Google, Verizon and others are partnering with NASA on an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) traffic management scheme. Microsoft has been working with universities on drone-enabled mosquito traps in
an effort to stall infectious diseases from spreading. Cisco has shown off drones whose cameras feed into the company’s collaboration technologies. And AT&T, IBM and Intel have all
demonstrated advanced drone-based research. All of this activity by enterprise IT vendors in the commercial drone field is a far cry from what was being done -- or at least being publicly discussed --
back in late 2014, when our efforts to get such vendors to share their ambitions largely went unheeded. Not that you could blame the vendors for being gun-shy. After all, the legal landscape for
commercial drones has been murky at best, with the Federal Aviation Administration scrambling to roll out rules designed to allow hobbyists and commercial enterprises to benefit from flying drones but
also to prevent these devices from smashing into people, structures and airplanes.
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