Drones Archives - Argyll Free Press

Parrot’s Disco Drone has Wings and it Can Reach Speeds of Up to 50MPH

January 5, 2016 By Deborah Campbell 1 Comment

Parrot’s Disco Drone has wings and it can reach speeds of up to 50MPH – oh, it’s also incredibly fun to play with.

Given that the drones trend has absolutely exploded over the past couple of years, enthusiasts want more performance, more flight-time and better recording hardware.

Parrot’s Disco Drone seems to fit the criteria perfectly – it’s super fast, it’s incredibly easy to control and it’s tough as nails!

Oh, did I mention that it has wings?

The Disco Drone can record up to 1080p HD, and the camera, which can be found on the nose of the gadget, is digitally stabilized so it gets the perfect shots. Wings have your usual flaps, which are controlled by motors, and the rotor on its tail makes Parrot’s drone resemble a small airplane.

Considering that it has wings and flaps, users might be enticed to seek something more easier to control. Parrot assures everyone that there’s no rocket science involved and, even though it’s far from being just an enthusiast’s drone, everyone will be able to fly it without murdering a wall.

Mainly due to its Parrot-made app, the Disco will basically fly itself.

The company even sells a specially made controller for those who want to get more bang out of their buck. The French-based company notes that using the controller is exactly like using the app – you have a single joystick that controls altitude, and right and left directions.

Parrot built into the Disco a variety of sensors that will keep it stable in the air. On the bottom, you’ll find both an ultrasound and a sight camera, which helps it maintain stability.

To determine the drone’s speed, the manufacturer build a pitot sensor in its nose, and, as with other top-notch drones, if you lose track of it, or if it realizes that it’s miles away from Kansas, it will come home by itself using GPS.

The drone weighs about 1.5 pounds, and with a 1.1-meter wingspan, the Disco isn’t a grab and go kind of toy. Parrot notes that it’s stuffed with a lot of tough foam so, if it happens to hit a tree, a wall, or crash into something, it will survive unscratched.

However, it really depends on the speed of the drone.

The battery allows the Parrot Disco Drone to fly for up to 45 minutes.

At the moment of writing, there’s no information on how much the Parrot Disco Drone will cost, or when it’s going to actually drop. We only know that it’s going to be available sometime in 2016.

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Bears Get Stressed Out by Drones, Researchers Say

August 15, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

Bears Get Stressed Out by Drones, Researchers at University of Minnesota say.

Led by Mark Ditmer, researches have attempted to answer the question found in the study published by Current Biology, which notes that the rising usage of drones we are experiencing can cause irreversible stress on wildlife.

One might say that this news isn’t bearable at all – pun intended.

To be absolutely clear from the get-go, this isn’t an in-depth research. Mark Ditmer, along with his group, frolicked around with a rather small quadcopter around four American black bears. All of the bears were equipped with a heart tracker, and a GPS tracking collar.

Mark and his crew flew-over them 17 times, and only once a bear slightly changed his behavior when he acknowledged the drone’s presence.

But on every occasion, researchers noted a spike in heart rate – one case noted an increase to 123 bpm, and another high bpm for a bear that was supposed to hibernate.

Bears returned to their usual mood after Mark and his drone left. The group didn’t notice any out of the ordinary behavioral change, but they did observe physiological responses.

However, the study didn’t answer the question aimed by the Current Biology study. Instead, they noted that more research should be done on how much of an impact do UAV flights have on wildlife, given the huge surge of users across the world that adopt this new kind of hobby.

The fact that wildlife is stressed-out when encountering low-altitude flights by helicopters, or any other aircraft is already known in the science community, but not regarding drones.

In 2014, paired with results Mark and his team brought-up, the US National Park Service banned the use of UAVs withing the park’s territory, but there are still some drone enthusiasts that don’t abide be these rules.

Park Rangers note that because bears get stressed out by drones, they could react in unforeseen ways, even trying to hunt, and attack the UAV. Considering that quadcopters have an average range of 330 feet, this could be incredibly dangerous to people visiting the park.

Bears are borderline awesome, and they are borderline dangerous. Nobody wants to upset an already pissed-off 800 pound bloodthirsty bear.

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Facebook To Start Testing Their Aquila Solar Powered Drone

July 31, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Last year, Facebook started teasing the world with its plans of building a little plane that would deliver internet to the masses. Now, the big F is preparing to test their Aquila solar powered drone.

The Aquila solar powered drone is a 140-foot self driving plane that will deliver internet, for free, from altitudes of 60,000 to 90,000 feet.

More than 10 percent of the world’s population doesn’t have the infrastructure required to use basic internet, and Facebook’s plan is to solve this issue.

The drone, or UAV, however you want to put it, has a wingspan similar to the well known Boeing 737, and it weighs just about 880 pounds.

It will be able to patrol a selected area for 90 days, relying solely on energy from the Sun. But this doesn’t mean that it isn’t costly. Facebook employs balloons to get the Aquila solar powered drone to a specific altitude, and then it sets it loose.

Aquila will be able to fly above commercial airliners, and thunderstorms, and at night, to conserve energy, it will drop at 60,000 feet.

