derogatory more acronym for isis -- if you are on twitter or read arabic -- unnests perhaps the f thing happening in the arabic world these days. i encourage you -- there are many ways one can play with those letters, put them together to find something that will make them fume a bit more. that was already a pretty extreme and insulting from their perspective. what i am going to do in this presentation, because i expect there will be many questions about isis or the islamic states at this point, the regional fallout over u.s. policy, i am going to focus on serious -- syria.

when i look at the current debate, syria has fallen off the radar. a racket is taken dominance in public and policy -- iraq has taken prominence in public and policy debates. the public has not well analyzed -- there is not great interest. look at the number of journalists who have written about that compared to the cover job syria. dangerous lot more place. on balance, what is happening inside syria is not getting enough coverage and policy attention it deserves. i will spend most of my time doing that, because i think it is fundamental to understand what is happening there. the reasons for the conflict are there to last many more years. the spillover cannot be contained. containment is not the strategy.

it is an avoidant strategy actually. fewme start by making a points of warning. the first one is there is a tendency to embrace broad narratives when it comes to syria too easily. the narrative was that the rebels were winning and the region was collapsing. in recent months, it has been the opposite. the regime is winning. the rebels are lapsing. both are understandably tempting narratives. they are also simplistic. because they ignore a secondary , elements that have a on theimpact over time big picture. when the regime was weakening, it was also reorganizing to push back. well. did so pretty two months ago however, the most of aquered

region alongside the border with lebanon, and everyone focused on that victory. which is a very important victory. it secured the highway to it cuts rebels supply lines. it peoplee time ignored the rebel offensives. and perhaps the largest rebel offensive and the north and west in a year. the broades not fit narrative, we tend to ignore those -- well, those facts. there is another point of warning. resist the temptation to be my commentsly -- relate to the tendency to describe the syrian conflict as a proxy war. i say this for two reasons. first, there is direct uranian

intervention. iranian intervention. it is not proxy. it is direct. the second is there is a strong regional aspect that exacerbates the violence. to only limit one's analysis to that is, in a way, satisfying and convenience because it allows us to do what we like to do, which is engage in geopolitical analysis. if only the russians and americans could get along and somehow things would be much better. in reality, the local and transnational dynamics of the syrian conflict shape events on the ground a lot more than the regional competition. to accept this -- and once you accept this, you accept the limits of our understanding of a

lot of those dynamics. it is very obscure. it is much more difficult to understand research on the ground. it also makes a lot of the tools we have at our disposal much less useful. not arming,rming or sanctions or no sanctions. this is a problem. often our analysis is driven by the tools we have at our disposal, other than the other way around. what has happened in three years in is the emergence of actors who have their own legitimacy, their own way of mobilizing fighters, their own way of building support, acquiring resources, acquiring resources domestically. the conflict today has self-sustaining dynamic send all of the ingredients are there for a long-lasting war. course, one can identify disruptive events. we can go through that later.

but in a way, one looks at the linear trajectory, and the syrian war has what it takes to last five or 10 more years. the war economy has created ample local resources for the various fighting groups, whether on the regime's side or the rebel's side or the jihadist's side. happen alongations communal lines, but there are also transnational mobilizations, which i will get to in a second. and small and light weaponry is available in sufficient wanted seized. small and light weaponry is available in sufficient quantities. today it is not about whether the weaponry is there. know, at that level, all of the gradients are present.

-- all of the ingredients are present. points here.w we have to resist the temptation of drawing direct links between rebel groups in particular and perceivedunders -- regional sponsors. let me give you a specific example. when the islamic front came into control, everyone said this is a saudi croatian -- saudi creation. why is that? one of the main leaders of the islamic front has a father who is a syrian cleric who has lived in saudi arabia for a long time. therefore it was natural that it was somehow a saudi creation. except the father was actually closer to the website muslim

brotherhood saudi affiliate -- quasi-muslim brotherhood saudi affiliate. it was in fact difficult to get the saudi officials and supporters to come together. of course, there was a quick roque well and the arrangement over time. was no direct relationship of control, command, between those various groups. it makes our analysis easier if you assume that. but the reality on the ground tells us a pretty different story. aother example has to do with cell of this organization and saudi arabia. a pretty formidable force, actually. that theyoes not mean report to saudi arabia. those who are familiar with the

ideology know it can be all over the place. in saudi arabia, they accept the --monarch'sole role. they are in flux. they have not decided where they are. plein, that sim relationship between these perceivedder and a relationship and a rebel organization is -- it of skewers more than it helps -- it obscur es more than it helps. today -- and this will be the crux of my recent tatian -- what we are missing is the soft partitioning of syria. going to but i am not

go there. it is extremely bloody. but over time, it is likely the levels of violence will drop. and of people will have been killed in these areas and there will be a voluntary movement of people, which is already happening. we are talking about 3 million refugees-plus. this will make a political settlement much less likely. we will probably see quid pro quo arrangements on the side, arrangement isal much less likely than ever before. assessment is the regime of bashar al-assad is in a better situation since early 2012. let's be honest about this. it's survival is no longer survival is nos

longer threatened. is thessure on damascus least it has been in two years. june election was a political horizon all along. he saw the election as not only a show of defiance and cohesion and legitimacy to fire up his constituency, but also a way to -- there weres of people inside serious who had not necessarily taken sides. we like to think it is a totally polarized environment. you had many urbanites, many segments of syrian society in a state of denial, rejection, despair. did not want to be forced to take a stand. in fact, the election was useful way that it put pressure on his constituency. for two months, they built up to

the elections. visually, banners, it is colorful, people are demonstrating, etc. there was something to get excited about. it has worked in the short to medium term. begun the process of rebuilding on the pretense that he leads the state. i will get to this in a second. regimelity is the assad has maintained the military edge . it has rebuilt its helicopter force. it has adapted militarily. there are downsides. i will talk about that in a second. but it remains the dominant military actor inside syria. to conquergoals were territories where it matters. these central corridor. her territories, not

people. this is a fundamental principle and it explains the military strategy they pursued. assad's push people out of important areas. he did not want to commit to the toitical, economic resources regain the loyalty of the people. it may have been impossible to start with. spend precious resources at a moment when you are fighting for your survival in trying to win back the loyalty of people who have suffered so much? this is a key point. by doing this, he shifted the burden on rebels, on international agencies, on neighboring countries, on , to takef syria, etc. care of massive numbers of people and created paralysis on that front. theoint here is

humanitarian tragedy, rather than being the unfortunate outcome of the fighting as often per trade -- portrayed, it is actually a deliberate regime strategy. this is a key point. it it is not well understood. we like to see wars as great events. the reality is that the regime has pursued this as a way to debilitate its foes. that being said, there are challenges ahead for assad. the first challenge -- a necessary condition for the survival of the regime was its intoformation from a state a collection of malicious. in fact, assad could not have militarily counter the rebels by just operating as a conventional military, deploying its fighting

conventionally against all of these rebel forces. build a more loyal, but also less costly units to support the fight. so, he encouraged the development of locally-based are loyal to the regime, but have their own behavior, their own set of interests. overhey developed them time. they started differentiating themselves from the regime over time. some are more radical. some are less radical. i will give you very specific examples. there is a clash of interest with regime forces. there is a clash of loyalty of organization between those various elements. willtime, i suspect this erode be coherent's and the

sense of purpose of the groups ofied with -- the coherence the sense of purpose of the groups allied with assad. let me give you a couple examples that capture this point. you remember in february, there settlement to get civilians and fighters to relinquish their weapons in the city of palms -- homs? , the localure commander of the national defense force, which is one of aborted the, mission. it was very difficult to implement. of his topo send one security officials from damascus to make it happen. it was actually a pretty

problematic process in terms of assad showing he controlled the ground and the militias. and another group have operated largely independently from the syrian military, the conventional forces, which led to a lot of confusion and military setbacks, including the army and the village of -- it is not just the rebels and some of the radicals among the rebels. it is the forces supporting communicate well. they did not have a sense of the battlefield. that was very problematic. the national defense force see themselves as a local protection force. they do not want to be involved in fighting in other areas.

