What do I think of it?
Well, it's not illegal and, like a BMW with personalised numberplates, it enables easy identification and avoidance of a tosser with too much money ...
Selfies are so 2013. Get ready for DRONIES – the next hipster-cam-gasm
It's the social phenomenon that's taking self-obsession to new heights. We're not talking about selfies, granddad, and we're not even referring to belfies. The latest self-portrait craze to grip the narcissists of the internet are called dronies – and involve using a remote-controlled aircraft to snap images. Anyone who is …
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Monday 28th April 2014 12:06 GMT Getriebe
A Lamboghini is driven by a tosser with too much money
Way more subtle than that
A Lambo 400Gt is driven by a man of depth, and subtlety
Any Lambo after that is driven by a tosser with too much money
A BMW CSL of any stripe is driven by a man with a fine sensibility, all else (maybe not a 2002 tii) is in wankerville
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Monday 28th April 2014 05:58 GMT The Axe
Flash in the pan
Like many fads, many will attempt to follow it, but few will actually be able to do anything with it. Have actually tried flying a drone. Even the smallest indoor only ones take quite a bit of skill and practise to use before they can take stable dronies. Expect to see lots of 2nd hand mashed up drones on ebay next year as people realise that flying a drone is not that easy.
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Monday 28th April 2014 07:17 GMT Eponymous Cowherd
Re: Flash in the pan
You are looking at the wrong end of the scale. Cheapo toy drones are tricky to fly, but move up to even the relatively cheap (£300) Parrot AR Drone 2, and its more sophisticated avionics make it a doddle to pilot.
Done quite a few "dronies" of friends and family with it. Position it, release controls, and it hovers in place to take your pics. Simples.
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Monday 28th April 2014 11:25 GMT The Axe
Re: Relatively cheap, was Re: Flash in the pan
£30 for something that can take dronies - maybe, £300 not so maybe, for what is effectively a toy. Loads of people will be spending that amount on something which has questionable enjoyment value. Not.
Those who will be paying that amount (and more) will be those who can make money from it or can afford to splurge nearly £1k (when you factor in the cost of a good camera, good R/C, etc) on a hobby. It won't be the general public in the same way that smartphones are used for selfies.
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Monday 28th April 2014 11:37 GMT Eponymous Cowherd
Re: Relatively cheap, was Flash in the pan
The Parrot AR drone is certainly a toy, but a very capable one, and very hackable (which is where my interest lies, rather than taking "dronies").
Having said that, there is a market for drone photography / video (looked into it). Inspection of high structures (bridges, buildings, masts) and more domestic stuff ( panning aerial shots of guests at wedding receptions / parties, etc) and people will pay good money for this.
The difficulty comes when you switch from flying a drone as a hobby (where it is classed as an RC aircraft) and using it as a business, where the pilot must be qualified and certified by the CAA (in the UK). To set yourself up in business with a suitable rig + getting the required training and certification , you are looking at £10k+.
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Monday 28th April 2014 13:18 GMT ItsNotMe
"Appropriate term for a year in which the U.S. holds 'mid-term' elections."
The only problem with that statement is the fact that when one election cycle is over here in The Colonies...these twits IMMEDIATELY start campaigning for the next election. No matter how many months...or years...away it is. It has gotten completely out of hand.
Fortunately...with a remote control for the television...and its mute button...I can shut them up, and switch to something far more interesting, very quickly.
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Monday 28th April 2014 06:54 GMT jake
Boring.
As most people who drone on and on and on are.
Trying to become self-important because of simple, badly framed snapshots/videos, that are posted to the internet in random trash collections, is probably the biggest waste of human hours that this silly-ass TCP/IP protocol has spawned.
Hint: Aerial photography is nothing new.
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/559132
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Monday 28th April 2014 11:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @Dan 55(was: @Eponymous Cowherd (was: Boring.))
Bit of an aside, but to Whoever It May Concern at The Reg;
Can you please please NOT fix the timestamp issue, whatever that issue is?
Because it clearly gets right on jake's tits, he keeps banging on about it, not that it matters to him, but just to bring it up again ...
Seems only fair, if the rest of us have to endure his relentless lack of interest in every topic (because he did better it in the 70s/80s/earlier, despite the much lesser tech of the time), then it's only right that he gets irritated by some perceived timestamp problem that no'one else cares about.
Cheers.
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Monday 28th April 2014 10:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @Eponymous Cowherd (was: Boring.)
I think what he was actually trying to convey was "I'm never wrong even if I appear to be, deal with it, sucker."
I once had to deal with a programmer who thought that if you did an SQL query on a boolean field it was impossible to get a NULL result. Much argument as to why his code didn't work later, it turned out to be all the fault of whoever had designed the database so that it was possible to create a query from which no rows were returned. Because his uncle was a VP at IBM, and so he was never wrong.
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Monday 28th April 2014 08:58 GMT Eponymous Cowherd
Re: @Eponymous Cowherd (was: Boring.)
If you read what was posted, jake, you will note that I said "aerial photography that can be created by anyone". In other words, by people who cannot put these things together for themselves. Today you can buy an off-the-shelf kit to do this for well under £1k that can produce quite stunning results.
