Drone, Drone, Everywhere a Drone -- at CES (Video)

One thing Timothy noticed at CES was that there were drone vendors all over the place. Drones are obviously one of the hot-hot toy/gadget trends of the moment. The Drone that won 'Best Robot or Drone in Show' was the camera-carrying, "follows you like a dog on a (Bluetooth 3) leash" AirDog. They already had a crazy-sucessful KickStarter campaign that led to a large stack of pre-orders, so don't count on getting your very own AirDog right away, even if you have $1300 to spend on one.

Comments

ANOTHER Autoplay video?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK OFF WITH THIS SHIT ALREADY YOU PACK OF ASSHOLES

Dont you get that your audience hates this shit and usually for very good reason?

Re:ANOTHER Autoplay video?!?!?

[zequav]

Yeah. I almost had a heart attack when I opened this in a background tab. This is ridiculous.

Re:ANOTHER Autoplay video?!?!?

[dotancohen]

In Firefox set `media.autoplay.enabled` to FALSE (about:confg).

Re:ANOTHER Autoplay video?!?!?

[uninformedLuddite]

still plays. thanks anyway.

drones

[Anonymous Coward]

and i'll tell all of you who want to buy a drone like i've told amazon and my local police, who in turn i know told my local fbi office: if i find your drones from any of you around my house they will be shot out of the sky and destroyed completely.

Re:drones

[Jeremi]

if i find your drones from any of you around my house they will be shot out of the sky and destroyed completely.

That's why I bought three dozen of the tiny $39.95 model. I figure if I send them all to your house simultaneously, at least some of them will get through. I've programmed them all to try to land on your head; game on!

Fun with AirDog

[Jeremi]

1) Purchase three AirDog drones
2) Velcro-strap each drone's follow-me remote onto the next AirDog drone
3) Press the "launch" button on all three remotes simultaneously
4) Enjoy the resulting interpretive dance

Re:Fun with AirDog

[StikyPad]

It's Airdogs all the way down!

Fuck autoplaying video

[wonkey_monkey]

That is all.

Re:Fuck autoplaying video

[wonkey_monkey]

And you know what, they even managed to fuck it up beyond that. I don't see any video, I only get audio. And it doesn't even have the grace to autoplay immediately, instead deciding to do so a few seconds after the page has loaded, once you've already scrolled down to see the comments, leaving you wondering where the sound is coming from.

Slashdot, please stop treating your audience like click-bait hungry idiots.

Re:Fuck autoplaying video

[houghi]

Mod to +6 Insigtfull.

Re:Fuck autoplaying video

[Beerdood]

So I click on the comments. Initially there's some worry when I see the space for the video. "Uh oh, is that gonna autoplay?" I think. But the worry goes away and it's peace and tranquility when I see the acute triangle embedded within the image. "Ah, it's not going to autoplay. It's waiting for my prompt to start the video". But after about a second, the not-so-cute triangle goes away, and the video starts autoplaying! ARRGHHH! But wait, there's more! If you're fortunate enough to see the ad before the video, then you won't even get an option to pause that ad OR disable the audio! You'll pretty much have to kill your tab or browser to kill the sound. Fantastic for those of you at work that have your audio turned up that thought slashdot was safe to browse without bringing attention to your cubicle-mates

As a software tester of sorts, I'd like to believe that the delay between the page load and video autoplay is just some poor programming or latency issue or something technical in nature. But I'm almost positive that some spawn of Satan was on the design team here and thought "Hey, I got a great idea! Instead of just starting the video right away like other click bait sites or waiting for the user to manually start the video (crazy! right?), we'll put a still image in there for a second and a play button. Then right about the time the user scrolls down to the comments past the video, we'll autoplay the video without giving them any option to pause or mute the ad that comes up!"

Now excuse me while I email youtube to tell them about how great their embedded ads are in their videos

Re:Fuck autoplaying video

[WoodstockJeff]

The auto-play waits for the whole page to load. Well, it did, until I told my system that *.ooylala.com should be mapped to 127.0.0.1 ...

Re:Fuck autoplaying video

[WoodstockJeff]

(actually, that's *.ooyala.com... too many Ls)

Re:Fuck autoplaying video

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot has gone full corporate suicide mode.

Re:#ReplaceSlashdotwith?

[Anonymous Coward]

y-combinator maybe? i don't know, i just know slashdot has been shit for like ten years but now it's not even readable anymore

Re:first fuck autoplay

[Dogtanian]

YAY! Flash is dead! Long live the same thing more tightly integrated with your browser!

