“When things go wrong with a drone, the operator should be held accountable,” said Michael Toscano, president and chief executive of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a nonprofit
(How many people were hurt was unclear.) And there have been several reports of drones almost colliding with commercial and private planes.Īnd that doesn’t even include the deaths that involve toy helicopters, close cousins of drones. The Sydney Morning Herald described the injury as a “river of blood.” Last year, a drone crashed into a crowd in Virginia, injuring spectators, and another crashed into a crowd at the Coachella music festival. In April, a runner at the West Australian triathlon was hit on the head by a drone that was being used to photograph the event. (My pride, however, remains bruised.)ĭrones sometimes crash into other people, too. I crashed drones into the San Francisco Bay, concrete sidewalks, trees and walls, and though I didn’t hit any innocentīystanders, I did fly one into myself a couple of times.
When I tried to fly a drone recently, it was as difficult as the first time I drove a car. “Having a drone with a camera on it feels like you have a giant tripod in the sky,” said Amit Gupta, the founder of the online photography storeīut take it from me, the drone craze is not all $20,000 bottle service and aerial photos of the bald spot on top of your head. Hello to from #CannesLions space #selfie įrom a photography standpoint, this all sounds wonderful. These days, it’s all about the selfie.Īt the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this week, Twitter showed off a company-sponsored account, Dronie, which let people at the festival The Federal Aviation Administration put the kibosh on the idea, saying the service would break commercial drone use laws.ĭrink delivery, clever as it is, seems to be an outlier for drones. In a fine example of entrepreneurialism and innovation meeting a market need, a local brewery in Minnesota sought to airlift cases of beer I should note that this isn’t the first drone drink delivery service. Representatives from Marquee did not respond to a request for comment. Putting the cost aside, the idea of a drone going about its business over a crowded club (even if an outdoor club) seems a bit risky - not to mention that it poses all sorts of etiquette questions about tipping. The price is a cool $20,000, but imagine how many likes you’ll get on Instagram. Then it’s time to smile for the camera as your drink delivery vehicle snaps a picture. The drone selfie movement even had its modern Gilded Age moment when the Marquee Dayclub, at the Cosmopolitan hotel in Las Vegas, announced a new type of bottle service where patrons in bikinis at an outdoor pool can have their drinks delivered via a drone. In three days, it passed $700,000, or 1,300 percent more than its goal. Hexo Plus hoped to raise $50,000 on Kickstarter. The Hexo Plus, which comes with the tagline, “Your Autonomous Aerial Camera,” is compatible with a GoPro camera and is billed as an “intelligent drone that follows and films you autonomously.”Ī competitor, called the AirDog, treats a drone like a dog on a leash, tracking and following you wherever you go and snapping video and pictures of you as you do action sports.īased on sales, consumers seem eager to buy these kinds of products. Last week, two drones made their debuts on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter, both designed to allow people to shoot drone selfies, or dronies (that is, a selfie shot via drone). Recently, a number of new products and social media services have popped up, in a noble effort to help people take better pictures and videos of themselves with the aid of a drone. It looks as if we may have an answer, and it’s some serious stuff: Among the first mainstream uses for drones will be airborne selfies. Yet mainstream users have had trouble figuring out where an unmanned aerial vehicles fits into their lives. Of some Amazon executives - drones will one day deliver packages to consumers who just can’t wait for the UPS truck. They are used for gathering news, checking crops on farms, as well as photographing houses for real estate agents, and - at least in the imaginations Over the last few years, drones have been finding jobs in industry. Take drones, those hovering, helicopterlike flying devices that the military has used for years and that are slowly, in miniaturized form, finding their way into the consumer world. If you present people with a new, exciting technology, chances are they will use it to take photographs of themselves.