Impressed that your 1980's kit could do everything that a modern quad can do. (maintain a stable hover and frame a shot by itself), though.
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Monday 28th April 2014 07:24 GMT Chris G
Drone defence
This is a pursuit for sad people who need to get a life but what happens when these plonkers tire of taking aerial selfies?
They will start flying over the garden fence or hovering outside other people's windows taking pics.
I can see a market for an anti drone device that legally gives the same ability to bring a drone down as a decent 12 bore would.
Though a dose of No 4 buckshot takes some beating, it may not get you the right kind of attention from the fuzz.
King of Foo; you are not too far off the mark!
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Monday 28th April 2014 08:34 GMT Timmay
Re: Drone defence
Ah yes, similar to the "don't put cameras on phones, the world will be full of people sneaking shots in changing rooms or communal showers" argument, from a whole decade ago.
Really, if I wanted to sneak shots of your oh-so-gorgeous body from outside your bedroom window, there are far better ways to achieve it than have an 85dB screeching whirling drone hovering outside.
Yes, there are nefarious things you can do with a camera equipped drone (as with virtually any technology nowadays), but until they are utterly tiny and completely silent, who would bother.
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Monday 28th April 2014 10:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Drone defence - @Timmay
Like me, you probably live in a "leafy suburb" where you are on friendly terms with the neighbours and their kids. Spare a thought for the people who aren't so fortunate and have roaming teenage gangs around looking to create trouble. For them, a drone is a perfect persecution weapon.
If you doubt this, remember how mobile phone cameras resulted in an epidemic of their photographing themselves running up to random people, punching and kicking them, and then running away.
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Monday 28th April 2014 13:37 GMT Timmay
Re: Drone defence - @Arnaut the less
You guessed correctly, sir, lovely leafy suburb here, nice swinging neighbourhood.
Anyway, sure, as I said, there are nefarious things you can do with today's drone technology. But, putting myself into the mind of a roaming teenage gang member looking to create trouble, I did consider a camera equipped drone.
However, at a purchase cost of several hundreds of pounds, plus the same again for FPV (first person video) equipment so I can create mayhem beyond line of sight, I decided it wasn't worth the risk of crashing it/losing it/someone downing it, so I picked up a £free brick from the roadside and lobbed it at a window instead.
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Monday 28th April 2014 10:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Drone defence
It's possible to fire a small buckshot charge using a catapult, but it might not be sufficiently accurate. Somebody needs to start a Kickstarter project for a small, light, anti-drone SAM. It only really needs to disrupt the blades, so it could probably be reusable. I'm not sure of how much of the airspace above my garden is legally mine to operate in, but I'm allowed to throw balls for my dog to catch, so there must be a grey area.
Thinking about it, a ball on a rope dog toy might be a very effective drone discourager.
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Monday 28th April 2014 12:17 GMT The First Dave
Re: Drone defence
AS ever, History is your friend - think back to the Second World War, and all those photo's of barrage balloons over London, and remember that it wasn't the balloon that was the obstacle, it was the steel wire rope beneath it - throw some string around (a party-popper may be enough for some of the smaller drones) and it may "accidentally" get tangled round the blades...
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Monday 28th April 2014 15:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Drone defence @Chris G
In the nicest possible sense (or not) Fuck you.
I have a quadcopter with a camera attached and I don't feel any need to "spy" on people.
You know, seeing some things from different angles can be quite interesting. Checking birds nests for eggs, houses for structural defects, there are tons of things you can do.
I'm not a saddo, I have a plethora of things to entertain me, including people. Sounds to me like quadcopter envy spouting from your piehole...
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Monday 28th April 2014 09:06 GMT Kaltern
Googie
It won't be long before drones can be controlled by Google Glass, and then where will we be. Give it 5 years and we'll all we walking along the street with our trendy RayBan Google glasses and our pet drone following behind, like a technologically nightmarish version of the bluetooth headset...
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Monday 28th April 2014 09:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
Naming suggestion
Quote
So what would we call this camera wielding minicopter?
A Target Drone?
I know of a good few places where if something like this appeard in the sky, the locals would reach for their 12-Bores in an instant and blast it out of the sky. For them, just about anything that flies is a viable target for their guns (Kites excepted).
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Monday 28th April 2014 10:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
Autonomous?
Can it take off from someone's hands, and then autonomously identify the grouping of people of interest for the photo, fly itself to the optimum distance for framing the shot, use face recognition to ensure it's roughly square to all members of the shot, then hold position for however long required before returning to the launchers hands and landing again?
If not, I don't see this as anything to be excited about. That'd be about the mimimum set of requirements for an actually useful photodrone.
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Tuesday 29th April 2014 07:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
So, if I read the article correctly, the whole premise is based on the fact that one guy who sells drones used a drone - shock, horror! - and then a Youtube commenter said "dronie". And from this you get "This bizarre pursuit certainly seems hip, judging by the popularity of a Kickstarter project to design a camera-equipped drone...", as if the fact that people think camera-equipped drones are cool means that they're necessarily going to use them to take vacuous pictures of themselves in the bathrooms of dance clubs?
Really?
Suggesting that drones are popular because of the potential to take selfies with them is like saying that the only reason people buy cars is to have sex on the hood.
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