he had employed nerve tissues of animals, treated to do things that they had never attained during their organic life. Included with this power was another - that of independent and almost limitless flight, occasioned by a diminutive motor that could receive and use at a distance the current from Dundonald's dynamos. The crystal ball was, in short, an eye. An eye that could not only see, but fly, roam, travel at speeds and in directions to suit its operator, transmitting its impressions across the intervening space.
(Read more about the artificial eye drone)

I don't think that the Swedish Supremes would like the flying artificial eye...

Via DroneLife.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/20/2017)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Surveillance ")

Flock Stymied By 'Adversarial Fashion'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.' - William Gibson, 2010.

China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.' - Greg Bear, 2007.

FTC: Says Ring Employees Illegally Surveilled Customers
'Then she looked up with a smile and moved closer to the camera.' - Pournelle and Niven, 1981.)

Perching Ambush Drones
'On the chest of drawers something was perched.' - Philip K. Dick, 1956.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

The United States Space Academy Is Official
'Is our orbit to Space Academy clear?'

Is There A Global Problem With Who Is Having Children?
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'

You Will Eat The Cookies Made From Plastic...
'Our planes are going to start bringing in bales of discarded plastics...'

It's A Giant Robot! You Reporters Have Been Warned!
'... completely forgetting the ship at sight of the awesome figure and great head of the giant Gaut...'

Birds Learn To Sing Pictures ala Frank Herbert's Distrans
'We will fight in the time of fighting.'

ElectionSim: China's 'Ender's Game' Battle Sim, Or Lem's 'Kingdom In A Box'?
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'

Tactile Skin Supplier Map
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'

Flock Stymied By 'Adversarial Fashion'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'

Orb Nomad Zero-Emission Electric Aircraft
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'

ICE Buys Shock Gloves Like Batman's
What else is the Caped Crusader using?

Factories In The Sky Will Surpass Those Of Earth
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'

Sleeper Drones Lie in Wait
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'

Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'

3D Printed Organs From Space
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'

Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo
'At first I was struck by the large size of these bees..'

DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.