See This Fleet of Drone Billboards Being Developed in Switzerland: Project Skye

By Nicholas West

The realization of a true Minority Report world continues unimpeded. We are continuously tracked physically and economically in order to reduce human beings to nothing more than walking data fields from which to extract and use information in any way seen fit to exploit. Biometrics for targeted marketing, predictive policing, predictive health algorithms, and interactive programs are making the real world seem more like a virtual reality simulation.

It is the first category – targeted marketing – that is currently flourishing to the greatest degree, and becoming the most obvious.

I previously reported on a tracking and analysis program that utilizes digital billboards in the emerging field of Neuropolitics. The system has been uncovered in several supposedly democratic countries, and is being employed to capture the reactions of passersby so that campaigns can be properly tweaked to better drive home political messaging.

Jake Anderson from Anti-Media subsequently reported about a partnership between Clear Channel Outdoor Americas and a host of tech companies to merge digital billboard surveillance with location-based mobile data to identify shopping patterns and deliver targeted messages to mobile phone users. The program, called Radar, is already in 11 U.S. markets with plans to sweep across the nation within the year.

With that as a backdrop, an announcement from Swiss company, AEROTAIN, should not be taken with grain of salt, as tempting as it might be to do so after seeing the video below.

AEROTAIN’s drone-blimp program is called Project Skye, and is comprised of helium-lifted units that the company itself describes as being “like an eye in the sky.” They add:

Thanks to this patented technology, astonishing movements such as a rolling football can be flown. No currently available UAV allows such a degree of freedom. Unique safety features enables it to fly over crowded places and closely approach people. The visibility leads to a friendly appearance and can be used to depict a product for advertising purposes and even take its shape. Scaleable payloads enable Skye to carry heavy cameras for live streams and aerial cinematography. (emphasis added)

Until now, there have been some other modest attempts at drone advertising via hanging banners from quadcopters, as seen here, but this new approach from AEROTAIN would seem to have far more appeal, as the units can be kept aloft for much longer, while satisfying regulatory safety requirements.

How much longer until these are flying over highways everywhere? Do you think this will be contained only to advertising, or might it be a convenient way to embed multiple uses for two-way data transmission, as nearly every piece of tech that we have today has done?

Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

Top Image: Aerotain.com

Hat tip: ZenGardner.com

Nicholas West writes for ActivistPost.com. This article can be freely shared in part or in full with author attribution and source link.