act, whether the law imposes substantial burden on their religious beliefs, and whether it was the least restrictive means, how do you deal with all that? is that only of interest to legal geeks? how do you make it understandable? >> i definitely had to get all that in my story. >> i definitely had to get all that in my story. i write in part for lawyers. the legal issues are definitely what they are interested in. i write for business papers, legal papers. we have a daily business paper in oklahoma city where hobby lobby is based. that story had a different focus and came out looking different

than our weekly legal papers. you have to sort of explain what it means in a way that is understandable for lawyers and others who read the paper. it is not just lawyers. to understand what the impact of it means. there is a lot of rhetoric. there are a lot of people on tv saying a lot of things. it is difficult to find out exactly what the law is. sometimes it takes a couple days for it to settle down and for people to analyze it. >> do your editors give you all the space you want to detail a case like this? >> they always have -- they hold the scissors. i just give them a big long story and they can trim it to their individual needs. i normally don't get cut off. my stories tend to be in the 1200 word range. >> i am glad you focused on hobby lobby. at least this one, we knew what the bottom line was.

it was relatively easy. about a week before, there was a greenhouse gas case. justice scalia starts reading the majority opinion. scalia very rarely is on the side of the environmentalists. you assume epa is going to lose. there is rhetoric about how this regulation goes too far. in the written version, after he said why epa loses, he turns and says, however it could be approved against power plants under a different regulation. he said upstairs, epa has basically won most of this case. that was a really interesting scramble. a lot of people put stories on the web saying, court strikes down greenhouse gas regulation based on what the court seemed to say. at the end of the opinion, it basically said, epa won most of this case. i am glad you didn't take that

one. >> that was like the aca decision to years ago. the chief justice went into all the things that were wrong with the decision and then said, but, it is constitutional. a lot of news organizations reported that it had been struck down. with the hobby lobby decision, it seems that justice alito went out of his way to lay out what exactly happened. maybe it was an attempt to avoid a situation like the first aca challenge. nobody really understood what happened because the lead -- the lead was buried, as we say. >> except, i used to tell people to find out what the majority ruled, you should read the dissent first. i think the common thread in all these discussions is that there is some spin going on with a

majority saying, this is very limited and the dissenter saying this opens a big can of worms. it is a real challenge to figure out which is the right tone to set in writing our stories, especially when we have to do it within seven minutes after the decision comes down. this was also the case in harris versus quinn. they stopped short of striking down agency fees altogether. alito was very clear that they stopped short of doing that. how do you really know what is going to happen next?

>> i thought that decision by justice scalia that you were talking about was a good example of what happens at least once or twice a year. i imagine it must present special challenges to the press. here is a summary from the lineup of the course syllabus. justice scalia announced the judgment of the court and delivered an opinion. chief justice roberts and justice kennedy joined the opinion in full. justices ginsburg, breyer, soto sotomayor and kagan joined as part 2-b-2. justice alito filed an opinion dissenting in part in which justice thomas joined. how do you even figure out -- >> and your editor is on the phone saying, should we call it 5-4 or 7-2?

>> you look at what really matters going into it. the interesting thing about that epa case and the harris versus quinn one on monday, we all have certain expectations on how far the court might go. the union won, we knew what was at risk. the idea that maybe public employees weren't going to have to pay union dues. we thought the court was going to challenge. they didn't end up reversing, but they ended up with a setback for public employees and unions anyway. as adam was saying, you have to figure out what vote really matters in the recess appointments, the unanimity, but also the 5-4 rationale. you have to work them both

together. what you sent out to your bosses right away that they can put on the wire will make a difference to all the readers. you have to really give them one vote and keep revising. >> one thing that we are all lucky about is that we cover the court full-time. that means we can really concentrate on the court and know the arguments. if you have been at oral arguments, these decisions were not surprising. i think we probably all wrote a version of it after the oral argument. it seemed clear in the epa case that there was a majority that didn't believe they had the power to do one thing but they would be able to do it some other way. i think we got that feeling after the recess appointments too. i think a big advantage that we

have is that we do have that background so that when one of these complicated decisions comes down, we still know what the arguments were. we know how the court seemed to accept them or reject them. >> we struggle after going to an argument about how much we want to predict the results. often, the safest thing to do -- the justice is divided over whether to ban abortion -- ban protests near abortion clinics or allow police to search cell phones. that seemed divided. turned out to be wrong. they were unanimous. >> in addition to the front page story like hobby lobby and cell phone searches, even at the end of the term, many of the cases handed down were quite technical

and may be of great interest to a fairly limited audience. for example, whether the trustee of employee stock option plans get exemption of prudence. or, halliburton. at what stage in litigation can a defendant in a stock fraud class action try to show that the alleged fraud had no affect on market prices? how much time do you need to spend on immersing yourself in the details of cases like that? how much room do your get from your editors to report the details of cases like that that may be of great interest to a small audience? >> those two cases had very different answers. the halliburton case was a real case that i think most of us

wrote substantial stories about. it had the potential to do away with securities for class actions. >> it is a balancing act. during oral arguments, you don't know in which order the decisions will come down. i'm the sole washington reporter for all my papers, i am only one person. i covered oral arguments. it was an issue for lawyers that could be of interest. it came down in a flurry of other much more impactful cases. i ended up not writing a story about the decision. some of the publications may have run ap copy. i tried during the course of the year to pace so that the decisions will come down the same way the oral arguments did. >> there are a lot of cases that

are not that interesting. the court deserves a lot of credit for style points for presentation and drama. every year, there are a series of big decisions. on the last day, there will be some big decisions that divide the court, the whole country. it happens all the time. a lot of people who are paying attention like in the health-care case, the gay marriage case, you genuinely don't know how the supreme court is going to rule. it is an unusual part of government. they decided with a bang.

