AMERICA'S ILLEGAL FOR-PROFIT DRONE BLACK MARKETThe FAA has made it clear in conversations with Fast Company and in many, many public statements: The use of UAVs in for-profit enterprises like agriculture and architecture is strictly prohibited in the United States. With that said, plenty of companies are secretly (and illegally) using drones for work purposes.

According to TechNewsDaily's Tom Spring, companies are advertising drone-related services all over the country.

"Drones for hire are used on Hollywood film sets (to get that overhead shot cheaply), to create promotional videos for real estate and to help farmers crop dust and keep a bird's-eye view on livestock.

'SkyShutter RCA Helicams can fly almost anywhere,' advertizes New York-based SkyShutter on its website. Los Angeles-based Vortex Aerial lists dozens of clients on its website, including the NFL, Indiana University and the La Quinta-California–based SilverRock Golf resort that used the company to create 'tee-off flyovers.'"

3:30 p.m., 06/25/13

THIS DRONE GOES UNDERGROUND. LITERALLY.Researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute have created one of the world's first self-burying robots. The Bimodal Self-Burying Robot can, as the creators put it, be "air-dropped to a location close to a target, bury itself to be hidden, perform video surveillance, and send that video back to an operator."

We imagine the oil industry, as well as geologists, are full of ideas for potential uses for this drone. With that said, the promotional video is kind of amazing:

You had me at "self-burying robots". Cool!