News From Russia

From Grauniad of the UK

That's the spirit!

[Video-clip on web page showing the moment the drone was taken down.]
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What’s the greatest weakness of a drone? Partial marks if you said an eagle, a radio frequency jammer, or another drone. But no, the real answer is “Russian historical re-enactors armed with a spear”, as this video from Russia’s Rusborg gathering earlier this month reveals.

Unlike the high-tech method of drones armed with nets designed to down other drones, hitting a small quad-copter with a spear isn’t the safest way to take down an annoying interloper. Not only do you risk spearing someone if you miss, but the drone itself probably won’t come out of it in the best shape: the drone’s operators, UAV photographers from Lipetsk, say it’s now heading off to Moscow for repairs.
In addition to that, there’ are not many circumstances when wandering around with a spear is a good idea. Still, can’t hurt to try. [...]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/16/drone-spear-russia-rusborg?
 
as well as the following item the implications of which for privacy are mind-boggling: basically privacy is dead and buried.
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It does not take a wild imagination to come up with sinister applications in this field too; for example authoritarian regimes able to tag and identify participants in street protests. Kabakov and Kukharenko said they had not received an approach from Russia’s FSB security service, but “if the FSB were to get in touch, of course we’d listen to any offers they had”.

The pair also have big plans for the retail sector. Kabakov imagines a world where cameras fix you looking at, say, a stereo in a shop, the retailer finds your identity, and then targets you with marketing for stereos in the subsequent days.

Again, it sounds a little disturbing. But Kabakov said, as a philosophy graduate, he believes we cannot stop technological progress so must work with it and make sure it stays open and transparent.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/17/findface-face-recognition-app-end-public-anonymity-vkontakte