then they take off for three months. boy, they really know how to do drama. they reserve all the big cases for the end. i thought roberts might send a note around that said, why don't we slow down. if we release this in may, it will let the air out of the balloon. there is always a big case at the end of june. it always strikes me that congress does it wrong every year. they had the state of the union in january, the president comes up. then two weeks later, it is clear, we are not going to legislate this year. one side says, we can't make any deals with the people on the other side. they are unreasonable and obstructionist. by this time of the year, who

cares if congress is in recess or not? they are not doing anything anyway. but the supreme court knows how to do drama and presentation. >> they are doing so much drama in the courtroom. we went through a period where a lot of people weren't showing up because you could get it quicker online. we have a decent section watching the proceedings. which of course are not televised. the justices are still playing to that. there is plenty of back-and-forth that has given us grist for drama. >> a number of people have asked me, why did alito have those decisions? one took much longer to decide than the other. the union case was argued in january. it took this long to get agreement, which suggests there was something that fell through. a majority opinion that somebody was not ready to go along with. it just so happened that one argued in january and one argued in march happens to be the last two cases of the term. >> people have been wondering for weeks whether the term was going to and the previous week, on thursday the 27th, or they

were going to go over to the last day of june, monday the 30th. it made me wonder -- i remember an article you did about how justice blackmun urged him to postpone the decision from a thursday to a monday because a story on a friday or saturday newspaper does not get much attention in the summer. i wonder if anybody suspects that hobby lobby may have gotten pushed from last week to this week precisely for the style and impact that david was talking about. >> i think that theory would make more sense if they issued decisions on friday, which might get lost. but i don't think it applies to thursday decisions, which is what they typically do these days. that was good pr advice from the clerk back in the day, but i don't think i attribute that to why monday.

>> you said something about the difference between being upstairs in the courtroom and downstairs in the press office. can you tell us about what that differences and how you make the choice? >> i am in a lucky position that i have a partner who is very fast and handles our on the spot copy. the minute he can get a copy of the opinion, he runs to his terminal and types of what happened. he has prewritten what we call snaps which are like urgent lines that will go to our customers. that gives me the luxury of being in the courtroom. when i worked for usa today and the washington post, i could do it all the time. but that was before we had to be as fast as we have to be. you get to hear the justices tell you what they think is so important about the ruling.

you get to see their colleagues react. people in the spectator section react. i think it is wonderful drama, and it plays into what david savage said about getting to the nut of what they have done. as justice scalia said in the epa case, the government gets 83% of what they are trying to do. we walk out with that understanding, not having to page through dozens of sheets trying to figure out what is the nut of it. and because cameras are not there, we can bring that into our stories and enhance with the readers get. i feel very fortunate to be able to do that. >> it's important to emphasize the cost. the moment they start talking, your competitors are downstairs with the hard copy of the decision. they will talk, as they did in the hobby lobby case, for half an hour.

you are in a courtroom, incommunicado. they are nervous about posting something without your permission. there is a cost to this incredible benefit of having the case explained to you why the people who wrote it. -- by the people who wrote it. they are not reading the decisions allowed. they are giving a colloquial summary of the high points, which is incredibly valuable. >> part of the reason that some of the media organizations got it wrong with the affordable care act is they did not sit through the entire opinion announcement, where you do hear the nuances and there are two parts to it. one, the affordable care act is unconstitutional on one ground but constitutional on another ground. the people that raced off with the hard copy got sidetracked. you would think it would be more accurate if you had the piece of

paper in your hand, but it didn't work out that way in some instances. there is some thinking that maybe, if they did not hand out the opinion to the reporters until the end of the oral presentation, it might work out better. >> is that something the press gallery wants to ask them to do? >> there would be faux unanimity if there was. >> i saw someone walking with a plate of food from the lobby be varied i'm get -- food from the lobby. if anybody wants to look for it. there is more food if you did not notice it coming and your -- coming in. >> i remember bob observing during the aca rollout.

spectators who are really keenly interested. lawrence gold, who was interested in the union decision. you can see how they react. during the course of the relink, we both noticed that he -- ruling, we both noticed that he tightened when it sounded like the government had lost, and then he loosened up. you do get a lot. it can be at a cost if you are the only one up there for your news organization. >> the dramatic moments, you are not the only one. when they announced the affirmative-action decision. on a day that was very heavily covered. i want to say it was cell phone searches. >> the day of aereo. >> we were hoping to be there

for two arguments. they announced the decision. justice sotomayor gave her first dissent from the bench. if you were not there, you missed it. it just so happened in that case, a lot of reporters were there. you have the explanation that you normally, on another day, a run of the mill sort of habeas case, nobody would be there -- there is a value. you can't always be there. >> in a situation like that, what do you do? you stay upstairs to watch the arguments? the runs -- do run downstairs and file a story? >> i went downstairs because i thought it was a dramatic moment

and the case people were going to be interested in. i wanted to get something on the web. even though i had thought at first i would stay and watch the arguments, i decided it was not worth it. it was more important to get a story out on the web. >> was that the unanimous -- >> i just do what bob does. [laughter] >> i stayed for the arguments. >> do you have the same time pressure to get something out to your publications? >> not quite as much as some of the folks who need to get some thing out within the hour. some of the papers i write for our daily. i had to get something out. the editors realize i am one person so i do the best i can. >> you are making so many judgments. my colleague knows more about

business cases. he was going to cover aereo. i am not even knowing that justice sotomayor is about to present this great dissent. after she says what she says, and i know it is huge, i said i think i'm going to stay for the susan b. anthony oral arguments. my editors are hoping for that. but i know i have observed this big moment that i want to wove it -- weave into whatever we are putting out on the affirmative-action case. i knew my colleague could do whatever we needed to do. it was more important to have one of us up there for the relatively important first amendment case. it was tough, especially since the first two rows anted up completely.

