Oops, data over load from drone images and video, leads to cutting back on the # of drones

MSNBC has an article on the information overload from drones.

Drones inflicting information overload on Air Force

Lt. Col.. Leslie Pratt / AP

A photo provided by the U.S. Air Force shows a MQ-9 Reaper during a combat mission over southern Afghanistan.

By Jeff Black, msnbc.com

The Air Force has such a glut of data – photos and videos and such – captured by its fleet of drone aircraft that it can’t keep up with analyzing the information, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said Thursday.

Note the problem is not just the storage, but the people who can analyze the information.

Because of the lack people and machinery to make sense of the information, the Air Force will cut back on how many of the drone aircraft it buys, Donley told a group of defense writers in Washington. National Defense magazine was among the publications attending the interview.

"We’ve clearly playing catch-up," Donley said, according to Wired magazine's account of the interview. "It’s not just the pilots and manning the aircraft. It’s also the [data] processing exploitation behind that …. We’re collecting data at rates well above what we had in the past."

This could be a future trend for others who don't think through the issues of what to do with the data they collect.