and they actually resisted assad 's orders. my point is this. in the short term, these frictions are manageable and we should not overstate them. however, this poses a problem as assad tries to rebuild the pretense of a functioning state inside syria. this is a challenge. some has to engage in dimension of stabilization and all thosetion to show who look at him as a better alternative than the rebels that he can deliver. the, that necessitates strategy and resources. if you believe the cost of the fighting was already massive in , wait until you see the reconstruction. all of us who have seen civil wars and reconstruction know

that reconstruction can be more costly than the fighting in and of itself. lebanon being a very good example of that or iraq, etc.. who is going to provide that? how do you convince the local actors who have risen to support assad in his moment of need to a centralization strategy here you go -- here? these are groups that expect respect and rewards from the authority. they are weakened. another problem is assad's dependence on foreign supporters -- has block, the iranians, etc. , the array news, air roads his ability to command a legitimate state. i was looking at some youtube videos from jihadist groups.

one shows fighters dancing and saying, we are not here for bashar. to broadcastneed their presence, their successes, etc., to mobilize at home, to recruit, to build a narrative that they are fighting or the broader good of the shia community. pretenseerodes assad's of being a nationalistic settler state, which is so fundamental. let me briefly touch on two points. the isis phenomenon and how it plays out in syria. it is the best example of local and transnational dynamics at play. isis is not the creation of saudi arabia. it is the product of the failing governments and the polarization in iraq and syria. its growth and its reach were

not only predictable. they were predicted. we were not necessarily surprised by this. what we are seeing is the effective merger of western iraq and eastern syria. the constant movement of money, resources across this border, this no longer existent border. the real surprise is that isis, which at first pretended to be a vanguard organization, today has perhaps too soon, that it intends to be a state. i think this may actually be the down fall of isis. much more vulnerable to pressure. you tell me that you have buildings and you expect to provide services. aid you create expectations. this is one of the very contentious points inside the syrian rebellion. does assad benefit from isis's

growth, the growth worldwide of the isis threat? i was talking to a few regime associates recently. they have very mixed views. some say, yes, it benefits assad . first, it validates the narrative assad has broadcast since 2007. there is also the i told you so factor. if only you had listened to us, we could have avoided that. this is a language that assad mastered. he had done so during the iraq war. his intelligence services can do a good job of it. there is the expectation that there will be cooperation with rebel groups under pressure from isis. you start with tactical cooperation and then you go to those famous truces and cease-fires that we see left and

right. i am not sure this is a sustainable strategy or will happen. , the problemhing in the west about what to do about isis is a source of delight. just today, in the new york times, they were arguing about direct cooperation with isis. this is good for the regime anyway. others argue, no, it is not good news for assad. has failedly assad to get westerners to embrace his view of the threat. i think here, we should give credit to john kerry. bad things tof say about u.s. policy, but on this specific point, i think some of this is a good centralizing of the problem. when john kerry said, assad cannot be a solution against isis because he is a magnet for

terrorism. this word "magnet" accurately captures the dynamics at play. there is a lot of concern that this narrative has not taken hold in the west. there is also the strain on the militias that have to fight on several fronts today. iran has inherited two failing regimes in iraq and syria. can they do it? , they have totias decide what they want to do. the news is not necessarily good for assad. to these are medium long-term considerations. in the short term, the regime is on solid ground. longerspoken for much than i should have. sorry. but thank you for your attention. >> thank you. that was fantastic.

i am sure there are a number of questions in the audience. i will do them one at a time. please welcome for the microphone to come your way. be sure to identify yourself and your organization. we will start right here in the middle, the woman. >> my name is -- [indiscernible] www.c-span.org -- to asktion is i want about syria, the amount of inment of the people -- terms of the total population, how many out? i mean just to get a sense of the specifics of it? first-time question.

>> sure. the numbers are quite frightening. we're talking 3 million refugees, three and a half million refugees, and about 7 million internally displaced people. many of those internally displaced people are located in refugee camps in the north of syria and difficult to access. there is also another set of dilemmas when it comes to you win --vided help -- you provided help. there is a series of legal considerations that should be overcome according to international two minutes area in law experts. the help is not making it this way. the numbers are just beyond frightening. the magnitude of the crisis is stunning. it is much bigger than what we at its worst.

there is another related problem, which is the housing infrastructure has been very, very badly damaged. i mean, again it does not 2003.e to iraq in that is because of the nature of the fighting. entire neighborhoods have been leveled. 50% of the housing hamas, aleppo,in etc. is totally gone or very heavily damaged. even if the fighting were to aop tomorrow, we are talking five to 10 year process to rebuild the number of units needed. and that is assuming the money will flow and where will it flow from? look, syria is a conflict that has erupted at the worst possible time. 's, talk to in gao's -- ngo

and actors providing relief, and they say they are meeting 20% of their needs. it is just heartbreaking. is, theundamental point humanitarian tragedy is a deliberate regime strategy. it is not the unfortunate outcome of the fighting. this,we totally accept we're not going to make much headway. adopted resolution was several months ago. practically, nothing has been implemented. and there has been no progress deliveryof the direct of rebel held areas where you have millions of displaced people. >> what is the total population there you go -- total population there? >> 22 million.

