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Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

theregister.com

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Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#31

Post by xeromal »

omgbobbyg wrote: post #26
dellcybpwr wrote: post #9

Not that I need a drone.. but I've thought about one in the past.. and having to not only use their app but have it connected to the internet has been a big deterrent and thus far have not used one.

I have a DJI Mini drone (which is awesome), I use it with a Google Pixel that has no internet connection (no SIM card and no WiFi) and it works fine.

I have a mini too. I have a samsung ultra that's way too big to fix in the controller so I use a dummy pixel 2 as well. Like you said, works great and I can keep it in my carrying case.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#32

Post by deeeeeplearning »

philips wrote: post #4

My take: DJI, Apple, Huawei, Google etc are all in a similar boat where the governments they operate under have publicly and privately pressured them to use their profitable platforms for spying or gathering evidence. This reduces their profitablity as consumers have less confidence the product isn't working against them. But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese co…

>But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese companies erode US business like boeing, cisco or Facebook

DJI makes consumer grade products and Boeing is a military contractor? How exactly does DJI impact Boeing's bottom line?

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#33

Post by vkou »

libertine wrote: post #25
vkou wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's market is not closed to foreign companies. This isn't 1990 anymore. American brands are everywhere in China, from Teslas, to iPhones, to McDonalds, to Starbucks, to the NBA, to the list goes on and on and on. Google, Facebook, Apple each make billions of dollars from China, every year. Calling that a closed market is... Not at all accurate. It's by no means a fully[1] open market, but it's not a closed one. […

You're mentioning the largest American Brands, which do not represent the bulk of businesses. In fact they have different channels to setup their businesses and lobby their way around. When I made that comment I was referring to SME, which is also the bulk of let's say, Chinese sellers on Amazon US. Try to do what Chinese people do on Amazon, but on a Chinese platform as a SME, to sell products in China.

Your SME will be about as successful at operating in a Chinese market, as a Croatian SME will be successful at operating in an American market. That is to say, you'd need a pretty exceptional product, that is significantly better then local alternatives to get anywhere, because you're not going to be able to compete on price, or on brand recognition.

The reason Chinese SMEs are punching above their weight in foreign markets is because of their low cost of labour.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#34

Post by throw0101a »

libertine wrote: post #6
philips wrote: post #4

My take: DJI, Apple, Huawei, Google etc are all in a similar boat where the governments they operate under have publicly and privately pressured them to use their profitable platforms for spying or gathering evidence. This reduces their profitablity as consumers have less confidence the product isn't working against them. But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese co…

While I agree with you, I think there's something that should be pointed out: China stance on foreign companies doing business in China. Currently China wants all the perks of the open global market, while closing it's own. I don't understand how this is allowed.

> I don't understand how this is allowed.

While I'd say it should no longer be allowed, especially given China's relative place in the world compared to (say) 20 years ago, can you blame them for the initial desire?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#35

Post by pizza »

libertine wrote: post #6
philips wrote: post #4

My take: DJI, Apple, Huawei, Google etc are all in a similar boat where the governments they operate under have publicly and privately pressured them to use their profitable platforms for spying or gathering evidence. This reduces their profitablity as consumers have less confidence the product isn't working against them. But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese co…

While I agree with you, I think there's something that should be pointed out: China stance on foreign companies doing business in China. Currently China wants all the perks of the open global market, while closing it's own. I don't understand how this is allowed.

Excepting circumstances where China could be affecting regional shared resources (e.g. damming a river -> drought in neighboring country, for example) is this not just based on willing participation?

I don't understand what exactly it is that is being 'allowed' that should be forbidden.. if China exports to foreign customers is it against moral sense to not allow in foreign business?

Also, I know of a certain country that relies heavily on its ability to sanction countries from effective participation in the entire global market..

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#36

Post by closetohome »

leetcrew wrote: post #15
moepstar wrote: post #2

One wonders why such a mode isn't present from the onset - and why customers accept the lacking of such :(

it should be of particular concern to drone hobbyists. perhaps things have changed since I got bored of flying drones, but I recall it being very hard to operate a drone completely legally. the rules I knew of were themselves a pain to follow; the worst was the requirement to notify every helipad within five miles or so. at the time, I could use airmap to get a list of numbers for all the helipads in my area, but the…

DJI in fact advertises the fact that they'll happily broadcast your information to law enforcement in realtime - https://www.dji.com/aeroscope

It's a little scary.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#37

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

m0zg wrote: post #14
vkou wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's market is not closed to foreign companies. This isn't 1990 anymore. American brands are everywhere in China, from Teslas, to iPhones, to McDonalds, to Starbucks, to the NBA, to the list goes on and on and on. Google, Facebook, Apple each make billions of dollars from China, every year. Calling that a closed market is... Not at all accurate. It's by no means a fully[1] open market, but it's not a closed one. […

> Google, Facebook, Apple each make billions of dollars from China, every year. How does _Facebook_ make "billions" in China in particular? It's completely banned there.

You forget; users are not Facebook customers. The advertisers are Facebook customers. Facebook may not be selling ads targeted to users in China, but it's sure as heck selling ads to Chinese companies.

Facebook: you're not the customer, you're the product.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#38

Post by danboarder »

"A junior US defence minister, Ellen Lord, in charge of procurement, added to the aerospace magazine: “We looked at the fact that basically DJI from China had decimated our industrial base for small UAVs, quadcopters and so forth, through pricing that was sub-cost and so forth.”"

This is so wrong headed. DJI is the Apple of small drones and basically created the category. I've used all competitors over the years including 3DR and Parrot and I suggest as an analogy that they are all Nokia style 'feature phones' compared to DJI's iphone line.

That said, there is a healthy ecosystem of larger custom drones for industry as well as FPV drone companies that exist, again as analogy perhaps like the Linux ecosystem exists in the presence of Apple.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#39

Post by tmotwu »

samatman wrote: post #29
tmotwu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be socially destructive if America directly admits free market capitalism wasn't globally competitive after all. They don't have any other option but to hide behind national security justifications. To those who still think this is about national security and most definitely not protectionist actions: why aren't these companies blanket banned immediately rather than given arbitrary timelines? India has demon…

Free market capitalism is a condition of peace, in the real sense that there's a spectrum from tariffs, to bans, to economic sanctions, leading to outright war. Unilateral disarmament, where one party allows free access to markets while the other party does not, is actually a valid tactic. It's not always the wrong thing to do. But choosing a tit-for-tat strategy instead isn't some sort of mark against free market ca…

I agree that there is a spectrum, and protectionist measures would not deviate from our economic values. Whether tariffs, bans, and economic sanctions are actually effective strategies is a separate discussion entirely.

But clearly there is a notion of free market capitalism one side seems to go to great lengths in protecting - which explains why they have been enforcing it under a separate pretense.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#40

Post by davinic »

zaroth wrote: post #27

I have a DJI Mavic Mini and I was very impressed with the hardware and software overall. My kids and I have had a lot of fun flying this little drone! It does log every flight to the cloud, showing the telemetry logs of exactly where the drone flew and what it sent and received along the way (not full video, just telemetry). I find the logs extremely cool to look over after the fact when analyzing a flight. Their ins…

> Drones are a serious responsibility, and can be misused to cause a lot of damage

>I flew the drone over to a friend's back yard, and had misconfigured the "return-to-home" altitude too low

You claim to understand the need for responsible drone ownership, yet in the same comment mention how you crashed your drone (luckily only into a tree) while violating clearly-stated FAA line-of-sight guidelines (and also not having understood the basic flight controls and recovery options). This is some serious cognitive dissonance.

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