Drone Regulation in The USA

an update on Drone regulations .... recently the New Scientist ran an article about Drone regulations

Drone law: Flying into a legal twilight zone - tech - 15 May 2014 - New Scientist

This part of the article.
 ...

Emfinger and others like him could be forgiven for failing to anticipate the agency's ire. Though he is one of thousands of drone-owners in the US – with most craft being the small, quadcopter variety – there are no official regulations on how to operate them in the US. Even the current ban against flying them for commercial purposes, which Emfinger flouted, comes from a 2007 policy statement, not a law.

Under congressional order, the FAA must open national airspace to commercial and civilian drones by the end of 2015. In the meantime, enthusiasts are taking to the air with little understanding of what's allowed and what's not. As they do, they are showcasing the many benefits of civilian drones while risking running afoul of local authorities. "I'd describe this as a car crash in slow motion," says Matthew Waite, director of the Drone Journalism Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "I'm afraid the situation we're in right now, the longer that this takes, the more people are just going to flout the rules."

Other countries are adjusting faster to the new air traffic. In Germany, drone operators are required to obtain licences and abide by a set of safety and privacy regulations. In Canada, businesses that use drones must submit detailed flight plans.

Wow that was quick - the Google car goes the next step

I have said in the past in this blog that the Google car is coming, I just didn't expect it to quite be speeding up this way.

It has been announced that Google will be producing a number of its own vehicles to up the number of prototypes on the road.

See.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/28/google-reveals-driverless-car-prototype

and...
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/28/google-self-driving-car-how-does-it-work


What I will emphasise is that the second article includes the following comment.

What about legislation?One of the biggest hold-ups to the progression of the technology onto the open road of Britain, the US, Australia and the rest of the world will be legislation.
A law was passed in California over a year ago that made the testing and operation of self-driving vehicles on roads possible, as long as they had manual override controls. The Department of Motor Vehicles in California is expected to issue regulations on the operation of self-driving cars soon, after which self-driving cars may become a bit more common place. 

However, there is still much to work out, primarily revolving around what a passenger in a self-driving car and can’t do – will they have to be able to take control at any moment, for instance – as well as questions around what happens when an accident happens, who is at fault and who pays.

In the age of disruptive innovation, policy and regulation velocity matters. 

Uber, taxis, regulation the backlash...

Sorry to not keep this blog up to speed, but the flood of regulatory related news is a bit overwhelming and I tend to put it off.

Over the summer I plan to catch up a bit on the news but both drones and Bitcoin which I was blogging closely for a few months have really heated up.

Now it is Taxis apps. From Sydney Australia to London England, apps like Uber are as they say moving people. Its turning nasty in Europe with strikes and fights.

I feel sorry for the Taxi drivers - its tough economically but now apps like these will take their jobs. But this ain't the iceberg - that is still coming. Driverless cars will rally bite into the business models and probably sooner than people think.