Rise of the Drones

January 22, 2013 PBS Wisconsin Leave a Comment

Watch NOVA “Rise of the Drones” at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23 on Wisconsin Public Television.

There’s nothing quite like seeing just how far we’ve advanced in technology over the years. Of course there are always the new toys every year like smart phones tablet computers that still impress us in our daily lives, but nothing compares to the best of the best. I think it’s pretty safe to say a lot more time and money is spent researching and designing new technology for military use and space exploration than goes into making our cell phones thinner.

Luckily for us, a lot of that research tends to yield technological advancements that can be applied to every day products. Sure it might take a few years for people to come up with useful applications for every new discovery, but there are a lot of things we have now that we can’t imagine living without. Sure we’ve all heard someway say they would die without their cellphones, but what about all the little things? Stain-resistant fabrics, scratch-resistant lens, memory foam and even the simple water filter are in our homes thanks to companies piggy-backing off of NASA developments.

It will be interesting to see how the amazing breakthroughs in drone technology will affect us a few years down the road. Do you have any predictions? I’m hoping to see self-driving cars make it into the mainstream before I die.

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