Drones of any size, especially if it carries a camera, usually mean dropping big bucks on a big bird. This miniature flier is an exception to the rule, with a built-in camera perfect for capturing aerial video and photos while fitting in the palm of your hand. It comes with a 2 gig memory card, and all for a mere $34.99.
While you’re writing that thank you note to the Santa who bought you the quadcopter you’ve always wanted, you will also want to take a moment to register your aircraft with the FAA.
The registration rule was signed into law last month by the Federal Aviation Administration and any drone weighing between .55 pounds and 50 pounds must be registered starting Dec. 21.
Drones are becoming so common and easy to use that they’re almost impossible to break. Take the Micro Drone 2.0+ with HD-Camera: Inverted Flight Edition — just toss the thing into the air and it’ll automatically right itself, no matter the angle. Want to fly it upside down? It’s cool with that, in fact that’s what it’s built for. It’s an acrobat of a drone that’ll make your jaw drop, and so will the price, just $99.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.
Drone footage of the progress being made on Apple Campus 2 has given us our first look at the underground auditorium where Apple will unveil all of its magical new products in the future.
The new auditorium won’t be visible once construction is complete, but thanks to Duncan Sinfield’s latest 4K aerial footage of the project, we can see how huge the new auditorium will be once Apple finally moves in.
Check it out:
It’s been a hot minute or two since Amazon last released any information about its proposed drone-based delivery system, Amazon Prime Air, which may one day be dropping off our new iPhones and iPads in the most gravity-defying way possible.
That changed late Sunday when the mega retailer released a brand new video preview showing how the system may work — delivering our new purchases within an impressive 30-minute window. Check it out below.
If you’ve played with one of the many palm-sized, office-friendly drones on the market, you know they can be more than a little squirrely. SKEYE has made a mini drone that’s a whole lot more stable — the trick was adding another pair of rotors. It’s a major upgrade for an already crazy fun toy, and you can get one for just $45. Get an additional 15% all drones with coupon code: DRONE15.
Lots of us want a drone, but not all of us have the space for a giant four-rotored helicopter in our lives, let alone the cash. Thankfully, drones are a bunch of fun at any size, which the tiny AERIUS Drone proves in a big way. It’s one of the smallest fully functioning drones you can buy, perfect for indoor or outdoor use, and right now you can get your own for only $34.99.
We’ve all got a jones for drones, but not all of us have the space or cash to hang up a 5-foot-wide quad-copter in our garage. The SKEYE Nano, now available in a Batwing-worthy shade of black, solves both problems, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and at $39.99 it’s cheap enough to keep cash in your pocket.
That buzzing in your ear might be a mosquito, or it could be a SKEYE Pico Drone (so think twice before swatting it). At roughly the scale of an ice cube, the Pico’s fun-to-size ratio is off the charts, and right now you can get one for just $34.99.
If you went to Wayne Manor’s back yard on a weekend there’s a chance you’d find Batman playing around with this drone. The limited edition Code Black is a palm-sized drone that manages to pack in a ton of features to satisfy pros and beginners alike — even Alfred could get the hang of it. Plus you don’t need to be a wealthy heir to buy one, right now it’s going for just $69.
History is full of DIY flying machines, including the occasional Joe who ties a bunch of helium balloons to his lawn chair.
So it was only a matter of time before someone would figure out the number of drone propellers it would take to put a man in the air The answer is 54.
A British man may have made the first manned drone flight, if there can be such a category, when he fastened a 54 rotors from quadcopters to make a personal helicopter he dubbed the Swarm.
It’s fine to admit it: you get a little jealous every time you see someone playing with a drone. Why not join the fun with a little drone of your own? We’ve found five deals on compact, fully-equipped and affordable drones to get you flying, filming, and having fun in no time and for next to nothing.
Is there a better sign that the future has arrived than meeting with friends at a park to play with flying robots? Another such sign might be that you can now get one of those robots for the price of a dinner date. The SKEYE Mini Drone is about to launch, at a whopping 34% off for anyone who pre-orders — just $64.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.
Father’s Day is fast approaching, and we’re pretty sure every father out there has enough #1 Dad mugs. That’s why we’ve put together a collection of awesome gifts he’ll love, from bar sets and a remote he can control from his phone to top-of-the-line headphones and portable battery packs. Read on for a great gift idea for Dad (you can thank us later) and check out more great gadgets at Cult of Mac Deals.
