Watch the birdie, indeed
With a wingspan of 6.5 inches, the Nano Hummingbird weighs 19 grams. The drone's guts consist of motors, communications systems and a video camera. It is slightly larger than the average hummingbird. Credit: MCT/AeroVironment
During World War II, the behaviorist B.F. Skinner trained pigeons to guide bombs, but senior military officials never quite took the project seriously.
Today, hummingbirds are a different story. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the same folks that brought you the Internet) is funding research into "biomimicry" that includes the development of tiny robots closely resembling little birds.
The idea is that they can fly somewhere and conduct surveillance unnoticed, perhaps from a windowsill. Whereas once the photographer's mantra was "watch the birdie," technology has now made it possible for the birdie to watch you.
These six-inch devices, which so far weigh less than a AA battery, are just the latest manifestation of military robotics, which has saved American lives in Iraq - yet raises many questions about the future of warfare.
Will these robots improve covert operations in increasingly treacherous parts of the world? Could they eventually morph into weaponry like Predator drones? Is there a risk that terrorists and enemy nations could turn them against us?
So far the hummingbirds are for surveillance. Yet Alfred Hitchcock introduced us to the idea that birds could kill.
