Delivery man or Big Brother: Which drone is it?

We have a feeling Gazette founder Harry Strunk would have been interested in one of the latest developments.

As readers are reminded each day at the top of page one, the Gazette was the first newspaper, as far as we know. to make daily deliveries by air.

Using "The Newsboy," a Curtiss Robin C-1 type made famous by Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan, Steve Tuttle flew 380 miles non-stop each afternoon, dropping each town's bundles of newspapers through a metal chute in the floor of the plane.

One old-timer told us of a time a bundle broke apart over Oberlin -- "It looked like a flock of chickens headed toward town," he remembered.

Later, Strunk experimented with technology that would eventually result in fax machines, and other innovations.

We doubt the Gazette will use the latest delivery option -- drones -- any time soon, but we're sure Harry would have checked out the possibility.

Monster online retailer Amazon announced the idea of delivering packages by drone -- small autonomous electric helicopters, usually with four computer-controlled motors.

It isn't exactly a new idea; one company proposed a TacoCopter to deliver Mexican food, and Domino's has been getting publicity with a Heatwave-toting quadcopter carrying pizzas.

Don't look for drones buzzing around your neighborhood just yet, however. The Federal Aviation Administration has yet to issue final rules for business or nonprofit use of unoccupied aerial vehicles, which it is supposed to do by 2015. The University of Nebraska drone journalism project ran into red tape when it learned that it as an entity was technically violating the law by operating remotely piloted vehicles.

Of course, drone use isn't as innocuous as package delivery, just ask someone in Southwest Asia, where U.S. drones carry Hellfire missiles.

As technology improves and prices decrease, we're likely to see local law enforcement using drones outfitted with infrared cameras and radar, thermal imaging and weapons ranging from tear gas and rubber buckshot to grenade launchers or shotguns. They'll also be able to track us via GPS, cellphone and Wi-Fi signals.

We don't know yet how restrictive FAA rules will be and how the commercial use of small drones will turn out. In the mean time, however, we all need to keep an eye on Big Brother.