-- emptied up completely. everybody knew it was wiser to run down for their purposes. kimberly knew for our purposes to wait. we typed up what had happened in the oral arguments and then shifted gears to write a separate story. sotomayor's moment. nothing is easy in the moment. >> have you ever made a calculation, what is the story likely to be on the front page? the affirmative-action story was a front-page story. but it would help you write the decision. you lose something. this is the instance of a general problem for journalists. we cover a not very hard working court that does all its work seven mornings a month.

they happened simultaneously and we have to do a kind of triage to decide which things to cover. >> another thing that helped, transcripts of the oral arguments are available, usually fairly early in the afternoon. i ended up writing a story about the susan b. anthony case by reading the transcript later in the day. it is not the same as being at oral arguments, but you get the high points and understand where the justices are coming from. that helps a lot. >> they have alluded to this. we are in two different businesses. bob and adam and i. i'm not sure about kimberly. we are serving a website that

wants news immediately. we also work for a newspaper that wants to be more reflective. i stay downstairs and get the opinion, but i do it because of the website. my choice would be, i would rather go listen to them deliver. but as long as there is a demand for the website to get some been up immediately, i don't feel there is a cost to it. you take a half an hour or 45 minutes. i am always torn every day thinking i have two different jobs. >> i wondered if the court was showing a little consideration for the press, although not as much as if they spread their work around. >> the answer would be no. >> there were never more than three opinions a day. and maybe throughout the whole term. there have been days and other terms when there have been four or five opinions.

do you think that is because of their own convenience, or they maybe care about the press and their staff? >> go ahead, kimberly. >> i concur. it would be much more helpful if they delivered a bunch of opinions in the cases we did not care about, and then spread out the big ones. which they did not do. really we're not in mind. >> we had a week of two decision days in june where they cleared out every dog. and saved every big case. you couldn't help, the final days, having two big decisions. they were not particularly inclined to help us. >> we have spoken about how you prepare in advance to cover these cases. reading the briefs. you guys do anything on the backend in terms of following up

about the consequences of the case? is anybody going to track how many companies seek exemption under hobby lobby? >> i definitely will be keeping an eye on that one. one thing i am not doing which i have done in the past to wrap up what the terms mean. the buffer zone case. all the big cases it is not necessary at this moment. i will revisit and see what the impact of these rulings are on the ground. it will take a little bit of time for that to happen. also do some previews of what is coming up.

keeping an eye on what is bubbling up. one thing people are looking at is whether the state law bans on same-sex marriage will make it to the term next year. where those are. things of those nature. the summer is a nice time to be able to think about the stuff and do some analysis in a way you can't do when you are under the tight deadlines. a decision date. >> i plan to talk a little about next term as we get closer to the end. let's hold off for now. one of our panelists mentioned about how i am not allowed to

have electronics upstairs in the courtroom one person who was not a reporter to get some electronics up in the court room one morning this year. were you there to -- >> i was not. it happened during a not that newsy oral argument. it was on february 26 when a young man, a protester stood up during a session of the court and started speaking to the justices. it was about the mccutcheon case. that has happened before. it happens once every five years. what was unique about this was somebody else who had either a pen camera or some other device took a picture of -- a video of him and making his statement. that ended up on the internet within a few hours.

another piece of video did from another time. it was literally the first time since 1937 that a photo of any kind of the court while it was in session had been published anywhere. such a rare event. >> it was amazing in the room. it was a patent case. it was the equivalent of semi's crashing into each other. the room is so orderly. a couple of us could fear shares crashing. -- chairs crashing. the police had trouble getting to the fellow. they had to knock over a couple of tears to get to him. the justices were stunned.

he was, just complaining about the free speech campaign finances case. he was able -- he was seven sentences before they stopped him. >> i thought he was a good advocate. >> he got people's attention. the justices did not say anything from the bench. but we did things change. the security we go through is different. >> it happened fast. you saw the police go over. he seems to go down. it was almost as if there was a trap door. he was there and then he was gone. right before it and attorney was giving his rebuttal. he said counsel, you have four minutes. i was just talking to my editor in the weeks before that happened. nobody can bring phones or any recording devices in.

visitors have to check them in the locker. nowadays people have smart watches. spy pens and everything. they never check for that. i said, i am surprised nobody has tried to take some video. i'm surprised there are not more protesters. all you have to do to protesters is stand in line and get into the court. >> you would think it is the chambers of the wizard of oz. >> there were two footnotes to this. one was that the audio was redacted. the explanation is that was not what they normally record.

the second is he was prosecuted under a law that prohibits orations at the court. one wonders why justice scalia has not -- [laughter] but anyway, i went to the trial at the d.c. superior court. the judge clearly thought this was not a big deal. no jail time. he wanted the u.s. attorney to drop the whole thing. the lawyer for the court, the general counsel the court, was very much involved in the hallway negotiations over this. he was sentenced to time served. he had been held overnight after the incident.

that was enough punishment, the judge felt. >> there are several cases like that. a good news case for a select group of people. i don't want anybody to raise their hand here. there are people in the country who feel their free speech rights are stifled if they cannot give more than $123,000 to the candidates for congress. some of you out there for this category and can just smile. don't identify yourselves. now you have a free speech right to go up to capitol hill with a check for $3.5 million and say to john boehner, i want to support the entire team to the max. that is what this case was about. the idea that, thankfully, we have a free-speech right to give more than a couple hundred thousand dollars to members of congress.

that is good news. >> let me give a more than nine interpretation. -- a more benign interpretation of the case. another way to frame it was, nobody disputes there is a $2600 limit per election cycle. but there is a separate law that says once you have given $2600 to the first 15 or 16 candidates, the 17th one will be corrupted. that is not obvious. >> i do think my voice would be hurt if i took my $3.5 million check to the hill. john roberts says there is nothing that allows congress to stop the use of money to buy influence, by access and influence. you cannot do a bribe. but you can use money to buy influence. as part of being a citizen. if you have $3 million, you can buy influence.

no corruption. you are just having your voice be heard. if you actually care about an industry, you have a lot more influence if you can take $3 million to the speaker of the house than if you give $2600 to elected members. -- elect different members. >> there are a lot of other ways to buy influence than making campaign contributions. we can debate this and we will for the next decade. going back to the questions of electronics, another place where that has become an interesting story is the scotus blog. which does a live blog. they are not upstairs in the press gallery. they are not downstairs in the press room.

