Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs (to spy on protestors, for example).

[BurtWorm]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801434.html?nav=rss_politics

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 9, 2007; Page A03

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.

"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."


...


The robobugs could follow suspects, guide missiles to targets or navigate the crannies of collapsed buildings to find survivors.

The technical challenges of creating robotic insects are daunting, and most experts doubt that fully working models exist yet.

...

But the CIA secretly developed a simple dragonfly snooper as long ago as the 1970s. And given recent advances, even skeptics say there is always a chance that some agency has quietly managed to make something operational.

"America can be pretty sneaky," said Tom Ehrhard, a retired Air Force colonel and expert in unmanned aerial vehicles who is now at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonprofit Washington-based research institute.

...

[shain from kane]

1. Just when we were worried about replacements for honeybees.

[Larkspur]

2. Wouldn't be surprised if some of these things get swatted like flies

suppose that depends on how close to people they get.

[unpossibles]

3. crazy

and not too surprising.

[ljm2002]

4. So at future demonstrations...

...one of the bits of gear we'll start seeing more and more of: butterfly nets.

Be fun to capture some of these little lovelies...