Drone Week: Age Of The Useful Drone

Last week, I talked about the fact that we might have reached "peak drone," the idea that public interest in drones and quadcopters is waning. That doesn't mean there isn't a use for them. I feel like over the past few months, there's actually been more "useful" articles about drones, rather than the fun and gimmicky ones like the burrito delivery drone. Anyways, time will tell. Here are this week's round-up of drone-related news stories: Apparently France is accusing rival soccer teams of using a drone to spy on them at their training camp in Brazil for the World Cup. However, it is still unclear if it's actual spying that's happening or, as the article says, an enthusiastic fan. The former is definitely a more interesting news story, but the latter much more likely.

Maybe you'll be able to see video of that training footage on TravelByDrone, a site that aims to give you a drone-based view of the world in the same way Google StreetView gave you a car-based view. The site's team is manually vetting and adding new drone videos to their site at a few hundred a day, according to TechCrunch.