they are sitting in the cafeteria. i wonder if someone would like to tell us more about why that is so. and what is going on with them trying to get equality with the rest of the press gallery. >> the legendary lyle continues to have a press pass and writes for scotus blog. this is in part an academic discussion for that day which we hope never comes of lyle retiring. >> lyle is in the press room. he is able to take the opinion and go back to his phone, on an open phone line, and is able to feed the information to the live scotus blog feed that others are managing.

that is how he is able to convey this to the blog. you're right. tom goldstein and some of the others are encamped in the cafeteria. they wanted a press pass for two reasons. one is to -- they wanted a senate press pass. a congressional press pass so they could cover supreme court related events in congress. budget or confirmation hearings. they wanted to get a press pass from the congress because the supreme court traditionally honors those press passes.

to make a long story short, they were denied by the senate press gallery. which is made up of media reporters. they were concerned -- it is a legitimate concern -- they don't want to give credentials to somebody that lobbies congress. they want the press corps to be somewhat independent. to have integrity in that way. they wanted the reasons for denying the pass, the credential to the scotus blog was they felt litigating before the supreme court -- and tom goldstein who is the publisher argues before

the supreme court quite often -- they felt litigating before the supreme court is a form of lobbying the federal government. it is kind of a novel thought, that arguing before a judge is a form of lobbying. you could view it that way. they were denied. a lot of people feel that scotus blog - it is unique, and is not a journalistic organization in all senses, the proof is in the pudding. the product it puts out has so many benefits. it is so journalistic and such a public service. a credentialing process should not exclude scotus blog. there has to be a way to redefine the criteria to accommodate something like scotus blog. there are many business models and media organizations that are different from traditional methods.

i think there has to be some accommodation of the new forms of media. >> the question tends to muddle two different areas. the question is the government is allocating access to its public institutions. the only grounds on which it should make those distinctions are content neutral, motive neutral, and should ask whether the enterprise is actually serving as a proxy for the public to get access. to allow citizens to see their government at work. as a first amendment matter, it is hard to see why scotus blog does not have a credential in either place. >> any dissenting opinions? >> you mentioned earlier that you are finishing up a book about justice soto mayor.

wanted to tell us more about what that will look like. -- why don't you tell us more about what that will look like? i am curious about whether you have spoken to her since that decision. >> i have spoken to her many times during the course of doing research for this book. it is a before and after. it is unlike the scalia and o'connor biography. i thought i would go into it and talk about her trajectory. she ended up giving me a good story by what she has done over the last five years on the court. at the end of the book, it focuses more on her as a justice. on her own book tour. what a public figure she has been. everybody has commented on the fact that the dissent was her first from the bench.

she thought it was too much of a dramatic move to even do an oral dissent. it was evident from that room and everything else, this has mattered to her. she wished she had been able to persuade her colleagues. it was not even a close call. there were only two of them in dissent. joined by justice ginsburg. justice breyer did not adapt the reasoning of the majority, but he did vote for it. the fourth liberal justice, elena kagan, was out of the case. they felt justice kagan probably was relieved in part to be out of this case because it was a very thorny issue. a difficult issue. it inspired passions among the justices.

it will be in the book. >> i will read the book. there was one sentence in her dissent that particularly caught my attention. after going on for eight or 10 pages about the benefits of affirmative action and the great decrease in diversity that has been the result of anti-affirmative action legislation in place of like california, she has a sentence and says, to be clear, i don't mean to be clear that the virtues of adopting race sensitive admissions should inform the legal opinion before the court today. that's the only time i can think of somebody saying seven like that. does anybody remember another situation like that?

do you think there's anything inappropriate about that? >> the union case, two days ago, has a 10 page long -- it ends with, never mind. >> i think what was so interesting about the dissent by the societal mayor -- justice sotomayor was it was very personal and directly called out the chief justice. his famous line that the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. unless i have that backwards. it was very clear what she was talking about. the chief justice felt he needed to respond to that. he responded, too.

it was i thought a very personal moment there at the court. you saw these people who disagree about something quite strongly wanting to get that view out there. i thought, this year, we saw a number of us who have written about an interesting thing with her. being much more comfortable in dissenting on her own, writing separate things in decisions. in that way, she seems very different from the other nominee to the court, justice kagan. justice kagan writes some very tough dissents, but they are joined by everyone else on the side of the issue. i thought we saw a real difference between the two of

them this year in the way they handle those things. >> i would like to put in a plug for elena kagan. young law student, she is a terrific writer. i don't know of anybody that writes opinions that are so readable. one of those opinions, she has a paragraph that says, stop and dogear this page. she gives you guidance. she's a terrific writer, very smart, a terrific questioner. a good timing sense in terms of when to ask questions. she seems to be an inside player. whereas sotomayor is more of a public figure. >> if i remember the scotus blog numbers right, this is another year where kennedy was in the

majority the most. kagan was third, which i think was new. >> that reinforces the inside player part, too. she knows how to work the -- >> you have now written books about justice o'connor, scalia. is justice kennedy scratching his head and saying, i am the most important justice. i'm in the majority. why is nobody writing a biography about me? is anybody planning to? >> not me. >> here he is, the new hero of the gay rights movement.

the man who will probably bring same-sex marriage to the u.s. it strikes me as curious he is not getting attention in a personal way like that. >> i think he is. he gets magazine profiles. we have all done a version of the kennedy court. to sustain a book, you want someone whose life story tends to be broader than what she is doing on the court. sandra day o'connor offered that. so does sotomayor. i'm sure the seeds of the kennedy book are in east -- the mind of some academic. when same-sex marriage returns to the supreme court, i can't imagine anyone other than kennedy will take the lead on same-sex marriage. there might be another moment to talk more about him. he turned 78 this month. which in supreme court years is young. he will be with us, he will probably be with us for another 5-10 years or so. >> people were talking about the cases and what was coming up.

someone says, i want to be the first one who says it all depends on kennedy. that is the supreme court reporter's burden. how do we keep finding new ways to say it all depends on kennedy. as you point out, it really does. there's no way around it. >> you would be surprised how many legal academics get a call from a major newspaper and think they are imparting some dose of wisdom by saying, it all comes down to kennedy. >> i want to remind the audience i will be opening the floor for questions about 10 minutes. if anyone wants to be thinking about the question, now would be a good time. let's talk about the future. i understand you have been following the same-sex marriage cases that are percolating in the lower courts. what are your predictions?

