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Also, don't forget the thrill of flying a drone in a place that is usually not accessible to the public, and then uploading the footage to Youtube to get as many upvotes as you can, which the AR Drone app makes it very easy to do. I'm sure that Youtube is getting national security take down requests from the French government as we speak.

Sorry, that's not allowed, presumably because Apple doesn't want iOS to serve as a drone controller. (Imagine the liability issues.)

Someone hasn't heard of Parrot, who make some of the best consumer drones there are, which are all controlled by iOS devices running apps that are available on the App Store.

You're missing the point of using NFC for those things the other radios do better. It's not that you actually use NFC for it, but that you use NFC to bootstrap the process of using those other radios (e.g. exchange configurations and credentials), then use those other radios just like iOS does.

One example: Parrot Zik Headphones. They use NFC to identify devices and automatically switch to the correct configuration and connect to the correct Bluetooth device. NFC isn't used for the actual audio transmission, in part because it's too slow, in part because the range is too short, but mostly because the people who designed it aren't idiots and already knew about the other two factors.

Incidentally, Samsung's NFC file transfer uses wi-fi or bluetooth for the actual file transfer. If both devices are on the same wi-fi network and can discover each other, that connection is used; if neither is connected to wi-fi, an ad-hoc wi-fi connection is used; if the devices are on different networks, only one is on wi-fi, or they're on the same network but can't discover each other, bluetooth is used as a fallback. What makes you think anyone in their right mind would develop a file transfer system that requires 2 people to hold their devices in contact and nearly completely still for the duration of a file transfer effectively capped at 300kbps after accounting for protocol overhead and radio interference?

It's possible to connect a controller to an antenna that vastly extends its range. Is your property extensive enough to give you a 2-kilometer perimeter around your house?

The trouble with drones is that most of them don't have enough sensing to avoid other aircraft. Most don't have aviation transponders. Yet some of them are big enough that they're a hazard to other aircraft. Many of them can get 500 feet above ground level (AGL). (Aircraft other than helicopters are supposed to stay 500' AGL, 1000' AGL in congested areas. Around airports, airspace is controlled all the way to the ground.) This puts them in conflict with other aircraft. Here's a small Parrot drone at 1553 feet in the UK. It's little, but if it was sucked into a jet engine, the engine would definitely be damaged and might fail. In 2013, someone was flying a drone near JFK in New York and the drone had a near miss with a jetliner.

The Academy of Model Aeronautics used to have a 450' AGL rule, and the FAA has a clear rule about doing anything off the ground within 5 miles of an airport without coordination with the tower. That's enough to keep the little guys from interfering with aircraft.

The other side of this is that aircraft regulated by the FAA are considered not to be violating the property rights of the property overflown. Being overflown at 100' by an HDTV camera isn't a hazard to aviation, but property owners may object.

Here you go.

Plug in a wireless adapter and park your car close enough to hotspot and sync away.

It's even rooted, so you can install whatever software you want on it.

--Jeremy

I fly Ardrone2 http://ardrone2.parrot.com/ quadrocopter. It can record HD video on USB stick during flight.

I know that aerial videos are often interesting and revealing about an area. Why did not they make such a video on landing? We could see the Gale crater, Mount Sharp ourselves from above, with our own eyes, in high quality, in color. USB stick weighs about 10 grams (1/3 ounces).

Such videos could cause a real interest in society to exploration.

http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/

Hi, The parrot seems to be something you actually do control with a phone. It's most proably self-stabilizing and very easy to fly altough most certanly very innacurate. http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/en/

It is a "toy", I normaly don't recommed them as it's worlds apart what I fly, but you could probably get some enjoyment out of it. Don't set your expectation bar too high though...

If you are truly interessted you can buy quad-chassis, motors, speed controlers, flight computer (with gyros and other sensors), and there is open source software for it too. These are the real thing, but since I just fly regular copters I don't know much about them I'm afraid. http://aeroquad.com/ (Don't know if this is the best, but a place to start reading, if interessted)

Interestingly enough I used to work with the guy who runs that website (and started the project). He does the aeroquad thing on the side. We were talking about it at lunch one time and it sounds like there are other places to get similar kits but they are much more expensive and I don't know if they are available in the U.S. Though he pointed out that all of his work on it is open source so it would be possible to have the PCBs and everything built yourself to do it cheaper but he relies on people buying the kit from him to make money on it. I never bothered to look into the details of the project though. This was a couple of years ago and to be honest most of my info about the project is from him talking about it at work so don't take it at 100% truth.

