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ICYMI: Soon flying UAVs could pick stuff up; carry it away
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A large format hexacopter with mechanical gripper arms is all set to swoop in on your backyard and move some chairs around. Going by the Prodrone's YouTube video, it can carry 10 kilograms.
Yuneec's 3D-sensing drone is available for pre-order
Have you been curious to see how a drone fares when it has Intel's depth-aware RealSense tech onboard? You now have a chance to find out first-hand. Yuneec has started taking pre-orders for the Typhoon H, its first drone with RealSense built-in. Plunk down $1,899 ($100 more than mentioned in January) and you'll get a hexacopter that uses Intel's camera system to map its environment and avoid obstacles while it records your adventures. You'll also get 4K video, 12-megapixel still shots and a 7-inch Android-based controller. It's a lot to pay, and you'll have to endure a 4-week wait if you're in the first wave, but look at it this way: the money you spend now might save you from a nasty tree collision in the future.
Paris police want drones to watch over crowds
Paris' police force is understandably anxious about crowd security as of late, and it's turning to technology in a bid to track threats hiding in those groups. It's planning to buy hexacopter drones that would be used for close crowd surveillance. The machines will have to meet very specific criteria: they'll have to clearly spot a license plate from 50m (164ft) away, fly at altitudes of 100m (328ft), require no more than 5 days of training and use encrypted connections to avoid hacks. In essence, they have to serve as an extra set of eyes that law enforcement can use without a moment's hesitation.
At over five feet wide, this drone is not for noobs
Imagine: You turn up at CES with a big ass hexacopter, only to find it's not even the biggest drone at the show. Not by a country mile. Still, at 5.4 feet across and 1.65 feet tall, Aee's F600 is still a bit of a beast. Of course, you don't make a drone this size to carry a GoPro. The F600 is designed for industrial use. Think heavy-duty tasks like servicing oil rigs in high winds, as the six large rotors give it much more stability than your average Phantom.
Watch these guys try driving a car from a drone's point of view
It's a pretty well-known fact that if you're looking for a proper sense of speed in a racing game, you play from either the cockpit or bumper viewpoint. Using the chase cam isn't exactly natural, and really, how is it even realistic? Well, thanks to the future we now live in, that question's been answered: drones. To see just what it'd be like to drive a car from that omniscient point of view, YouTuber Tom Scott played emergency spotter as pals tooled around a closed course wearing a pair of video goggles receiving real-time footage from the trailing hexacopter.
China's made a drone that Amazon would love to use for deliveries
Watch out, DJI! There's a new kid on the block! At the TechCrunch Beijing conference today, fellow Chinese drone maker Ehang teased its upcoming hexacopter ahead of its Kickstarter launch next month. While the company's keeping most of the specs under wraps, the reps did reveal that this yet-to-be-named machine is very light thanks to its full carbon fiber body, and it'll manage a whopping 5km radius range with a flight time of around 30 to 40 minutes per charge. Best of all, this drone will apparently have a maximum load weight of 10kg. That's four times as much as what Amazon's delivery drone can handle, and twice that of DJI's recently launched Spreading Wings S900; but its estimated $5,000 price tag isn't as attractive.
Autonomous camera drone lets you shoot your own action scenes
If you want to record a bike ride or some other adventure by yourself, you typically have to wear an action camera. Going that route is fine for a first-person view, but what if you want some more dramatic shots? That's where Hexoplus' crowdfunded Hexo+ camera drone comes into play. The robotic hexacopter captures aerial footage of your expeditions simply by detecting where you are (or rather, where your phone is) and following along -- you only have to set a preferred distance. It's fast (43MPH) and stabilized, too, so it should keep up even if you're racing across hilly terrain.
Yuneec's hexacopter drone is a lot lighter than it looks
It's true that we had some misgivings about calling Yuneec's 13.9-pound E-Go skateboard "light," but that certainly doesn't apply here. Enticed by a PR rep's invitation to, "go ahead, pick it up," we did just that, and were taken aback by exactly how light it was, thanks in large part to its carbon fiber body. The Flying Eyes HX3 weighs all of 3.1 pounds sans battery and is capable of carrying up to 4.4 pounds. With a payload attached, the copter can fly between 45 and 90 minutes. It'll run you $3,000 when it finally launches later this year. Terrence O'Brien contributed to this report.
eye3 hexicopter helps your DSLR take flight for $999
Your camera wants to take flight -- trust us, it does -- and an ambitious new project aims to make your DSLR's aeronautic ambitions a reality. The eye3 hexacopter is a six-armed carbon-fiber unmanned arial vehicle (UAV) that hopes to make aerial photography accessible to the masses. Designed by a couple with a hankering for robotics, the flying machine is modular (for easy repair) and navigates using a combination of Google Maps and open-source code. Those without a pilot license need not worry: the eye3 utilizes the oft-improving APM2 software for a "compact yet powerful" autopilot experience. The UAV can carry a payload of five to ten pounds, boasts three CPUs and has a 350-watt motor strapped to each tentacle. Fly past the break to watch a video from eye3's creators... get to the choppa'!
Camera-equipped hexacopter turns summer vacation videos into aerial masterworks (video)
Wakeboarding is so 2005. Wakeboarding with a camera-packing six-rotor MikroKopter tracking your every jump and belly flop? Now that sounds like something we can get behind. The folks over at MikroKopter have renewed our interest in the sport by mounting a FollowMe transmitter (which lets the drone track your every move), along with a GoPro camera to one watersportsman's helmet. They then sent a hexacopter drone, equipped with a Canon T2i, into the air to follow the boarder as he rode across the water. The resulting video definitely puts any and all of our family vacation videos to shame. High-flying video evidence awaits you after the break.
