Of the many technologies to have captured our imaginations over the last five years, there have been few with such lofty aspirations as drones. These high-tech flying machines have opened up new cultural pastimes which bring together hobbyist enthusiasm and a simple human curiosity to take to the skies.
In 2015, one of the largest commercial drone developers, DJI, was valued to be worth over US$10billion, while major media companies like Facebook and Google have been quietly acquiring drone manufacturers to further their aspirations of reaching the remaining world’s offline population by using high altitude drones to beam down data through lasers, giving those more remote communities a means of getting online.
But what are the big five applications that explain the proliferation of drones over this period, or which signal important contributions to our society?