>> i think it could easily be taken up by the justices in the next term. we had the first ruling by the appeals court. which said that a ban should be struck down. in that case, it involved the utah. we had more district court judges rule. this thing is marching towards the supreme court. the big question is, will there be a split in the circuits? at this point, we have zero splits. every court has been the same. these bans are unconstitutional. we still need to see how things will play out in more conservative jurisdiction. the fifth circuit has a texas case before it. even without a split, the justices will have some interest in taking up this question. they will not leave it hanging out there with most of the circuits approving but not issuing a national constitutional ruling.

i am hoping for our benefits, because we love a big issue and this thing is percolating faster than we would have ever expected last year this time, that it does indeed come up and next year you are asking about how we wrote that story. >> the sixth circuit has a day set aside for same-sex marriage. every state in the circuit has a case before the appeals court. it will be a solid day of hearing that issue. it is clearly moving around in some circuits faster than others. the fourth circuit could rule at any day on virginia's case, in which case that ban was struck down. the court is surprised at how quickly it is moving and how fast it could come back to them. >> one interesting thing about the appeals, that i know some of my colleagues wrote about, is

after the affirmative action ruling, there was a flurry of filings in these cases because of the court's reasoning because look, even if it is difficult and highly charged, the states have the right to decide on these issues. as soon as they said that, everyone filed supplemental briefs saying it is up to the states to decide what the definition of marriage is. that put a new twist. it will be interesting to see if there is a circuit split. if that is part of the reason that causes one. >> that was written by justice kennedy. >> among all these cases that are moving up, are they all basically the same? or are there some that are more more favorable to the same-sex marriage and some less? >> some just talk about the recognition of marriage that has

been performed elsewhere. the arguments in the cases, the reasoning in the opinions, are remarkably similar. every one of them mentions justice scalia positive sent -- scalia's dissent where he sort of wrote down a blueprint for how you challenge a state's ban based on what the majority has said. it has worked out for him. >> what will be fascinating to watch as the bloodsport among the lawyers who want to represent the winning side. >> how is that going to go? >> in the end, you may be surprised to hear a lot of stuff decided by a coin flip.

>> there are about 40 cases that have been granted for next year, not including same-sex marriage. have any of you had time to take a look at them and have any thoughts about other cases we might be discussing here a year from now? there is one redistricting case from alabama. where minority plaintiffs are complaining about gerrymandering not in their favor. the case that was in the court a couple of years ago looks like it is coming back which has to do with whether congress can direct the secretary of state to consider jerusalem part of israel on a person's passport. any predictions about what the court is likely to do with

those? now is the time -- >> we all look forward to digging into those briefs. >> i think we would agree that the court so far has not exactly put together a blockbuster docket for next term. there certainly are cases out there, we talked about same-sex marriage, it is surprising to a lot of us that the court has not accepted a case involving gun laws. that try to find out exactly what the court meant in the heller decision. everything that has come before the court, it has turned that on -- turned it down. the gun folks rights are getting irritated and annoyed by their refusal to take another case. it is all speculation, but i speculate it is because they are not sure about what justice

kennedy would do. each side is a little worried about breaking up one of those cases without knowing how it might come out. there is a surprising but uneasy feeling on all of lee's cases -- these cases that raise interesting questions about whether there is a right to carry a gun outside the home or just to have it inside. who gets a permit. the court so far has not found a case that it is willing to accept. >> one cases about how the first amendment applies to facebook postings. another is whether muslim prisoners have religious rights to wear beards. having found out corporations have religious rights, we will find out whether people do as well.

>> we have about 13 minutes left. anybody in the audience have a question they would like to ask? >> one of the things i found interesting in the coverage of hobby lobby, whenever they had their soundbite, was the characterization that the women justices voted in the dissent. the insinuation being it was a gender-based decision, which is -- as a feminist i find a little offensive. also, the second insinuation that it was a women's rights decision as opposed to a decision about the rights of corporations. i noticed that in the written media, it was not so characterized. i have two questions. one is for you to comment on the difference between broadcast

media coverage, where a lot of americans get their news, and written media. secondly, whether you think it was influenced by gender. >> on the first issue, you should rely on the written press. >> the three women on the court are the most liberal members on the court. it is the second point that matters, not the first. do you think it is inappropriate to mention? i don't know what the right answer is. what do you do when the four dissenters are the four more liberal members of the court, and three are women? i think i did both in different versions. i wasn't sure whether you should mention it or not mention it. >> i feel like justice ginsburg has made the point that when justice o'connor was on the court, they were different in so many ways.

one a democrat, one a republican. but they were together on all women's issues. >> she did think it mattered. >> she did think it mattered. she said they are coming to it from the point of view of a wise jurist. it is inflicted by their experiences. in my story on monday, i played up justice ginsburg's women's rights background. she talked about reproductive rights and how important may have been to women's -- participation in the economy. i thought that was a good angle. even though i did not point out the overall women factor of votes. just like i did not point out the religion factor vote. the five justices in the majority are roman catholic. there were three jewish justices in the dissent. i decided not to put that in.

i thought that could deter some readers and make them get off on something i wasn't trying to force the issue on. but you can't help it avoid the kind of sensibility that some of the women's justices will bring. but it is overall a matter of ideology rather than gender. >> what i heard from women's groups later was justice ginsburg's dissent pointed out that birth control is health care. the majority opinion seems to think it is a subset of health care, something set off by itself. i thought those were two differences of feelings you got from reading the dissent and the majority opinion.

>> was it a decision about health care or religion? >> it has been many years since the courts decided any case involving the right to religious freedom. most of the cases are involving the establishment of religion. in the early 1990's, justice scalia was part of the majority that said, we are not going to grant religious exemptions to general laws under the first amendment. but we have had the religious freedom restoration act. the supreme court in 1997 limited the act and said it did not apply to state and local laws. there have been very few statements on religious liberty for the last 20 years. i can't think of any decision as close to significant as this one. >> any other questions from the floor? a mike is coming to you, hang on.