>> so we are saying -- >> 50%. >> [indiscernible] at this point, what are the two sides fighting for? do the sunnis expect the aloe was to -- [indiscernible] what is the near term goal and what should be u.s. over four as a solution? -- hope for as a solution? >> i think the groups have adjusted their expectations. dohink assad and his allies not hope they can retake all of the territory that has been lost . and anyway, why waste of those resources covering land that is aaron and where you have millions of refugees?

to secure this area, make it economically viable. not necessarily economically viable. those who know the geography of syria know that wheatfields are in one place, oakfield's or the fields are somewhere else. people talk about the sunni city that is not viable on the porch in the mediterranean. this is whyult and i say what we are witnessing is a self-partition of syria. none of these are viable on their own. there will always be a degree of trading between all of them. i think that assad has a pretty realistic vision of what he wants to achieve in the short-term and midterm. his problem is maintaining

coherence among the various groups that support him. you cannot take this for a given. we have spent time describing, theyzing, and disparaging factionalism and fragmentation of the rebellion. we should spend an equal amount of time looking at the factionalism inside the regime. i give you examples. we should not overstate that. this is a medium-term challenge. , -- look, issue is there is a lot of ab and flow among rebel groups. i gave a presentation that the big groups that i was in touch with. have taken very heavy losses from the fighting against isis. -- a few months

who told an official me that, in two months of tooking against isis, they 500 casualties. dead fighters. how manymany -- guess they lost against assad forces? 2100-2200 fighters. in two months, you lose 500 and in 2.5 years, you lose -- so, the fortunes of these groups very considerably -- vary considerably based on support and they do not have a clear angle about what they want. they are fighting for their survival and they need to secure territory and resources inside the territory to sustain the fight. they become very self-involved. it is all about their own

survival. this is the opportunity that was lost early on. there was a more positive spirit to the rebellion. you know, a forward-looking east coast -- ethos. that has been lost and this is problematic. it is hard to imagine a coherent rebel entity in syria. >> great. the gentleman right there. >> thank you. my name is edward joseph. this is an excellent presentation. nt that wase poi excellent about the need to be precise. you for ake to ask bit more precision when you talk about the local character of the conflict. the reason i ask is twofold. first, the implications.

if it is so fragmented, it seems hopelessly complex. why do we even dare do anything about it? it is fragmented so much. so, that is the first. the second is, it doesn't it imply that assad is more attractive? you have assad. i would ask you to be precise about that. difficulties these local units present to assad, they do not switch sides. this is not like somalia. there is one plan here and there. -- clan here and there. who is the enemy? they are not jumping sides in a fragmented way. there is a coherence, to the

extent that it is sectarian. i would ask you to respond to that. the policytart with implications of your question. as someone who is advocating arming since 2012 of the rebels, today, arming comes at a higher cost and higher risk. thanmes with lower returns it would have had two years ago. i understand the elements that policy makers are facing. at the same time, these are the policymakers who turned down the opportunity because of faulty assessment or because of a total reluctance to take the fight seriously. i have many bad things to say about u.s. policy in the last couple of years. here is the one word, bankrupt. i understand the current

dilemma. the current dilemma should not excuse the policy paralysis and the wishful thinking that happened. yes, it is unbelievably difficult to maneuver and navigate those dynamics. but, guess what? if you want to address the isis challenge. we all realize how big a challenge that is. and the strategy is only effective strategy is to work with the local actors. because of the size of the threat. because they have the legitimacy. because they have the human intelligence to do something about it. anse groups have opportunistic way of doing things. ago, we couldears have appealed to their ideals and values. some meetings with the

hearts and these are revolutionaries and -- today, ,ou know, they look at, at foreign actors and say, where were you in our moment of need? make a case for why we should actually help you. become a transactional relationship and we have to be honest about it. describing thee, complexity should not lead one to overstate what assad can offer. i do not understand what, operationally, he can offer. he has limited resources and is focused on his survival. someone saying that assad will send some of his forces to rebuild ties with the west -- does one really think that he has a better understanding of jihad he forces -- jihadi

forces than the rebel forces fighting isis? at the political and strategic level, working with assad validates the suspicions of many sunnis, and including moderates, that reluctance to helping rebels is linked to a preference for a side and a strong secular dictator. ," let's qualify what that means here. it will be difficult to undermine the legitimacy. if we go down this road, this applies to iran. run rock the best ally is a iran.q, the best ally is if we had not realized what

matters is the local actors and the legitimacy of the intelligence. the rationale to stand up to radical actors, perhaps, we should not be in that business altogether. the few successes that were q ared in yemen and ira due to local actors taking on the responsibility. can you create a set of incentives and disincentives for local actors to join the fight? the level ofs, massive and there is no recognition by us in the general discourse about that fundamental point.

>> an attorney to isil or isis, whatever, part of the problem with the name is what do they mean. do you see, at this point, any indication that there is groundwork amongst the palestinians? was -- it was very interesting to see that fi jihadi figures welcome the call for the caliphate. in lebanon, you have a group that actually welcome the call. aside from that, very few actors.

they attacked a couple of has below convoys. lah convoys. the success is the brand that is going up 1.5 years ago. these are franchises. they announced their allegiance to or loyalty to because they hope to get something in return. it is sexier to say you are isis. as i said, it is opportunistic behavior. precisely because it is opportunistic, the response should be political. a number of groups have joined ra becauseaw -- al nus they were getting more funding and scoring middle terry victories. -- military victories. they left or switched.

can you build incentives or disincentives? it is a huge bet. the announcement of the caliphate. this is high expectations. secondly, it is hegemonic behavior on his part. groups arejihadi resisting that and are not necessarily convinced about the caliphate or the modell it he -- modality or timing. they see it as vulnerable. soberimportant to be about the military capabilities of this group. can sustaine they victory. the point is, they can mount spectacular attacks and have done it in mosul. we will see, during ramadan, if they can pull off something in baghdad.

again, it's -- the debate within jihadi circles is heated. there is no massive consensus that the caliphate under baghdadi's leadership is the right way to go. espouse an alarmist assessment. everything depends on the response. if the response is purely counter-terrorism, isis will arrive. -- thrive. they will present themselves as persecuted by the right enemies. >> i am tricia johnson. wartalked about how the

does have the possibility of lasting another 5-10 years and isis operates in syria. think the length of the syrian war will affect isis activities in iraq? expert.no iraq i have to quickly develop knowledge because of the effective merger of these two battlefields. my colleague has written an excellent book on iraq and is in the lead on that. has been good at mobilizing local resources. whether it is true extraction, -- they, racketeering have proven very good at

co-opting or entering alliances with some tribes and some elements. it is difficult to believe that the events in iraq oh nothing to local groups. nothing to local groups. there is savvy on his part and his lieutenants. the announcement of the caliphate, in a way, changes the game because of the hegemonic ambition. i think that, in the medium term, the backlash against isis will be massive. debilitating? i do not know. will isis be able to hold a territory the size of jordan on the border of turkey, that , i am doubtful.

sent -- isis i becoming a model to other al qaeda franchises in the region. p. see this in aqa they are saying, perhaps, he is right. there is a different way of doing business and that is his territory. but -- it is taking a massive risk to announce the state. a state is something recognizable. they will not have a world cup team anytime soon. well, who knows? isis, when you look at the theyl media and presence, organize summer camps for kids. there is indoctrination and other things.

they are pretty savvy at the level of engagement and, at the same time, they, you know, nail people on crosses. a bit problematic. aboutint is, it is all the expectations you set and being able to meet them. they may have $.5 billion in their coffers. how do you make sure you get all the food that you need? i am talking about an area that contains about 8 million people. how do you meet the needs? how do you make sure that electricity and water are flowing if you are at odds with everyone? do local deals do enough? the local deals i refer to our with the assad regime or isis and al nusra. oil and products

because they need gasoline for trucks and etc. it is not a fireball model -- viable model. independent diplomat. thank you. great talk. you talked about the diminished cost-benefit with the u.s. engaging with the opposition. i wondered about your opinion how theorward and opposition could play a large part in the u.s. strategy. >> i see mainstream rebel groups as an essential element of anti-isis strategy. otherve to accept the

priority, the fight against assad. you cannot turn to rebel factions and say, we will provide you weapons if you fight isis and forget about assad. the most atrocities , is stillcement, etc. done by assad and his forces. are, the the jihadis balance of atrocities is very clearly the doing of assad. there needs to be a recognition of this fact and not creating -- not a creation of a false equivalence. few of them a week ago and i told them, what is your top priority?

