US Air Force Enlists ESPN’s Help For Drone Footage Analysis

The Air Force has enlisted the help of ESPN in order to go through and perform a thorough analysis on the copious amounts of video footage recorded from drone missions. Considering how the total number of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) there are scouring the world, with a ton of footage being transmitted back to base in real-time, the Air Force has an unenviable task of poring over the data. They have then decided to enlist some assistance from the outside world, and this is where ESPN comes in.

David Deptula, a former Air Force lieutenant general, reportedly mentioned to USA Today, “We need to be careful we don’t drown in the data.” In 2011 alone, drone video transmissions amounted to some 327,384 hours of surveillance, where the majority of them comprise of “pattern of life” missions, where they involve recording compounds for days in a stretch. ESPN’s role would see them fall back on their expertise in sorting through the large amounts of game footage every single day, but bear in mind that no new technological breakthroughs were achieved. A transfer of skills is in store then, don’t you think so?