>> if you look at the stories that were read at the beginning, each of you is not just reporting on what has happened, but the occasions of what is happening. the invocations color the public policy debate. how do you decide how far to go in that portion of your stories? >> for one thing, it is often hard for us to know that day. this is a good example of a case that will play out for a long time. the court has sent back to lower courts some cases that involve businesses that don't want to cover contraception at all in any form. they have sent those back and said, take a look at these with what we have said. the most natural thing in the questions you get from editors is what does it mean? what does it mean for people.

you do that to the best of your ability, judging from what is written down, and then say, when you don't know how it is going to play out. or what the decision does not say. what the decision is careful to say we are not deciding. that is the only way to do it. >> yes, ma'am. what don't you wait for the mic. >> i hope you have time for two quick questions. because the case was argued in january, what caused it to be decide at the very end? >> it was not cleared justice scalia was going to be with the majority. there will -- must have been a lot of negotiation about whether

a key 1997 president should be stuck down. >> somebody mentioned about justice kagan's long segment suggested it was possible the majority at first was going to strike down the decision. and somebody got off the train. it possibly could have been scalia. >> she liked what she had written so much, she left it in. two years ago, the decision had forecast trouble. there is a theory about the court that there are a lot of decisions that are one-two

punches. the first decision trashes a precedent. the next decision overturns it a couple years later. the knox decision was the one forecasting the end. it did not deliver. >> quickly, i have to say i'm quite jealous of the fact that you are all in the court room and witnessed justice sotomayor's dramatic dissent. how do you feel about cameras in the courtroom? >> i speak too much about it. it seems so obvious that -- it is crazy in this day and age that that medium is excluded from the court. unlike the other, almost every other institution in america, which is open -- there is no rational reason why they are not doing it. that said, i don't get is going

to change. i don't think the court is going to allow cameras unless they are dragged, kicking and screaming. >> yes, ma'am? wait for the mic. >> as all these major decisions have come down, it was reported that the public approval of the supreme court is around 30%. the lowest it has been in decades.

as astute observers of the supreme court, i would like to ask you what you think the cause of that is. and what the invocations are. >> among the causes are a distrust of government generally. those numbers rise and fall with all the branches together. they tend to fall when the court is perceived to be a political institution. the implications for the court, case-by-case and year by year, are fairly small. >> there is an interesting thing to polling about the court. people who tend to approval of the court's performance are people who are in the party of the president. the court, even though it is independent, is perceived to be associated with the president in office at the time. perhaps because they often have appointed the latest members to the court and gotten attention that way. but if you go back and look, it is a strange sort of connection that democrats now will approve of the court more than

republicans do right now. that was different when president bush was in office. >> adam, do you think the evidence for the court as a political institution is not strong? >> i don't think it is especially stronger than in years past. for the first time in american history, all of the republican appointed justices are more conservative than the democratic appointed ones. that sounds like it should be normal. but in closely divided courts, it has never been the case. all you have to do is think back to justice stevens. there were lots of examples of people overlapping and not doing what you think they're appointing president might want -- their appointing president might want.

>> i also think there is a sense with each new appointment on the court, it has been a few years, but there was a period when there was one every year. that process has become more publicized. is a political process to put them on. people expect that to continue based on the spectacle around the appointments. that was very much the case with justice sotomayor. that colors the perception. >> think back on some the nominations. my colleagues will correct me. but kennedy and scalia were unanimous? ginsburg, three votes against?

that is not the world we live in. on that note, it is 2:00. we hope to see you back here next year. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] quite the number of unanimous decisions handed out by the court. most except a full review by the high court. that the outcome could be attributed to his effort. could bee issues surfaced in the net's term.

they are calling it the mandate on several. on thursday they have this. could end up before the court. this was the largest amount. we were pretty hopeful. there was the group been there. it represents the endowment. they have a $6 billion term going on. they have those kind of facilities. you have to have that.

it will be the president's responsibilities. need to make sure we expand those revenue streams. the challenges facing the predominantly black university. >> next a panel of software developers on the future of drone technology and how it is becoming more prevalent in society. this is 1.5 hours. >> thanks to the churchill club for organizing another fantastic event and topic. just 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 just changing by the day with amazing

potential. as we are getting started, you look at some of the things we've seen from drone cameras in the past -- just this year. given the world's remarkable footage of the demonstrations in thailand and ukraine. in a different realm, it has enabled us to watch spacex's grasshopper rocket -- footage of that. we have seen amazon showing their vision on how packages may be delivered in the future. as you have seen, just remarkable footage of the world around us and showing us unique ways to view the world. and, you of all just experienced your first dronie. it will probably very old news taken by eric, one of the best drone photographers. we are only getting started on the drone journey.

we have a great panel here. in typical churchill fashion, we will start with everyone introducing themselves. chris. >> i am chris anderson, the ceo of 3d robotics. i was the editor of "wired magazine" for more than a decade. i went from the editor of the magazine to the ceo of an aerospace company. let's say it -- back in the immediate days, i didn't have to run my own factory and now i do. the fun part is we get to put cameras in the air and open a new frontier of imagery and big data.