Aquila drones will be able to fly in a circle in a radius of 3 kilometers, and it will be able to offer free internet within a 50 kilometer range.

It’s a little bit confusing at the moment how the Federal Aviation Administration will control this kind of air traffic.

The Aquila solar powered drone is part of Facebook’s plan of connecting the world. Through their internet.org, the company has brought free basic internet service to over a billion users, in 17 countries across the world.

Their main goal is to bring the internet to underdeveloped countries that don’t have the infrastructure required e.g fiber optic cables, microwave repeaters and cell towers.

Facebook wants to start testing their UAV later this year, but we don’t know a precise date.

Facebook has built a prototype, and has tested it in a plant in the UK, but the company hasn’t disclosed any information.

Also part of the internet.org connect-the-world project, Facebook is developing an improved way of transmitting data. They managed to go up to 10 Gbps, which, when comparing to the previous system that was capable of transmitting at 1 Gbps, is ten times faster.

FB CEO Mark Zuckerberg is aware that offering free internet to people in underdeveloped countries will also be profitable for Facebook, but he notes that this isn’t profit-driven, and it’s mainly inclined on helping developing countries, and their economies.

When you have access to the world’s knowledge only at a mouse click’s distance, you can grow better and faster.

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13 New Minidrones from Parrot to Take Control of the Sky!

June 13, 2015 By Michael Turner Leave a Comment

Parrot just announced that they are building 13 new inexpensive minidrones that will take control of the sky, land and, get this, the sea!

We already knew that drones, and minidrones alike, can tackle the blue sky, and the green land, but Parrot amazes us with the new addition – drones in the water medium!

They’re building a new hybrid UAV/Boat that is going to be called the Hydrofoil Drone – the product line will be accompanied by a couple of new Jumping drones, and a new model for their Airborne drone.

Quite strange that Parrot announced these new toys only on their official French website, but c’est la vie I guess.

The new top-notch, and seriously awesomely looking drones will cost no more than €200, that’s about $225, and they will be officially unveiled on July the 2nd at a London-based event. Until them, Parrot lets us drool over their videos, and press images.

Let’s start talking about their new addition, the Hydrofoil Drone – the most interesting of the bunch actually. Its build upon one of their Airborne models. If you want to use it on water, just clip it to the boat and voilà, you can wreak havoc at the local pool. Once you fire it up, it flips to its vertical position and the fun begins. Take a look just down below how easy it is.

It’s super easy to control using your smartphone of choice, and once you get the hang of it, you can reach speeds around 6mph and just lollygag around calm water for about 7 minutes or so. You can avoid obstacles, and change your course quite easily, because it has a front camera that streams directly to your smartphone.

Parrot’s Hydrofoil drone will cost about $190 making it one of the cheapest, and better looking drones on the market.

Even though the Hydrofoil drones look awesome, wait until you see these jumping babies!

I’m just going to call this now – sometime in the near future someone will strap a bomb or some kind of explosive to Diesel, or Buzz, and they will get these mind blastingly awesome toys banned.

Look at how these little cute minidrones jump! You can even scare the living hell out of your friends using its tiny built-in speaker.

Someone should definitely develop some sort of laser tag game using Parrot’s jumping minidrones!

Parrot Jumping Sumo

These two-wheeled 32-inch jumping remote-controlled cars will cost about $220 a pop.

Parrot has yet to announce an official release date for the US, but I wouldn’t be worried if I were you. The US is its main demographic target, and I’m 100 percent sure that shipping will be available for the states.

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GoPro is Building a Spherical Camera Rig for Virtual Reality

May 28, 2015 By Michael Turner Leave a Comment

I was beginning to wonder when GoPro would announce to the world that they too are tackling virtual reality – in some way or another.

This doesn’t come as a surprise at all, and it really seems the logical thing to do when you’re known as one of the industry’s best camera manufacturers.

Not only virtual reality, but also drones. These two things are in the company’s sights. The spherical camera rig that they just announced will be built with virtual reality usage in mind, and another model is being built to offer the best view possible when mounted on drones.

GoPro CEO Nick Woodman announced these two thrilling projects at the Code conference during an interview. Just imagine the interviewer’s face – Oh, so, you’re going to revolutionize the industry once again?

I would have had the biggest beaming grin on my face after hearing the news.

We already knew that GoPro was aiming at building a spherical camera, because they announced it last month when they also bought Kolor – a virtual reality company that is known for bundling up footage to offer the supreme VR experience. The hints were there, and as I said before, this comes as no surprise.

Take a look at the footage released last month. Remember that you can rotate the view!

That was just extraordinary. For a man that is really really scared of heights, GoPro is letting me experience something that I couldn’t have done all by myself.

The six-camera spherical array will be available for purchase later this year, and the GoPro Quadcopter will be released sometime in 2016 – there is no official date at this moment. There are rumours that the GoPro done will cost something between $500 and $1000.

I would definitely buy a Quadcopter from GoPro so I could use it to take some fabulous footage, but for $1000 – worst case scenario – I would rather take a trip to Italy, and experience beauty with my own eyes.

What are your plans? Do you have any intention in buying these new toys?

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