Yeah. I've been enjoying Flashblock for so long that it's quite an (unpleasant) surprise to have HTML5 videos able to start themselves like that. Or rather, try to start themselves, since it's not working on my Firefox installation anyway for some reason (*)... but that's beside the point.

Probably would have at least given it a chance otherwise, but do I have any inclination to watch it now? No.

(*) Comes out blank. Think it's a more general problem I'll look into when I can be arsed, but not for the sake of watching this.

As an RC enthusiast and quad builder and pilot

[g0bshiTe]

I see little more than an overpriced POS.

Really $1300?

Let's start at the weight 4 lbs. WTF are you guys thinking?

Flight times of 10 - 20 minutes and operating conditions of up to 14 mph winds, yeah I'd like to see where you get 20 minute flight time in 14 mph winds.

Completely waterproof so the battery bay is watertight? The motor stators and windings are watertight? The flight control board is also watertight? While it's not supposed to be submerged or get wet if you advertise a flight time of 20 minutes and someone is using it in sub-optimal conditions they may expect that 20 minute flight time and accidents will happen.

Also how do they plan on countering the feared new legislation and regulation we in the hobby expect to come from the FAA?

We've already seen what having the ability to throw down a credit card and buy a phantom without knowing the first thing about safe operation can and has gotten us.

Looks like AirDog has lowered the bar even further.

So not looking forward to the next "AirDog crashes on Whitehouse lawn", which I realize was a DJI but still same difference.

Re:As an RC enthusiast and quad builder and pilot

[wolf12886]

Really $1300?

You've obviously never built a quadrotor that's better than toy quality. The parts alone are around 800 if you buy them non-wholesale. Of course I would expect that price to come down if they seriously mass produce them.

Let's start at the weight 4 lbs. WTF are you guys thinking?

Again,. that's just what a quadrotor that can carry a go-pro weighs. The phantom's slightly lighter than that, but it's underpowered for the job and only flies for like 7min. (that's what I hear, I don't have a phantom).

Completely waterproof so the battery bay is watertight? The motor stators and windings are watertight? The flight control board is also watertight?

Funny thing, brushless motors are inherently waterproof. In the underwater ROV community it's common to use brushless motors as the propulsion. Honestly it's probably IP 66 or similar. It's like your car, protected from water ingress so it's good in rain, but not actually submersible. Why make it water tight? If it falls in the lake it's going to sink anyway.

Re:not impressed

[g0bshiTe]

I'm an avid RC pilot fly everything from EDF to quads and I'd never go premade anything like this.

I prefer to build mine, mine even sports a variation of Ardupilot as the FC, even got it in kit form and got to solder everything myself.

Yeah they are taking a $100 - $160 control board and gps and throwing it into a frame and then overcharging for the result.

At 4 lbs as well that's well over the limit the FAA considers hobby or recreational. While well under a 4 lb quad is something you'd expect to have a cinematic style or professional camera under not a Go-Pro.

Some good, some stupid

[melting_clock]

I've been building and flying my own quadcopters and tricopters for a few years now which gives me a slightly different perspective to most. There have been some impressive advancements in consumer, hobby and professional level "drones" in the last few years. Barriers to entry have larger disappeared so that it is now possible to purchase an all in one, ready to fly, package and all that is required to get flying is to charge the batteries. Unfortunately, this also means that their are an increasing number of people that a flying with no understanding of the rules, laws or safely precautions that apply to their new toys. There are amusing stories of people destroying their new toy on the first flight, with amusing videos online to show their silly mistakes, but there is also a dark side to this.

Most of the negative news stories about personal drones in the mainstream media relate to these uneducated new users flying in places where they are not legally allowed, often for very good reasons, such as, over crowds, near airports or busy cities. People that have been in the hobby for a while, and fly responsibly, are terrified that these idiots are going to have our hobby outlawed.

Education in the rules, safety and a basic technical understanding of the equipment is very important. The air space regulator in Australia, CASA, provide a simple brochure to outline the most important legal limitations for new users. The simple dot point style doesn't give all the details but is better than nothing and it is short enough so that people might actually read it. It doesn't address other safety issues or the technical limitations of the equipment.

Those spinning propellers can cause serious injury, particularly if you are unlucky enough stick a finger in there. Many of us in the hobby have had minor cuts during the setup of our gear but some have serious injuries that require stitches and approach amputation. I'm referring to adults here - a child could easily lose a finger in some of these boxed packages. Why use this as an example? Seeing the idiot explaining the airdog shit suggest catching a quadcopter with spinning props does allow for exactly this issue. It is possible the best example of the worst drone product ever to be created.

Stop autoplaying video's

[LordWabbit2]

Not all of us think youtube is the best thing since a slice of bread.