>> my name is eric cheng. i am the director of aerial imaging at dji. i was on path in technology and i have a computer science degree or two. i ended up being a photographer doing underwater pictures. i have been sucked back into technology recently. >> i am jonathan downey, the founder and ceo of airware. i have been in the drone space for 10 years beginning at m.i.t. later at boeing working on helicopter systems. i was briefly an airline pilot flying the twin otter between las vegas and the grand canyon. i started airware to address some problems that i saw as an undergrad at m.i.t. in developing drones for specific applications.

we develop a platform of software and hardware and cloud services that power drones. one thing we don't do is actually build the drones ourselves. >> i am christian sanz. i am the founder and ceo of skycatch. we build fully autonomous ground robots for collecting data at scale. some of our clients use these robots to collect data across their job sites. our goal is to help all of these companies with logistics. help them optimize process and safety. i am very thankful to be here. >> an amazing panel. first question is for chris -- where are we today with the underlying technologies that make these small drones possible and where is it heading? >> we should define what a drone is. you will always disagree about the definitions. i would define them as being aircraft capable of full autonomy which is they fly by themselves.

they have gps guidance. there can be pilots if you want. by in large, they do jobs that are dull, dirty, or dangerous without human intervention. these two are both robots but they look like they are not. their incredibly intelligent compared to where things were a few decades ago. the reason this is possible, the reason these two flying robots cost less than a thousand dollars is thanks to the innovations in our phones. i call these the peace dividend of the smartphone wars. they use the same components, the same sensors, similar gps, similar cameras. what is going on on your phones with the processors, the supercomputers are essentially running the batteries. because of the apples and googles of the world, these components put into different packages can do things which are essentially impossible ten years

ago. now it is $1000 and soon be on the shelves in wal-mart. >> eric, from a photography perspective, what are the advances you have seen? >> the ability for these things to be stable in space is what photographers have been looking for for a long time. everybody that has had a gopro try to get that hero shot of themselves that they think will make them look cool. this is the extension. you let go of the pole and the camera flies away. a lot of these things are happening as we sit here today. every week, there's a new development or company try to do something like that. for the creative pursuit, these things are opening up something that we could not really -- we

dreamed about. i dreamed about this 10 years ago and thought if only i could have a flying camera and that would happen. >> for all of human history, we've been basically stuck at eye level. for the first time in history, we can see the world the way birds do without having to be in the air which is dangerous. having the skills of flying something, cameras can now be positioned arbitrarily in space. now that you have the boom of a spielberg, the crane of a spielberg for free, what are you going to do with it? >> jonathan, you are attacking this space in a different way. why are you going off to the space you are going after specifically? >> photography is a really interesting application. at airware, we believe drones will be used for such a wide variety of different

applications. everything from agriculture to infrastructure inspections. inspecting power lines, pipe lines, oil and natural gas exploration, land management, antipoaching operations. we really think that to address such a wide variety of applications, you need a platform so that companies that are developing drones for specific applications are not either leveraging a black box solution that they cannot meaningfully expand or they don't have to do it all from scratch and develop all of that themselves. they can focus on the pieces of hardware and software that are really meant to be differentiated for their application. that is what we are building at airware. >> christian, you are addressing

a number of challenges in this space, but specifically battery technology is something you are doing unique things around. >> our vision is not as exciting as some of the stuff that these guys are doing in terms of filming kite surfers and all the cool stuff. we work with miners and construction people. we try to figure out how to make their jobs more efficient and productive. so, in the early days, i spent a lot of time on the field trying to find out if this is useful to them. after a lot of weeks and months, i discovered that it was. i ran into a couple of people. one superintendent once said at any given point at this construction site, there is at least 100 questions people have today that can be answered just by seeing something. if they see that, they can answer that and move forward. basically, what he was saying is that he can shave days off construction. those are millions of dollars. that was really what motivated me to start the company. our biggest challenges today in technology that we are solving

with, you know, with these partners is basically completely automating the experience of the uav. making it fully autonomous when it lands, when it swaps a battery so that you are not involved in the process. >> battery technology -- how long can a drone fly for on a battery? >> we spent a lot of time optimizing how much electricity was sent to the motors. we've optimized our drones for the size that props the motors so we get about 35 to 40 minutes of high wind time in the air. our average missions are about five to 10 minutes and cover a really large amount of area. the idea behind swapping the batteries because batteries have

not evolved in ages. it is not going to evolve anytime soon. some of the companies are doing really interesting things with batteries which haven't been tested. they haven't really gone through the whole rigors of testing to make sure the battery is safe. right now, most of us are buying batteries that have been tested at great companies and they have been mass-produced for hobbyists. >> battery technology is one of the things that obviously is being addressed. as you look out over the next few years, the pace of development seems to be so rapid at the moment. what do you guys look at as the next wave of development that will enable new use cases? >> this weekend, three follow me projects launched. follow me is one of these things where the drone follows you.

you are biking, skiing, or running, whatever and these drones stay 30 feet back and up and keeps the camera focused on you and get that perfect cinematic hollywood view. on one level, that is exactly what the youtube generation wants. it looks incredibly complex. it is using gps and image recognition and then creatively trying to figure out what the right angle is. looking at the sun and the shadows. this was science fiction a few years ago. this is the droid you are looking for, right? just this weekend, there were three projects that launched and one of them raised a half million dollars in one day. that was just today. tomorrow, this mapping function we are talking about -- what christian is doing is this notion of construction.

construction is arguably the number two industry in the world. agriculture is number one. what this $300 copter can do is a one button mapper. it does circles around the construction site, takes pictures which get sent to the cloud, and creates a 3-d model. then that model gets snapped onto the model of the engineering company is already doing. now, you get -- you are the client. you want to know what is going on with the construction site. you can either drive there or watch on the cloud, watch your building. snapped onto the model you approved and watch it build up digitally, perfectly aligned. there is no bs. you have ground truth or air truth, if you will. that is a $300 copter that is doing that. just imagine what will happen in another five years.

