DJI Issues Software Update That Implements No-Fly Zones For Rio Olympics (pcmag.com)

An anonymous reader writes: DJI has issued a software update this week that prevents its unmanned aerial vehicles from flying over the Olympic venues. The temporary no-fly zones, which will be in place for the duration of the games, include Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Brasilia, and several other Brazilian cities. The Brazilian military requested DJI to prohibit its drones from entering certain coordinates in the cities, and DJI complied. "DJI is proud to work with Brazilian authorities to put temporary no-fly zones in place during this important time, in order to increase safety and security at high-profile locations and reduce the likelihood of drone operators inadvertently entering sensitive areas," Manual Martinez, DJI Latin America corporate communications director, said in a statement. "The overwhelming majority of DJI customers want to operate safely and within the law," Martinez said. "And establishing clear no-fly zones helps reduce any potential for drone operations that could distract from the upcoming events."

Comments

TMA

[magarity]

At first I wondered why Dow Jones Industrial has to do with drones, but I guess DJI must some manufacturer of remote control quadcopters. Editors please make an effort to spell out abbreviations, please.

Re:Simply liability

[SilentChasm]

There were at least a couple lawsuits against Boeing for just that:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09...
http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/0...

Gun manufacturers actually have a law limiting their liability though:
Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act

Re:Easily removed

[Kjella]

There are plenty of tools to get rid of their "no fly zones" in the firmware. Honestly it's really stupid that they are doing this, the manufacturer is trying to enforce things? tomorrow GM will release cars that will not go above the speed limit and jam on the brakes when a light turns yellow.

No, they're not trying to enforce anything, they're trying to avoid people accidentally breaking the law. I have a friend with a DJI drone, by default it goes up to the legal limit of 120m but you can easily turn that off, if you have permission or just don't care. They just don't want every doofus to try "gee, how high can this go" and crash with airplanes or helicopters or whatever through plain ignorance because if can go kilometers sideways it could also go straight up. Same thing about these no-fly zones, sure you could pretend everyone would get maps and check for airports and whatnot but seriously. You know they won't, so DJI is telling them "Hey moron, there's an airport here so this is no fly zone. Go fly somewhere else."