181–190 of 496 posts
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> "look at my drone, my drone is amazing" This is actually a fairly compelling reason to do things.
True dat. But then the lamp part is just extra weight that also drains electricity from the batteries.
This is really, really cool. That said, flying objects are inherently dangerous. I was at a bike race and a guy was following the pack with a DJI drone. One motor suddenly failed and the thing plummeted to the ground from 40ft and broke into a bunch of pieces. Luckily, it didn't hit anyone but it would have been a major incident if it had. There's a lot of excitement about the cool, flashy features of these drones (f…
Couldn't the same be said for any technological advance. Waiting until anything is perfect is waiting too long.
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Intel last keynote demoed very capable drones. They're showing it off, it won't be long until it hits the market. They named the components RealSense, a miniature kinect I guess. Nice demo at 4:55: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us0BqJvsF9k&t=295
Now shipping in mobile phone size - http://www.pcworld.com/article/2907352/intel-shrinks-realsen... Shame the dev kit only has Windows support.
This is really, really cool. That said, flying objects are inherently dangerous. I was at a bike race and a guy was following the pack with a DJI drone. One motor suddenly failed and the thing plummeted to the ground from 40ft and broke into a bunch of pieces. Luckily, it didn't hit anyone but it would have been a major incident if it had. There's a lot of excitement about the cool, flashy features of these drones (f…
One motor suddenly failed Maybe drones need to start to incorporate parachutes to slow down the fall in case of problems like these, or maybe even airbags to ease the crash. Not that it would make it 99.9999% reliable, but it should be better than nothing. And also won't completely thrash your drone when it crashes. edit seems nine_k already commented with a similar idea
But the issue is the effective minimum height for a parachute to be any use.
It's impressive, no doubt, but I wonder about the actual utility of the device. My main concerned is the 20m battery life/record time - that is pretty limiting. If I were to use this to record myself snowboarding (like the video shows), that would be a problem. Here in Colorado a typical blue rated mountain run is easily 20m from top to bottom, esp. if you aren't gunning it the whole way. When I ride alone I can mayb…
That 25 mph is not all horizontal, and any downward movement would mean less power drain from the drone. Though I'd definitely agree that the battery life is a pretty big problem. I'm sure they will also sell a Lily branded external battery that can be kept in your backpack and used to recharge it.
It doesn't seem like something they're interested in for the launch.
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Are you factoring in your personal liability for killing someone in that equation? The comment that mentioned parachutes was talking about how a drone crashed at an event and almost injured people. My personal homeowners liability policy covers things like hitting someone with a shopping cart in the grocery store and hurting them, it probably would also cover a drone, but if you don't have insurance it could expensiv…
Notice I said "drones of this size". While the propellers could still cause some damage, these kind of things aren't going to kill anybody, so let's not be overdramatic. As for potential dangers to other people, the solution to that is not a technical one, it is simply to not fly over or near to people. Just like we don't drive our cars on the sidewalk.
And that seems like it's being pretty generous. In most "quadcopter crash" videos I've seen on YouTube the drone was much higher. Sometimes even hundreds of meters.
I wonder how this handles obstacles. The trails we ride are not wide open ski slopes, or rivers, often times they are tight/wooded trails. Would like to see how it handles "close following". Lastly, the part in the video where the guy just tosses it into the river was definitely mind-blowing.
The biggest showstopper for me on this is the hugely disappointing top speed (40 km/h). I'm an alpine skier (ex-racer) and the only times I go that slow is on transport stages. This thing literally wouldn't be able to keep up with Usain Bolt running the 100m. It needs at least twice the top speed.
Without a human operator assessing risk, what's to stop the drone from accidentally flying into someone and cutting them up with its blades?
I see multiple comments saying that the blades are harmless, but a quick search through google photos seems to imply otherwise to me. Not to mention the force of this thing dropping on your head after it clips a nearby branch, or has a system failure. I suppose the answer is that the owner needs to be responsible with its usage. The example footage seemed fairly reasonable use-cases (no bystanders).
In addition, 'cheap' blades have sharp edges due to the manufacturing process. Some drone owners recommend sanding them to get rid of those, to minimize injuries.
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Are you factoring in your personal liability for killing someone in that equation? The comment that mentioned parachutes was talking about how a drone crashed at an event and almost injured people. My personal homeowners liability policy covers things like hitting someone with a shopping cart in the grocery store and hurting them, it probably would also cover a drone, but if you don't have insurance it could expensiv…
Notice I said "drones of this size". While the propellers could still cause some damage, these kind of things aren't going to kill anybody, so let's not be overdramatic. As for potential dangers to other people, the solution to that is not a technical one, it is simply to not fly over or near to people. Just like we don't drive our cars on the sidewalk.
The cool thing about sidewalks is that they are elevated and it takes some effort to hop on to one and run over pedestrians (especially when there is a protective lane of parked cars). Drones, on the other hand, are poised to fall on people, with no barriers.