Side note: Ted is a really nice guy but a huge LabVIEW fanatic (he used to work for NI selling it and he even used it on a project where he built a mac mini into his car to use as a media center) so I would expect him to do as much of the software in LabVIEW as possible, but it looks like the community has grown to a point where I suspect other people have written everything in a language that isn't terrible.

Hi, The parrot seems to be something you actually do control with a phone. It's most proably self-stabilizing and very easy to fly altough most certanly very innacurate. http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/en/

It is a "toy", I normaly don't recommed them as it's worlds apart what I fly, but you could probably get some enjoyment out of it. Don't set your expectation bar too high though...

If you are truly interessted you can buy quad-chassis, motors, speed controlers, flight computer (with gyros and other sensors), and there is open source software for it too. These are the real thing, but since I just fly regular copters I don't know much about them I'm afraid. http://aeroquad.com/ (Don't know if this is the best, but a place to start reading, if interessted)

You apparently have never seen the advertisements for the AR Drone - which pretty much is a quadcopter that does fighting.

And is controlled with your smartphone.

http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/

Make your black box join a wifi network or blutooth.

Then make apps for Android and iPhone that can control your device.
That way the customers can choose which device they want to control your device with.

As a default device you can tape som generic Android tablet to your device.

Same idea as http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/en/

Of course I realize that your application is probably much more serious than a flying toy, but the basic idea is good for many applications.

Paintball guns here require a firearms license. Such a low population of the country has said license, that they'd be able to quickly catch and prosecute the perpetrators for illegally carrying "firearms" in public.

I've been thinking lately about getting a Parrot Quadricoptor and seeing if I can mod it with a small tube out the front with a remote triggered paint spray, so I can disable intrusive cameras mounted on poles that would otherwise be way out of reach.. I've not actually seen one in the real but it seems that with the indoor rotors it should be possible to fly within a couple of feet of a camera fairly safely (at least not fatal, if you bump), but I'd have to see how much tube it could carry without being destabilised

of course, they could always small rc craft like this illegal..

You can get your own:

Here:
http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/parrot-parrot-ar-drone-ipod-iphone-ipad-controlled-quadricopter-orange-blue-pf720002ag/10156982.aspx?path=81e4f1876418f65ce283409ba0d00969en02

for $330 Canadian this baby flies for 20 min. indoors and out self stabilizes and hovers, and can be controlled via your iphone or your computer via wifi
and has two onboard cameras (one forward facing one downward facing.

It's made by AR Drone
http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/

It's even hackable:
http://www.ardrone-flyers.com/news/73-urbi-following-a-ball-in-25-lines-of-code.html

I've seen it fly and it's sweet. With a VGA camera its pretty cool.

http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/

As someone who lives in Tokyo and has been following this saga with nervous interest, let me say *about fucking time*.

I couldn't believe when I heard spokesmen on the news two weeks after the incident saying things like "the radiation level has risen suddenly in reactor 2 and there's smoke pouring out of the gaping holes in the structure but since levels are too high to send personnel in to check, at this point we have no idea why."

I mean, are you fucking kidding? I could show up with a parrot drone sourced off ebay for $300 and be a national hero with salutes of "Are you a wizard?" from all and sunder.

That the people running a nuclear plant are so devoid of imagination and out of touch with modern technology that they can't figure out how to get a remote cam in there at the very least, speaks volumes for Japan. I'm sure it's the only "first world" country where every goddamned bit of government paperwork is just that. Paper. You can go into a local government office and there are no computers on most desks. Yet down the street there's a museum with a singing dancing humanoid robot show.

end rant

I for one, want the ability to tail any of my daughters on their dates. *Grin*

http://ardrone.parrot.com/

Knock yourself out*

*I do not condone the creepyness of actually doing this

How long till they're available to public, so I can put a frickin laser beam on it.

You think it won't come with a laser pre-installed?

If you want a pretty neat one right now, check out the Parrot Drone.

http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/

Go look up the Parrot AR test flight videos.

Also, the source code is FREELY available to put on other devices, so you can EASILY make this work with a netbook and a joystick.

http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/dev/developers

Do you need ketchup with those shorts?

There is also this one http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/en which can be controlled by an iphone or ipod :)

The BSIG ought to require those using the Bluetooth logo to specify which profiles a device supports, for the sake of consumer awareness and market pressure.

They have standardized a series of icons indicating support for headsets, input devices, file transfer, etc. If you use those icons, you have to be supporting specific profiles.

You hit the nail on the head: the problem is power/weight. Looking at the specs http://www.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/en/how-does-it-work#start/ it looks like the batteries are expensive lithium-ion-polymer with "15 minutes battery autonomy", which I assume is a fancy way of saying that you get 15 minutes run flying time between recharging.