>> you are talking about technology that is deployed on the drone. you are not talking about the drone itself. in terms of the actual mechanics of the drone, are we going to see much development or have we reached the point now where -- >> right now, we're using a gopro. eric is using custom cameras that is lighter and smaller. we are moving towards bringing the sensors down. the sensors are getting good. we control the camera, we control the gimbal, you can control the communications link. you can then control the cloud and the big data and these huge render farms. the drone itself is just a vector to capture data and transmit it to the cloud. >> guys, what are you thinking about? >> the internet enabled a lot of this drone activity as well. we are sharing all of this data through the internet so

everything gets scanned through at the same time. going back to what chris said -- a lot of it came from the smartphones. all of that innovation allowed for all these pieces to be really affordable. >> you mentioned the internet and eric has posted the dronie on instagram. you can obviously retweet it. one of the other areas of the peace dividend of development we are seeing online is the extensive use of open-source software, but also open sourcing the hardware designs. although you are in separate companies, you seem to be collaborating around the common code and designs. >> one area i have a different perspective. the open-source projects are really exciting. it is what got myself into the space.

as the number of applications broaden and as these drones are going to be deployed above people's homes and fly over people's heads, i think safety and reliability will become more and more paramount in this industry. i think that is an area that open source is likely to struggle in. if we look at the model that most people use on their phones, most of the applications, specific software, the features that all of these startup companies are building their business models around is developing the apps themselves, less around getting into and

modifying the android kernel, if you will. >> christian, i know you've been using some of this open-source code. >> i'm using free robotic source. we are working closely with them to make it fully autonomous. we have worked with them on some the -- a vast community people working on software so it is easy to get access to people working in different parts of the source code. we basically could not afford to do our company and work on autopilot. having that available to us was extremely helpful. >> chris, what was the thinking going on that route? >> the arc of history is pretty clear. linux is the most secure operating system. there is a reason why the internet runs on linux and not windows. i brought this for a reason. i brought this for a reason. this is not our drone. this is the chinese drone made by a company connected to -- they improved it. it is a derivative design. they improved upon it. we've got 20 years of open-source experience. if you're using android, chrome,

firefox, linux, you get it. open innovation -- 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 would like to have something cheaper or white, 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 to another topic. i think when we are outside watching the dronie 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 learn how to pilot these things. how difficult is it to learn to fly one of these things and to control them?

>> do you know how to push a button? >> i will ask eric first. >> let me talk about how most people are using it today. they are still manually piloted. they are autonomous in many ways. they do hover by themselves. the directions we give them with the sticks are not throttle up, it is go up. there are 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 experiencing 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 piloting 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 focus has always been the data. we're using these tools to get the data fast, retrieve it fast from different places and be actually able to allocate these robots in places that conditions are very bad. whether it is really cold or really hot. most of our projects are not very interesting. it is extremely valuable to them 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. in terms of our technology, we 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 the bike, it is the data that is coming back. through creating the bike, we created the wheels and used chris' products to make the handles, but our focus has always been the data. >> in your platform, you are looking at controlling multiple drones. how is that playing out? >> i think the level of autonomy is going to be related to how safe and reliable these are. if you look at people who have operated 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 pilot and operator error. as we develop the software to make the aircraft highly autonomous and put things like enforced work flow so that 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 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 algorithms that can take into account where other vehicles are located.

i think those are areas that we are working on. >> that is something on everyone's mind -- how to solve that very efficiently without using a lot of power. >> your colleagues are actually doing something there. >> i am not going to pitch accenture tonight. >> ok. >> there are some interesting demos and examples where we are working with a variety of different clients. i look at a control like that and i don't really know how it works. as you look at this evolving, will we have to 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 probably certify hobbyists. today, it has gone away. you don't have to have the certification. before you go to a certain spot to fly and now you can fly anywhere.

jonathan had a really good idea. i think the faa should establish something where they 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 in two ways which are the same two ways they looked at certification of manned aircraft and operations of manned aircraft which is one, certification at the level of what is essentially a director of operations at a company who is 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. i think the 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 -- i mean, really? this? this costs $299 and you buy it at amazon. you need certification to use this? children use it. do you think the faa will require this? another one is coming out in november and will weigh about a pound. maybe it's all foam. it will be the hot toy. it will be fully autonomous. it will be a toy under the christmas tree. the hot toy. faa certification? >>i know the panel is consumer drones. i'm happy to expand 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 of larger equipment, larger camera systems, carrying of systems that are actually taking air into the aircraft itself. analysis like air quality and looking for particulates in the air. there are applications where -- there is a wide variety of applications. the absolute minimum size of the aircraft is two pounds or more. they are definitely regulated. one of our earlier customers operates regularly in france. they have the most mature regulations as well as probably the most mature commercial drone industry in france right now. all of it is regulated. there is a very good process in place in which the customer can submit paperwork and have it faxed.

they can do that within 24 to 48 hours prior to flying the drones. >> what is the status of regulation with drones in the states? >> 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 different types of ideas -- 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. there were telecoms and the telephone companies were regulated. but the computers were not and then they were connected over lan. then lans were connected and

that is the internet and now we don't know how the regulate it. same thing with personal computers. i think what we see is time and time again you see white spaces. the world says, oh well, 2.4 gigahertz, it is wi-fi, you cannot possibly destroy the phone networks. we do amazing things with wi-fi. gary knows this 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 totally arbitrary. on both sides of these products, you can pretty much run forever

and see products on both sides. i kickstarted a project that lets me control a paper airplane with my phone. will that be regulated? it's possible but probably not. you will see hundreds of products under whatever that arbitrary line is. one line is the weight and capability 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 is 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 perhaps voluntarily adhered to by this community. the rest of it is the message that these things are here and are not going to go away and we need to be responsible.

>> i remember i used to fly back in 1994 -- not '84, i'm not that old. it 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 got the same news, same updates, things were not shared on facebook or twitter. things changed dramatically when it comes to the guidelines they put together way back when. it doesn't fit the landscape today. >> i funded the paper airplane. i don't imagine that will be regulated. can we turn to camera technology, eric?

how was is that evolving? what is going to be possible? >> a year ago, if you were to buy one of these, you would buy something that would carry an existing camera. in many cases, the go pro. this product, this is the phantom 2 vision plus. you notice it has what looks like a 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 a

lens. i have been flying these and other ones that carry bigger cameras for a while now. i much prefer the way these handle. luckily, a 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 that normal cameras are on. we know that go pros will have a high frame rate really soon. it is going to happen this year. >> 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 copter, 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 that 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 adding 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, cheaper, 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 collect 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 things. 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 satellites 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 your 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 five years out. it may in some cases never be possible from a regulatory standpoint. maybe 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

it's delivering to is an unknown 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. >>e e ilng ptf 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 wall 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 medicine. 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 different people. >> almost $100 billion of economic value. the faa saying in 10 years there are going to be 2000 drones. >> we h