they said, preventing the encirclement of aleppo. if we need to invest in one thing, it is that. poe encirclement of alep would be another terrible humanitarian tragedy. 150,000 civilians are still in that area. it would be a much bigger symbolic blow to the revolution than the loss of the capital of the revolution. the is the capital where rebels hope to gain in 2012. aleppo wase into terrible and they need to continue holding it. there is a question about what the rebels can do in the south. there was a lot of hype about thesouth of france and rebels were organizing in jordan and other places. getting pushed from the south.

added pressure on damascus from the south has not materialized for a number of reasons. it is not necessarily bad that it has not materialized. i did not see how it would have been sustained of a -- sustainable. without air cover, you cannot make sustainable gains in urban areas and shift loyalty or maintain loyalty of civilians. something that is key. that lesson has been learned the hard way in aleppo. policy should not be to encourage rebels to seek massive military victories. it should be about protecting the areas that they have and the population against more abuses. --ocal establishing local governance. they do not have the means or

the strategy to put it off. i am not talking about the margins. i am talking about a more forward strategy. a time for him adventures -- --itious investors adventures is long gone. >> we are about out of time. we had two primary objectives today. i thoughtnsight and we did well. we also achieved the second incriminating the iss in any criminal activities. i want you to thank him for his remarks. you for coming.

forum on the state of the drone industry and a look at rome safety. safety. needs ambassador says they more military aid. we will reroll. >> on the next washington journal, edward klein talks about his book. editorenior business will focus on what economists will be looking for in the jobs negotiationse between the u.s. and the european union. by the editorned of the journal to discuss the new design and the addition on

the presidential race. >> we sat down with the secretary of state to discuss the new book. point whereo the you can make peace is not easy. you do not make peace with your friends. you make it with your adversaries. i talk about what we did. we had a lot of economic pressure. we will see what happens. that has to be the first step. did i write about what we in afghanistan and pakistan.

trying to get the taliban and to the table for a comprehensive discussion. q, we have- in ira to understand that it is a political problem that has to be addressed. the ascension of sunni extremists, isis, is taking advantage of the breakdown of political dialogue and the lack of trust between malaki government, the sunni leaders, and the kurdish leaders. >> a government report concluded that the federal aviation administration will miss the deadline for commercial drones to be integrated into u.s.

airspace. a discussion on the state of the drone industry. hours. 1.5 >> thanks. a really fascinating topic. a few words to kick off. our focus is on small drones. we will talk about consumer and the enterprise space. this is an area that is changing by the day with amazing potential. i was thinking, as we are getting started, that we look at some of the things that we have seen from drone cameras in the past year. the worlden remarkable footage of the demonstrations in thailand and the ukraine. has letferent realm, it

us look at spacex's rocket taking off and landing. we have seen amazon showing a vision for how packages could be delivered in the future. footageee, remarkable of the world around us and showing us unique ways to view the world. of course, you have all experienced, like most of you, your first dronie. whiill be old news and a le. we are only just getting started on the drone journey. let's get started. in churchill fashion, we start with introductions. >> i am chris anderson. ceo of 3-d robotics. i went from being the editor of

a magazine to the ceo of an aerospace company. that is a story we will talk about. , back in they that day, i did not have to run a factory. the fun part is putting cameras in the air and opening a frontier of imaging and the data -- big data. >> i am eric chang. i was on past and technology -- ath in technology and fell off. i ended up being a photographer and did wildlife photography. recently, i have been sucked back into technology. >> i am jonathan. drones for 10n dd

years. pounded on a 6000 fully-autonomous helicopter system. i was an airline pilot. to address some problems that i saw as an undergraduate at m.i.t. in developing a drone for a targeted application. platform,e build the it is hardware, software, and cloud services. and allows them to be powered by other companies. >> i am christian. we build fully-autonomous ground robots for collecting data. some of our clients use robots to collect data across their job sites. our goal is to help companies with logistics and optimizing processes for safety.

and areclosed a round thankful to be here. >> that is great. thank you. amazing panel. where are wen, with the underlying technology that makes these possible? >> we should define what a drone is. we will disagree about definitions. i would define it as being aircraft that is capable of full autonomy and fly by themselves. they have gps guidance. it is not a politician -- piloted experience. they do jobs that are dull, dirty, or dangerous, without human intervention. they can. andreason this is possible

the reason that these flying robot can cost less than $1000 is thanks to the innovations in our phones. dividendsse the peace of the smartphone wars. technology and cameras. what is going on with the super commuters -- supercomputers. because of the scale, these components, put in different packages, can do things that were, essentially, impossible. than $1000 andss are soon to be on the shelf at walmart. >> what are the advances that you have seen that enable you to do the amazing footage that we have seen? >> the ability for these things

to be stable in space is something that photographers have been looking for for a long time. -pro haswho has had a go pointed out on a pole to get the hero shot to make themselves look cool. you let go and the camera falls away. as we're sitting here, every week, there is a new development . for creative pursuits, these things are opening up something that we could not -- well, we dreamed about -- i was going to say, we could not have dreamed about it. i dreamed about it 10 years ago. that, fore thought on all of human history, we have been stuck at eye level. for the first time in history, we can see the world the way the birds do without having to be in

the air, which is dangerous. cameras can now be positioned arbitrarily and space. the question is, -- now that spielberg,he boom of what are they going to do with it? >> you attack space in a different way. why are you going after the space that you are after. >> photography is interesting. i am excited about it. we believe that drones are used for a wide variety of different applications. we are inspecting power lines, pipelines, bridges, and levies. these that we are involved in now, we really think that, to address a wide variety of applications, you need a platform. companies developing a drone-specific application are

not leveraging a black box solution or not having to do it from scratch, developing it comes -- developing it themselves. so, that is what we are building. >> you are addressing a number of challenges in the space. specifically, battery technology is one you are doing. talk to us about that. >> our strategy or vision is not as exciting as some of the stuff that these guys are doing, in terms of filming surfers and all of the cool stuff. we work with minors or orstruction people -- miners construction people to figure out how to make their jobs more efficient or productive. we spent a lot of time on the field trying to figure out if it was the right fit for them. i discovered that it was. you know, ran into a couple of

people. one superintendent said that, at any given point at this construction site, there are questions that can be answered from seeing something. if they see that, they can answer it and move forward. he was saying that i could shave days off of construction. that was really what motivated me to start the company. is biggest cop -- challenge with these partners. basically, clearly automating the experience of the uav and making it fully autonomous. when it sends the data to the cloud, you are not involved in the process. technology -- how long can a drone fly for? >> we have spent a lifetime optimizing how much electricity we have sent out and we have

