See you in the slammer

> Amazon sells, and promised that its Prime Air service would allow packages to be delivered within 30 minutes of ordering. Tony Basile of NUAIR Alliance, a research consortium that runs the FAA’s New York site, says futuristic drone-delivery campaigns proposed by Amazon and Google are looking plausible. “It’s going to be a reality, it’s just a question of the time frame,” he says. He believes both Amazon and Google will be ready to move on their flying commerce projects as soon as they know what the rules are. Back in Alaska, the FAA test site is running other, more niche projects. In a training scenario with law enforcers in Fairbanks, Rogers’s drone circled a building that contained an active gunman and relayed info to an incoming SWAT team. His team has also flown drones over the Arctic Ocean to track bowhead whale populations with a view to keeping the oil industry out of their way. Such work has already come in handy for the FAA, demonstrating exactly what the agency hopes to learn by running these test centres. Last week, Rogers’s team inadvertently crashed a drone into the Arctic Ocean, and when they retrieved it, they found an unexpected problem. “We crashed the aircraft 22 miles out to sea. When it went down, the computer showed 2 hours of fuel remaining,” he says. But when they found it, the tank was virtually empty. “We have no idea why the computer did that,” says Rogers, “but this kind of thing is important to the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board, and this is how you figure this stuff out – you’ll never figure that out in the lab.” This is the ultimate goal for all the test sites; to work out technical glitches and help the FAA write the rules for a brand new industry, by running the real-world drone missions of the future. “Most people involved are calling it the new frontier in aviation, and it really is,” says Basile. n 20 | NewScientist | 20 September 2014

Marmaduke St. John/Alamy

Technology

–A thing of the past?–

See you in the slammer Jails across the US are offering video calling to inmates Aviva Rutkin

and go to only video visitation for everybody but lawyers and doctors.” County jails in the US are typically reserved for inmates awaiting trial or serving sentences of up to a year. Some state and federal penitentiaries have adopted the technology, but none has restricted face-to-face visits. Two years ago, Dakota County Jail became the first in Minnesota to offer video chat, charging 39 cents per minute for every call. Calls are recorded and monitored

DEEP in the heart of Texas, a jail wants to get its inmates to use video chat. On 9 September, Dallas County Jail lost its bid to install webcams and video calling for inmates. Dozens of lock-ups around the US have already started offering such services. Officials argue it benefits inmates, who get to interact faceto-face with loved ones, while generating revenue for jails, who get a cut of call costs. Dallas is the first place to have “There’s nothing more problems with the scheme, and convenient than video not just because of the $10 for visitation from your 20 minutes price tag. Opponents are concerned that the contract to own home” install the video equipment with Securus Technologies, based in for inappropriate behaviour. Dallas, would have restricted in“There’s nothing more person visits at the jail in an effort convenient than video visitation to guarantee that inmates use the from your own home,” says John system at least once per person Grant, a commander in the per month, on average. Dakota County sheriff’s office. “The concerns are legion,” says People are still permitted to Clay Jenkins, a county judge who visit Dakota County inmates in led the effort against the proposal. person. Other county jails that “The attempt was to do away with have installed the technology in-person visitation ultimately, have stopped or severely limited

face-to-face visits. Some jails in Maricopa County, Arizona, have markedly cut down visiting hours, while in Shawnee County, Kansas, visitors are allowed to the jail, but must speak to inmates through the video system. Richard Smith, CEO of Securus, declined to comment on the details of the Dallas contract, which Jenkins says could still be restructured to preserve visitation rights. But Smith disputes concerns about loss of in-person contact. “As soon as you get booked into a facility, in all fairness you start to lose your rights in that process and you have to rely upon the good judgement of the people who are administering the facility,” he says. “Should jails be experimenting with more ways to keep families together? Yes,” says Peter Wagner, executive director of the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit group in Massachusetts that is working with Dallas County to improve the video chat plan. “Should they be experimenting with things that rip off the poorest families in their state or county? No.” n