January 2012
9 posts
LAPD cracks down on drone aircraft use by real... →
eye3 on Kickstarter: Want →
Update: The Eye3 appears to be vaporware.
eye3 is a project to create a professional quality yet affordable flying robotic camera platform, or Drone. Almost anyone attempting to build a platform like the eye3 will be stunned by the complexity involved and the years of hands on experience needed to create a functional, safe device. The incredibly steep learning curve combined with the high cost...
Supreme Court GPS case ruling: A warning shot for... →
The United States Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police cannot attach a GPS tracker to someone’s car without first getting clearance from a court. The link goes to a Wall Street Journal story about the opinion. In summary, the majority of the court ruled that the GPS devices were not a trivial matter, and that they warranted judicial review before their use. Using the small,...
Citizen drone spots meat packing plant pollution →
A fascinating report about a citizen taking his simple aircraft up with a point and shoot camera and spotting pollution flowing from a Dallas area meat packing plant. The really amazing part: “This flight was undertaken completely within the law, below 400′ and visual line of sight. A simple point and shoot camera and $75 airframe are all that were needed.”
Learning from crashing: Failure is always an... →
If you are interested in getting started in drone journalism, I highly suggest you first try a small, cheap, indoor RC helicopter equipped with a low-resolution camera. It will go up into the air, hit something, fall to the ground. And the images will not be great. And sometimes it will just fall over for no apparent reason. And you will fail.
Drones: Coming Soon to a Sky Near You? →
WNYC’s On the Media radio program talked to the Drone Journalism Lab’s Matt Waite about drones for reporting.
Livestreaming Journalists Want to Occupy the Skies... →
Interview with Tim Pool and Spencer Mills of OccuCopter fame. Interesting take on the skill needed to hack a Parrot drone.
The story behind those Russian drone protest... →
An interview with the founders of AirPano, the group that shot those stunning images of the Russian election protests.
Lesson: Budget for replacement parts
The crash broke the front facing camera, grounding the drone. A replacement part has been ordered. But just a rather obvious note for anyone thinking about this: Budget for replacement parts. Lots of them. Crashing is a part of this, especially starting out.