optimized drones, the props, the motors. we get about 35-40 minutes with the winds in the air and average missions are about 5-10 minutes and cover a large amount of area. behind swapping batteries, because they have not evolved in ages and will not involve any time soon -- eve all olve anytime soon. they have not gone through the rigorous test of making sure that is safe. have been most of us anded by great companies have them mass-produced for hobbyists. technologyan, every is one of the things being addressed. as you look out over the next few years, the pace of the

development seems to be rapid and i cannot get my mind around what it will be like. what are you looking at, in terms of the next wave of developments. >> this weekend, three projects launched. follow me is one of these things where the drone follows you. you are hiking, skiing, what ever. it stays 30 feedback and keeps the camera focused to get the perfect view. exactlyevel, that is what the youtube generation wants. complexcredibly autonomy function. it is using gps and image recognition, creatively trying to figure out the right angle. this is stuff that was science

fiction. this is the droid you are looking for. weekend, there were three projects launched and one of them raised half a million in a day. -- half $1 million in a day. the notion of construction. industrythe number two in the world. agriculture is the first. this helicopter can do is a mapper. it goes around and takes pictures. it gets sent to the cloud. and, creates a 3-d model. they get slapped onto a model that is being done. and you are the clients

want to know what is going on at the construction site. you can drive or walk your building get snapped onto the model you approved, building up digitally, perfectly aligned. will.ve air truth, if you that is a $300 helicopter. .magine what is going to happen >> you are talking about technology that is deployed underneath the drone. you are not talking about the drone. in terms of the mechanics of the drone, are we going to see development? using a customt camera that is smaller and highly controlled. -- themoving to getting

peace dividend of the smartphone wars is that the camera is getting good. communications link. we use amazon phones. you have the data and huge farms. vector tois just a capture data and transmitted to the cloud where it is. >> what do you think? what's the internet enables a lot of drone activity, as well. it would not be as interesting. we are sharing all this data through the internet and everything comes at the same time. it sort of goes back to what was said. a lot of it comes from smartphones. all of the innovations allowed these pieces to be affordable. >> you mentioned that and it is artie on instagram. -- already on instagram.

thatne of the other areas we are seeing online is the extensive use of open source software and open source in hardware designs. you are in separate companies, you collaborate around common code and design. >> that is one area where i need a different perspective. project -- ice think as the number of applications broadens and these will be deployed, i think that safety and reliability are going to become more and more paramount. i think this is an area where open source is likely to struggle.

most of the application-specific software, the future is that all of these startup companies are building business models around developing the apps themselves. >> right. >> you have been using the open source code. towith are working closely make modifications and make it fully autonomous. to do landing technology, we had a vast community of people working on software. it is easy to get access to differentking in places. to work onfford autopilot. to have that available to us was extremely helpful. >> what was the thinking behind that?

>> the arc of history is clear. windows. this is not our drone. this is the chinese drone made by a company connected to -- they improved it. it is a derivative design. the improved upon it. we have 20 years of open-source experience. if you're using android, chrome, or firefox, you get it. -- i think this is the silicon valley way. we have our own drones out there which we would like you to buy, but if you like to have something cheaper, here it is. it works great and we did nothing to make it happen. we just put the code out there and the world used it. >> let's shift gears.

i think when we are outside watching the training being done and watching chris do his mapping exercise, i was slightly stunned. by the skill it takes. you guys are the professionals and i know there are some people from accenture in this space. it takes quite a while to pilot these things. how difficult is it to learn to fly one of these things and to control them? >> you know how to push a button? >> i asked air at first -- eric first. >> limit talk about how most people are using it today. re autonomous inst some ways. high-level directions. we're going to watch the command set go up higher and higher as

the technology improves. so, what most people are experienced now it is very easy to put this in the air and do something simple. the rest of it unfortunately is totally based on your personality. if you are very careful and meticulous and you have a goal and you know how to get there, you will probably be very successful immediately. maybe your race motorcycles on the weekend, you may end up crashing it because if you are pilinoting it you need to have haptic feedback. you need to control to respond in a way that lets you feel like you are connected to the device. if i have flown this phantom without touching the app, that is the filling because it actually goes there. i'm controlling the camera and trying to be creative in that way so i think there's always

going to be that component of integrated space of someone who is directing the sensors around in an interesting way. i think autonomy is always going to be tied to some amount of manual interaction and that could be perhaps programmed in. i could imagine a director telling it where to go and having someone else push the button. you do that 20 times, it is the same every time. it is a complicated question. they are very easy to use, but to do something at a very high level with them takes a bit of skill. christian, you are approaching a more autonomous approach. >> our purpose is always been the data. we're using these tools to get the data fast, retrieve it fast from different places and the actually able to allocate these robots in places that conditions are very bad.

it is really cold or really hot. most of our projects are not very interesting. them extremely valuable to to be able to have something that gives them visibility and keeps them safe or creates measurements on a stockpile where they usually send people on top of them. weterms of our technology, use to tell investors it is almost like in a world where you have no bikes and we basically have photographers that need to go around a construction site really fast, we created a bike for them to get on it and go around. our focus is not a bike, it is the data that is coming back. bike --grading the creating the bike, we agree it these products to create handles our focus is

already been a data. >> in your platform, you are looking at controlling multiple drones. how is that playing out? autonomyk the level of is going to be related to how these come out. the lookout people will operated in these for thousands or hundreds of thousands of flight hours, all of that is in the military. a very significant portion of their losses are all related to pilate and operator error. as we develop the software to make the aircraft highly autonomous and put things like somebody can create a mission and stay on the mission and maybe someone entirely different is going to operate the vehicle by driving their van out there and flying the vehicle. . a generation of analytics and insight may happen in the lily

differently -- may happen completely differently. that is what is going to make the system more safer to operate as well as things that are in development and the development of ad resumes -- development of algorithms beckon taken to a part -- into account where other vehicles are located. at think those are areas that we are working on. something on everyone's mind -- how to solve that very efficiently without using a lot of power. >> you are actually doing something there. i am not going to pitch accenture tonight. >> ok. >> there are some interesting demonstrations and examples where we are working with a variety of different platforms. i look at a control like that

and don't really know how it works. as you look at this of all thing, will we have the get certified? is it like getting a license to drive a car? >> you always needed to have a certification to be a hobbyist. i was certified. i think all of you heavily certify hobbyists. today, it has gone away. you don't have to have the certification. before you go to a certain spot and fly and now you can fly anywhere. jonathan had a really good point. i think the faa should establish something where the force people to set up a certification where you say in a year from now, we will require everyone to be certified if you want to fly drones. that will keep people away from doing crazy things. >> we should expect the faa is going to look at certification sameo ways which of the

two ways they looked at certification of manned aircraft and operations of manned aircraft which is certification at the level of what is essentially a director of operations at a company was operating drones. this is the person that is responsible for everything that happens before the drone takes off. training of pilots and operators, maintenance of the vehicles, putting the right processes in place to make sure when that aircraft takes off, it is safe and reliable in the person who was responsible for operating it will operated in a safe way. the second piece of that is the actual operator of the vehicle themselves, they would need to be trained, certified, licensed in a way where that person knows the responsibility that is in their hands even if it is the case of the aircraft that is fully autonomous and what is in their hands is actually nothing but air. somebody will be the responsible party for operating aircraft's in a certain area. other interesting

party that will be a piece of the puzzle is insurance companies themselves right now. about one in a hundred companies that is seeking insurance to operate drone aircrafts is able to get that insurance underwritten. the providers and the underwriters of the insurance are going to play a key role as well in establishing what some of the procedures, how some of the aircraft are designed, the software that is powering them. that will enable and determine how and where these aircraft can be used and for what purpose. >> at risk of being a little -- really? this? this costs $299. you need certification to use this? children use it. do you think the faa will acquire this -- require this? another one is coming out in november and will weigh about a pound.

