Recently Amazon was awarded a patent for a "tiny personal assistant drone".
"Amazon's patent suggests that police may use the drone as a flying dashcam, following them and recording everything during routine traffic stops," explains the article* I discovered.
A “personal drone” could have a multitude of applications, I'm sure you would agree. While I’m not yet up to speed on the particulars, I sure like the concept for helping solve one of the most persistently irritating challenges we face around here —railroad crossings.
It seems whenever I have a deadline to be somewhere there is a train blocking my path. It’s really uncanny.
I don’t know how it happens but it does.
It’s not that I have to stop for a few minutes while the train goes speedily through the crossings. No, it’s most irritating when the train enters the crossing and stops.
Sometimes I can wait for a very long time until the train people have determined we have paid the train Gods enough of our time. Or, depending upon where I’ve got to be and when, I pull out of line and backtrack to find a clear crossing. Sometimes I can and other times the train is so long that it is blocking the alternative, as well.
There may be some relief on the horizon with Amazon’s decision to enter the “personal drone” business.
We will see how things workout. But, maybe someday I’ll be able to send up my little drone camera and actually see if that nasty old train is stopped, adding more railroad cars or simply way too long and just poking along.
Then I can make an intelligent decision to either hold my horses and wait or turn out and hope to find that opening to the outside world.
*Fly my pretties: Amazon patents personal mini drones to locate lost cars or kids, Michael Irving, New Atlas, 21 Oct 2016.
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