Forget about your run-of-the-mill selfie stick, the future of mobile photography could very well be a new easy-to-use, self-flying camera drone — which users launch into the air like a frisbee and which will then follow them around capturing gorgeous HD video as it does so.
Called the Lily Camera, the rugged and waterproof camera drone boasts a 12MP 1080p camera, is small and light enough to fit in a regular backpack, and functions by way of both GPS and the latest computer vision algorithms.
Check out a video demonstration below:
Comparing two impressive new quadcopters is like comparing a hawk to a falcon. Both birds are impressive.
That might make a tough choice for drone enthusiasts looking to upgrade, but for the rest of us, it’s easy: Just watch the awesome marketing videos and drool.
You would have thought King Kong taught us never to fly too close to primates.
Like the giant silver screen ape swatting fighter planes out of the air, a chimpanzee at the Royal Burgers’ Zoo in the Netherlands defended its habitat with a long stick to knock down a camera-carrying drone flying over its habitat.
The GoPro camera survived the crash and managed to record everything, from the stick-wielding chimp making a ferocious face as it made a direct hit to the quadrocopter to the crash aftermath of the curious chimps looking into the camera before it destroyed the drone.
We have Apple products atop our desks, in our pockets and, soon, on our wrists. As if there aren’t enough Apples in our airspace, one man is nudging his favorite company to design a quadrocopter. He’s even taken a stab at designing his dream Apple drone — and was careful to remain faithful to the Jony Ive aesthetic.
Eric Huisman presents his Apple drone concept like a classic Apple ad, with the product photographed on a seamless white background, perfectly lit, with a subtle shadow.
Ben Marcus attracts attention whenever he flies his quadcopter and sometimes he lets the curious take the controls.
During those exchanges, many say this: That’s cool, but what about the privacy issues?
Marcus sensed that the concern about camera-outfitted drones unknowingly hovering over our lives was real enough that it could stunt the potential applications of drones.
So he started a company that will let people restrict their own air space.
NoFlyZone launched on Feb. 10 and already has more than 20,000 homeowners signed up to request drone pilots steer clear of their property.
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is redefining high tea.
Drones are taking to the skies in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to deliver tea to a test group of 450 shoppers using Alibaba’s website Taobao. The three-day trial of drone delivery service in the Chinese cities ends Friday as Alibaba continues to push its might across the globe.
LAS VEGAS — Drones are everywhere at the International CES show. You can’t walk though the South Hall without hearing the feverish buzz of quadrocopter wings luring people to their booths.
Most of the new drones we’ve seen are either too expensive for normal people, or they’re cheap and lack compelling features. But after hours of searching we’ve found the one drone you should pay attention to in 2015: The Hexo+.
On the outside, Hexo+ doesn’t look too different from other drones, but it packs a killer “auto-follow” feature that will allow budding drone photographers to capture epic aerial videos without needing a dedicated pilot to frame each shot.
LAS VEGAS — I hate hunting. Not because I’m morally opposed to needlessly slaughtering animals, but because I’m a horrible shot.
I couldn’t hit a deer even if it was only 100 yards away, which is why I need TrackingPoint’s Internet-connected rifles. They boast the same type of precision-guided technology that fighter jets use to blast targets from miles away, while letting your family and friends watch the slaughter from the comfort of their couches.
The buff and beautiful lifeguard runs in slow motion down the beach, unseen winds blowing their hair in a Hollywood-made rescue fantasy. But hey, you’re drowning, there’s no time for that.
Your savior could be a group of Connecticut high school students who have developed a drone accessory that deploys an automatically inflating life ring to a swimmer in distress in under 30 seconds.
While we wait for Amazon to figure out how to drone-deliver our next order of energy drinks or iPhone cases, NASA has been busy coming up with a way to make sure when a quadcopter crash-lands somewhere there will no need to panic about the environmental impact.
That’s because they have made a drone from fungus.
It may be hard to tell from the image above, but that’s a hot-rodding quadcopter speeding through the forest at about 100 miles an hour. The drone is taking part in the first large-scale first-person video drone race ever in the United States, held last week in Los Angeles.
For the operators, staring at video screens or wearing virtual reality goggles while their drones record the high-speed chase via tiny mounted cameras, the experience is not unlike the best part of the prequel Star Wars movies — the podracing scene.
Check out the video below for a better sense of what these guys are doing.