it will be the hot toy. it will be fully autonomous. it will be a toy under the christmas tree. faa certification? >> under the channel is consumer drones -- i know the channel is consumer drones. i'm happy to distend the focus. a lot of the focus is different. some can be addressed with kind of a very small camera from your cell phone. there are other applications that require carrying larger equipment, larger camera systems that areg of systems actually taking air into the aircraft itself. doing analysis like air quality and looking for particulates. there are applications where data there is a wide variety about locations. the absolute minimum size of the

aircraft is two pounds or more. they are definitely regulated. one of our earlier operators regulate in france. they have the most mature regulations as well is probably the most mature commercial drone industry in france right now. all of it is regulated. it is a very good process in place in which drones can submit paperwork and have it faxed. they can do that within 24 to 40 hours prior to flying the drones. >> what is the status of regulation in the sattates? >> our number one priority is safety. everybody agrees. the faa is also focused on safety. i believe they are not equipped today to deal with this sort of challenge. obviously, we have certification, getting law

enforcement involved, some sort of technology that detects these guys flying around so you know how high they are flying. it will be a very challenging thing to tackle. i think the faa will have to step back and collaborate with -- >> we've seen this picture before. and there telecoms telephone companies were regulated. but computers were not and then they were connected. lans were connected and that is the internet and now we don't know how the regulated. it. same thing with personal computers. i think what we see us time and time again you see white spaces. well, two .4s, oh gigahertz, it is not wi-fi, you cannot possibly destroy the phone networks. we do amazing things with wi-fi. knows better than

anybody. the silicon valley model is to take the under the radar, the grassroots, and add more functionality. under two pounds, you can do amazing things under two pounds. they could have radar, sonar, all the atmospheric detection. if two pounds is the limit, fine, we will do it under two pounds. >> that is arbitrary. on both sides of these products, you can pretty much run forever and see products on both sides. i can start a project that lets you control a paper airplane with my phone. will not be regulated? it's possible will probably not. where is that line drawn? you will see hundreds of products under whatever that arbitrary line is. in capabilityght of the aircraft and the other is commercial use versus hobby. hobby -- i am not certified

because i came to the game much later. what i understand it is a voluntary guideline. it has nothing to do with what is legal. it has to do with what the users -- the rules in which the users are willing to adhere to. that is what we're looking for. a set of guidelines that are tohaps voluntarily adhered by this community. the rest of it is the message that these things are here and are not going to go away and wait to be responsible. >> i remember i used to fly back not that old. and used to be an engine you put gas in them. it used to be a small community. not like today where everybody is a hobbyist and everybody can buy a drone.

back in the day, everybody knew each other typically. everyone that the same news, same updates, things were not shared on a spoke or twitter. -- on facebook or twitter. things changed grammatically when it comes to the guidelines they put together way back when. it doesn't fit the landscape today. >> i funded the paper airplane app. i don't imagine that will be regulated. can we turn to cameras? -- how that of altering is that evil thing -- evolving? what is going to be possible? buy one ofere to these a year ago, you would buy something that would carry an existing camera. in many cases, the gopro. this product, this is the phantom 2.

you notice it has what looks lens on a stabilizer. this was the first product in this space that really -- we decided to split the camera and to stabilize and unstabilized portions. there is no reason to stabilize a button that is used on land. what you want is a very, very robust, stable sensor and lens. i have been flying these and other ones that carry bigger cameras for a while now. i much prefer the way these handle. i camera is a camera and they all have the same parts. if you take away the parts that are required for use when you're holding in your hands, it is still a camera with the same capabilities. you just control it from another device. these cameras are going to hop on the same curve the normal cameras are on. will have a gopros

high frame rate really soon. it is going to happen this year. two,ll the cameras -- >> will the cameras -- two different ones -- one with a separate camera and another with an integrated camera. how will that evolve? >> i don't feel like the separate camera has real life in this game because you cannot do anything with it. yes, they're opening up bluetooth and cables to let you control things, but ours is fundamentally designed to be controlled from the thing you are carrying in your hand or the sensor. >> they are adopting a different approach on camera technology? >> both of these are mechanically stabilized. they have these motors and gimbals and sensors. with the next generation chopper, it is digitally stabilized. the sensors have so many pixels

that you can put a fish eye lens in front of it and move these rectangle captures around the sensor that it achieves the stabilization without any of the weight or complexity. it looks like a lens. as a result, because you are reducing the complexity, the copter is smaller. it is safer and cheaper. it is probably not good enough for the kind of cinematography you do, but it might be for most people. >> soon it will be. weight is absolutely critical so -- >> the fastest route to safety is lightness. if these things are dust, are basically dragonfly-sized. the whole regulatory question goes away at that point. these can't possibly hurt anything. >> on the ski slopes, we see

people wearing the go pros the whole time. when will we see people with their own personal drones flying and following them? >> next week. what you will see is one follow the skier into a tree. none of these systems have any proper avoidance technology. my response was not entirely positive. i love that they exist but it is negative because i feel like the people who buy them and use them will be disappointed because they are expecting magic. none of those videos were actually shot with products that actually follow you and avoid objects. they were shot with piloted projects. if you are on the ocean and on a yacht, that will be a great application, but in the real world on land, you have things that stick up. the question of how you retrieve them. you have to time your run pretty

well so that when you are at the bottom, you still have battery life so that it will come back to you. maybe these things will be like rocks in the future. >> the beautiful thing about it is there a lot more people thinking about it today. smart people are trying to solve hat than a year ago. they're going to be a lot more people trying to solve this a year from now. it will get to a point where it is extremely reliable. i talked to a company trying to figure out how to collaborate and solve this. >> let's go to the commercial use of drones. christian, you have given some examples. where is the in for drone technology? where does it create value for commercial organizations? >> this is my own opinion.

