In the midst of the youthful fireside embrace of the future that is South by Southwest, it's refreshing that someone is thinking of the real future.
This is a future where books, shoes, and vacuum cleaners will be flying toward your house, courtesy of Amazon drones.
It's also a future in which a machine might tell you that you've been a bad boy and punish you on the spot.
An invention exhibited by a design and development company called Chaotic Moon (Motto 1: We Are Smarter Than You) offered an example of a potential weapon for good (or not so good).
You might think it a loving weapon, as it's called CUPID. In which case, you might think love is a drone that can zap someone with 80,000 volts from a flying stun gun.
80,000 volts might not sound like all that much. On the other hand, police tasers, ones that spawned the great phrase "Don't tase me, bro," might only offer around 50,000 volts.
Talking to The Verge, designer William "Wurley" Hurley said: "We thought a lot about how could this be used. Perhaps there's a raid on a house and somebody runs. Why send somebody with a gun chasing him down the alley? The drone could just go and detain them and then you could just go and pick them up."In the video above, CUPID (short for Chaotic Unmanned Personal Intercept Drone) takes down an intern. He doesn't get up with ease. Or, in fact, at all.
So, yes such a drone might be used to protect your property. It could also be used to zap an ex who came over to discuss your relationship. Or the FedEx guy, just for fun.
No one is suggesting that CUPID is currently anything more than a thought-provocation.
However, on hearing that a federal judge ruled this week that commercial drones are legal, some people might be tempted to develop a CUPID beauty of their own. VIDEO
Posts
