The Local newsletter is your free, daily guide to life in Colorado. For locals, by locals. Sign up today!
In Star Wars fantasy, armies have clones. In the 21st century, we have drones: unmanned vehicles that can act as spies or even launch assaults. Now, even Iran has an armed aerial drone, which the country announced just one day after beginning to bring its first nuclear power plant online, notes The Wall Street Journal. To ask the drone experts what they think of Iran’s efforts, head to the Colorado Convention Center today through August 27 to track down participants of the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems (AUVSI) conference—the “world’s largest collection of robots and unmanned systems hardware.” Keynote speakers include Governor Bill Ritter, chief of U.S. naval operations Admiral Gary Roughead, and Georgia Institute of Technology director of the Center for Robotics and Intelligent Machines Henrik I. Christensen. Drones, which are controversial on the battlefield, aren’t just for warfare. Their uses also include drug-trafficking surveillance, wildfire management, bomb disarmament, medicine, farming, weather forecasting, and monitoring the recent oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, points out The Denver Post, which reports that more than one dozen Colorado companies will man exhibits.