i think this is something chris said as well. we are going through this phase that the attention is the drone itself. just like the computer era, everyone was focused on the computer. then they focused on the operating system. then what software applications you build on top. that is going to go away. it will be more focused on the practical things of how people are using or extracting out of these drones. that is going to be all about these really cool stuff that people are doing with drones that are practical, that are dding value. in the future -- i read an article about how they plan on using drones on mars or the moon to map mars and figure out if they could put a jet engine on it. people are going -- you are going to see a lot of this application. we have been able to get so far in just a little amount of

time. five years from now, all of this innovation will make it smaller, heaper, more reliable. the battery will be far more reliable. the opportunities are incredible. we had someone ask us if we can build a drone for cleaning windows at high-rises. people are creative out there. people building these applications can provide for these different rare-use cases people are coming up with. >> some of the examples you give are aligned with improved safety, give workers less risk and increasing productivity so you get straight to what you need to do and not worry about the safety. some of these cases -- >> for us, we are using tools these guys are building to ollect the data.

we are teaching all these industries how to use the data. we spend -- some of the projects we're working on are fascinating. we sit down with construction workers everyday and they use images on the screen and draw circles on top of it. they print them out. we have 200 people using our images at these very incredible sites. they turn around, they take them to the field. if someone lost something in the middle of the field, we can launch the drone, and create a new map and able to find this one item they were looking for just by looking at hi-res images. that is collection of data and being able to see things right away. we want to go beyond that when it comes to data. we want to be able to detect things on the ground, alert people via sms messages. construction sites with three years, let me analyze the area to pinpoint the areas to improve

on. all of those things are going to be tracked. two weeks ago, we had a construction site where they found a stockpile being gone and the contractor came back to recharge them for the stockpile. they were able to use the images to say you took this pile away and then brought it back. they were able to catch those guys and recharge them. they fired them, but that is the accountability that does not exist today. >> different sensors are being attached to these devices. the mapping clearly was not being done. >> it was. it was only a go pro. software does amazing hings. the big picture here is that we like many other industries are digitizing the world. we have the ability now with the

sensors and cameras and atellites and camera phones -- we have the ability to now measure the world around us. bring this into the internet and the cloud and start to make sense of it. agriculture is a great example. you plant, you wait six months, and you hope for the best. we don't know what is going on because farms are too big. we can't walk the fields anymore. what if you could digitize farms? what if you close the loop? what if you could figure out we don't have to spray pesticides today because we don't have a disease infection. we know that because we digitized the world. that is just one example. > let me ask a question.

jeff bezos, when he was talking about the drone delivery of amazon, said that it will be five years out from becoming a reality. why? what is going to happen and change? >> safety wise, there are so may things they have not thought about. you cannot have it flying into our front yard with kids around. chris and i talked about this. a lot of things these guys and to think about before you go into that world. >> there are a lot of technical challenges that comes into play between delivering something from point a to point b and point a and point b are always the same to delivering from point a to maybe thousands of amazon lockers to delivering from point a to everyone's household, including apartments and homes and anywhere else people may be asking for deliveries. the broad scope of the picture is likely far, much farther than ive years out.

it may in some cases never be possible from a regulatory standpoint. may be applications where something's being delivered from a known area to a known area, i think are some of the applications of delivery we would see first. some of our early data customers or researchers at m.i.t. demonstrates the delivery in africa and southeast asia where its delivering to is a known quantity. the case is a life-saving scenario so there is a high motivation to make sure this happens. >> working with autopilots, knowing your weight, you cannot have that as a variable because it complicates the autopilot. it needs to be a fixed weight in order for it to be efficient.

>> you mentioned the social, good aspect of drones. i would be interested to hear more about those examples where drones are doing social good. > we are building a platform that is focused not on a single vertical application but all at the same time broadly on a lot of applications. what we did is we took a wall and started writing all of the different things on the wall that we thought drones will be used for. we came up with a lot of common commercial ones that we talked about here. we also had a section of the all where he wanted to come up with some of the things we hope and we wanted to see drones really used for and that is where we came up with things like antipoaching operations, wildlife conservation, area of delivery of vaccines and edicine. those are examples we have been involved in. >> any other -- >> one of the interesting things we got the early days was walmart.

they asked us if -- this is something they publicly talk about. the use of satellite imagery to figure out how many people go to stores but they wanted to take a step farther and find out how many people go to the stores based on their ad campaigns or their commercials on tv. being able to map that and correlate that -- 30 people showed up in the store -- globally and regionally is huge. another person was talking about the satellite company that was sold to google how they are selling imagery around all the manufacturing plants in china where they can tell if they are manufacturing a new apple phone because they see the trucks going in and out. they are selling this data to ifferent people. >> we have like five minutes before we will go to q&a. let's talk about where the money

s. i've seen predictions by someone whose company is in the audience tonight around the drone market or 2025. driving almost $100 billion of conomic value. the faa saying in a couple of years there will be 10,000 drones. >> we have more than that in a month. >> i'm wondering why they're coming out with a number so low. where is the value today? how is it going to evolve over time? >> it starts with hardware and then becomes data. right now, these things are basically a way to get sensors in the sky. what you do is a big opportunity. we are essentially a software company. we are very happy to have other people make the hardware. at the end of the day, no one

cares about the drone, they care about what he can do. whether that is video, pure data -- it's about the cloud service. >> fast forward what these guys are doing which is enabling the public to do what uber did for anyone to be a driver. you can be an agent and provide services to people that you couldn't do before. it could be a a search and rescue person with a drone and utilize these drones to find people with the data. the amount of things that will show up in the next three or five years will be unimaginable today. >> the value will be services and date, not hardware? >> satellites are a precedent for this. climate corporations said they

would take the satellite data and sell it to farmers but they didn't know what they would do with it. they went back to ask the farmers what they wanted. the answer was they have this variability in their crops and they want cheaper crop insurance. they turned it to an analysis that allowed them to generate better crop insurance and became an insurance company and sold for a billion dollars. >> i cannot wait until the day hen drones are boring. i've been using these basically every day for a number of years. i still get excited because they fly, but it is just a tool. i am not thinking about the drone anymore, i am thinking about what i am doing with it. i don't care about it. it is a thing that can take a camera or sensor somewhere. it changes a little bit. f you like to do flips and

stuff, the technology is changing fast enough so you are always interested in what is coming out. i am interested in flying longer, flying more safely, and getting a better picture out of it. i don't think about other features. >> you see that with journalists as well. >> this is about robotics in general. the moment it works, it is a dishwasher. i cannot wait for these things to serve as dishwashers. who cares? i would love to take the word robotics out of our company ame. it is like -- who cares how it flies? it flies. discuss. >> the cost of the hardware is coming down every so many months. we have the viewpoint that just consider the cost of the hardware free. if the hardware was free tomorrow, where is the value?

it is in the software and software specifically that requires fewer people on the ground operating the aircraft and software that enables you to operate them in an autonomous way. it lowers the risk associated with using the technology. software that allows you to be compliant with any regulations and what the insurance requirements are. software and then, of course, the purpose of all the software. these big, giant multinational companies are all interested in using drones. they are not actually interested in using it at all. they're interested in the data they could collect by using drones. it is just one type of data collection mechanism and in many cases, these companies have many ways to get the data but they are doing it from the ground where it is usually overly costly, dangerous, or very time intensive to do so. it could be decreased by doing it on the air. >> let's have some q&a.

start over here. >> first, is there any definitive website or publication where all drone people go periodically? for example, if someone wanted to issue an rfp for a certain type of drone. and there is a new drone company every week so they would not know who to send it to so they would post it there. how would the new faa rules be made? would there be proposed rulemaking? what is going to prevent the bozo factor? or example, having a two pound limit on drones to me is kind of dumb because you can get killed by a one pound drone falling out of the sky. what would make sense to me is the harm factor. what is its terminal velocity divided by its hardness?

a 20-pound styrofoam drone would do less harm. >> that is how france looked at the regulation. i think one of the biggest problems in the united states is that congress mandated that the faa come out with regulations and from the onset said one of the dividing points is 55 ounds. it is unfortunate. they should've said to the faa, you come up with regulations that you think are appropriate and the faa would've likely looked at this problem and say 55 pounds does not make sense as a dividing line. what may make sense is two pounds or five pounds or certain amount of kinetic energy. in other countries like france, they have dividing lines at much lower weight classes than 55 pounds. >> there is the manned airspace territory.

then there is the unmanned. above a thousand feet, what you are worried about is plane collisions. what would take down a jetliner? 55 pounds would definitely take one down. two pounds is bird sized. if a jet engine ingested this, would this be a terrible thing? that should be the limit. below 1000 feet, you're talking about running into trees, power lines, and children. there you are talking about personal safety. i don't want two pounds landing on my head which is why i would like this down to six ounces. >> the other thing that exists below 1000 feet is manned helicopter flights including search-and-rescue, police, as well as flights. they're almost always below 1000 feet. helicopters are more efficient the closer to the ground they fly. especially in agriculture,

cropdusting within the last two years has already been multiple incidences of small unmanned aircraft nearly colliding with cropduster aircraft. the two to four pound aircraft is a large obstacle to hit at 70 miles an hour in a plane the only ways 1000 pounds. >> 83 feets happens to be a number arbitrarily in the law. 83 feet was some chicken farmer back in world war ii decided that airplanes flying below 83 feet was scaring his chickens. that is not regulated. tell me what the number is. 6 ounces, 83 feet. whatever. i think we can innovate around that. >> >> there is a committee called -- >> the question was how will the ules get made? >> part of the proceess is there is a subcommittee in which there are people from the faa and

several industry companies that are involved with coming up with part of the process and proposed rules. the faa's supposed to release the proposal of the rules will be which will not take effect until next year and that is for smaller unmanned aircraft. >> the other question was what is the forum that you go to? >> we sit on the standards committee which is tasked with creating rules. hat are the standards your aircraft, software have to comply with? >> to the next question? >> patrick is here somewhere. e collects a lot of breaking news about this space.

unfortunately in the consumer space, if you're interested in just hobby flying, you have to go to the forums and they are not very friendly. >> the head of the faa talks about the challenges of setting up the laws. one of the biggest challenges -- we have a lot of relationships with the faa -- it is working with law enforcement and cities. ow are they going to enforce these laws? it becomes extremely expensive if you start thinking about having these guys fly around and police having to be responsible for enforcing these things. you will see courts filled up with people claiming they didn't break the laws and have no proof. we are tackling the private

space area where a lot of companies we are working with have insurance for things falling out of the sky, hardhats, and there are massive companies having active work with the faa to work with them rather than circumvent them. >> next question. >> chris, you made a great comment that we are digitizing the world. and my question to the panel is about privacy and ownership, which is, what happens when i digitize my neighbor, or my competitors? how do you guys look at that going forward? >> i get this question a lot. first thing, a lot of people just are not aware the faa regulations are what they are. flying over your neighbors is illegal, banned by faa regulation. you cannot fly over populated areas, so anybody flying over your backyard is essentially in faa violation, subject to a cease and desist and a $10,000 fine. it is based on a community standard, reasonable expectation of privacy, which varies from region to region. we have 80 cities and towns, processes, to figure it out. and privacy is a moving target

thanks to traffic cameras and facebook and camera phones. in the united states, we don't have monolithic privacy rules like in europe, it will be more on safety rather than privacy. one thing we can agree on is we don't want it flying over our

backyard, whether it is taking pictures are not. >> other comments? >> i would say there is a lot of existing tort law in the space around privacy. in many cases, flying over your neighbor's yard and taking pictures is more of a civil case than a criminal case, or a case where the faa needs to be involved at all. >> people do not really know what these are yet and do not know what cameras they carry. they assume that if they see one, it can see you. that is not really the case. you may be 10 pixels in the resulting picture. a guy was attacked by a woman on a public beach because he was flying one. he caught it on video, and the public complained it was vertical video, which should not be allowed. she was attacked because she said he was a pervert. he posted the footage he got. it is like if you are looking at the grand canyon. she did not understand what it was and what he was doing with it, and chose to attack him instead. >> something people don't think about, you can put your camera phone, hold it over the fence and take a picture of your neighbor and they have no

idea. you fly one of these buzzing things over them, they totally know. >> next question. >> are you getting pushed back from industries you could potentially be disrupting? for example, if i made my business out of operating a crane camera or doing helicopter shot for movies, i would be looking at this as rather threatening. >> in many of the industries they are looking at this technology as a tool and something complementary to the existing way they are doing it. something that will increase total market size. companies doing existing power line inspections by manned helicopter are very excited about adopting this technology so they can actually do some of the miles of inspection of powerline that are not astronomical to do today with manned helicopter with drone. >> with cinematography -- >> is an increasing possibility.

the space is bigger, and you have existing players. there might be a good reason for putting a big helicopter in the air. there are many good reasons. the case of hollywood, they have already been using these. when you see aerial shots in movies, chances are they were not taken by helicopter. they were probably taken by a drone. they have been under the radar because you are not allowed to do it commercially according to the faa. but now that is starting to change. we see conversations between hollywood and the faa and some xceptions to the rule. >> unlike most robotics, which you think about replacing jobs, these create jobs. it is hard right now to get cameras in the sky. you need trained pilots, certification. so these guys are largely empty. it's not like these are replacing pilots. they are doing jobs that are not being done. >> my own experience, we were

working with uc davis. we went to one of their farms and we were introduced to the farmer. he did not like us at all. and the professor basically introduced us and said, we want to try out this new technology. this will help automate the process of agriculture. he was completely opposed to using it. he was like, i walk my farms. i don't use these tools. the funny thing, we went ahead and flew the drone around, got imagery, and we were using -- we let him see with the drone was eating and let him fly with us. he refused to do it. do you want to try them on? the professor was fascinated. he finally agreed and said, all right, i will put them on. he put them on and said -- can you fly to the left a little bit, to the right, can you go forward? that was beautiful.

you always need someone to analyze the data. that is what he was doing. he no longer has to walk, but he can still analyze the data using these tools. >> next question? >> i have heard about facebook's new ngo. and they want to provide internet signal everywhere. to remote places. what is the biggest challenge you see here for facebook, to provide internet with drones, internet signal? >> one of the big challenges is flying at such a high altitude. the way they are proposing doing this is with solar powered aircraft at 70,000 feet. the benefit is that controlled airspace ends at 60,000 feet. the challenging part is to actually get up to 70,000 feet