Goto

Collaborating Authors

 Drones


'Hover Camera' floats in mid-air to track your face and even follows you

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Selfie-addicts know photos taken from above are among the most flattering, so why not have a drone constantly flying above you capturing your every move? Called the Hover Camera, the drone is designed to take perfect pictures thanks to image stabilisation technology and a built-in 13MP camera. It's designed to capture hi-res photo portraits and 4K video, and is controlled by a user's smartphone via a Wi-Fi connection. The Hover Camera is designed to take perfect pictures thanks to image stabilisation technology and a built-in 13MP camera. It uses facial recognition to'lock on' to a user's face (shown above) The gadget is designed to capture hi-res photo portraits and 4K video, being controlled by a user's smartphone via a Wi-Fi connection.


Paris police want drones to watch over crowds

Engadget

The drones may go into service very soon. Paris is one of the key hosts for both the upcoming Euro 2016 football/soccer championship and the Tour de France, and the police will likely want whatever tools they can get to detect (and maybe even deter) criminals who might be lurking in the throngs of sports fans. However, there are privacy concerns. While there's a law requiring that security drone operators let people know they're being watched, French rights groups are still worried that the proliferation of drones could lead to widespread surveillance. The rules open the door to exceptions for police when "public order" and security are at stake -- and when there's still a state of emergency, officers might be tempted to use those exceptions often.


Zero Zero's Camera Drone Could Be a Robot Command Center in the Future

#artificialintelligence

Startup Zero Zero Robotics just took the wraps off its eye in the sky, the Hover Camera. The company hasn't set a price but expects the lightweight drone (it weighs in at 240 grams) to cost under US 600. The flying camera is a relatively new type of gadget. It all started about a year ago, when startup Lily Camera came out of stealth with its 500 to 1000 camera drone and argued that it wasn't so much a drone as a simple-to-use flying camera. This March, drone-maker DJI introduced the Phantom 4, with autonomous flying and tracking features that essentially make it that company's first flying camera at 1400.


University of Florida Holds First Drone Race Using Mind Control

#artificialintelligence

The University of Florida held a fully technology-based sport: The world's first brain-controlled drone race. Using their brainwaves, 16 pilots flew drones through an indoor course ten yards long. Both drone-racing and brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are not new, but this is the first combination of the two, and it's an efficient method of introducing BCIs to the mainstream eye. BCI is a system that translates brain signals into commands comprehensible to output devices. Most often, this technology is used to allow individuals who are paralyzed to have control of prosthetic limbs.


Introducing Hover, An AI-Powered Indoor-Safe Camera Drone

#artificialintelligence

Most popular consumer drones are affordable quadcopters robust enough to fly outdoors and snap photos or video. The startup Zero Zero Robotics is coming out of stealth mode to announce its first product, Hover Camera, a small drone specifically designed with no exposed propellers to safely shoot footage indoors. Hover does exactly what it sounds like: Turn it on and it hovers in midair wherever you leave it. Hover is more a flying camera than a joyriding drone, and the controls on its paired smartphone app are for delicately repositioning it, not zooming to atrial heights. But the real breakthrough feature is its sophisticated AI programming that not only keeps the platform exceedingly leve, it uses face and body recognition to lock on to a subject and slowly follow them around autonomously.


Hover Camera is a safe and foldable drone that follows you

Engadget

The Hover Camera comes in at only 238 grams, which is just below the FAA's limit for mandatory hobbyist drone registration. It's small as well: When the propeller wings are folded, it's about the size of a VHS cassette tape. Once you open it up, you'll see all four propellers with brushless motors, all of which are apparently developed in-house. A company rep point out that to enable precise control in such a small device, off-the-shelf components just wouldn't work. Likewise, the AI algorithm is also built from ground up.


Zero Zero's Camera Drone Could Be a Robot Command Center in the Future

IEEE Spectrum Robotics

Startup Zero Zero Robotics just took the wraps off its eye in the sky, the Hover Camera. The company hasn't set a price but expects the lightweight drone (it weighs in at 240 grams) to cost under US 600. The flying camera is a relatively new type of gadget. It all started about a year ago, when startup Lily Camera came out of stealth with its 500 to 1000 camera drone and argued that it wasn't so much a drone as a simple-to-use flying camera. This March, drone-maker DJI introduced the Phantom 4, with autonomous flying and tracking features that essentially make it that company's first flying camera at 1400.


25 Geniuses Who Are Creating the Future of Business

WIRED

Soon, software will know how you feel--and will use that data to sell you things. The gig economy will go global (but it's not Uber-take-all). The tech industry will finally be inclusive. AI will achieve something like common sense, and it will be open source too. But that future won't build itself. Actual people (at least for now) have to make these things happen, and they aren't the C-suite hotshots you always hear about. The 25 people in these pages are the unsung creative, technical, and social visionaries working to bring the incredible world of tomorrow to you today. Get to know them now. Welcome to our second annual Next List. Surveillance is about to get much harder for overly snoopy governments. In November 2014 the Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp made a big change to its Android app: It encrypted messages so that even Facebook can't descramble them, no matter how many court orders the company receives. But the crypto software wasn't written by a Facebook employee.


Rakuten to trial drone delivery on Chiba golf course

The Japan Times

Online shopping giant Rakuten Inc. is venturing into the uncharted territory of drone delivery, enabling golfers to order snacks, beverages and golf equipment while playing a round. Rakuten on Monday announced the nation's first drone delivery service, a monthlong experiment from May 9 at Camel Golf Resort in Chiba Prefecture. Rakuten will then consider whether to continue and expand the service based on the results. "We decided to provide a delivery service in golf parks, since there are regulations that restrict drones from flying over crowded areas such as (urban) yards and verandas," said a Rakuten spokeswoman. A smartphone Android application will be used by golfers to have food, drink and equipment delivered to fixed pickup points.


Drone deliveries are arriving at a Japanese golf course

PCWorld

Golfers in Japan will soon be able to get drinks, snacks, and other products delivered to them by drone while they're out on the course. Rakuten, a major Japanese shopping portal, will launch the drone delivery service in May at a course in Chiba, to the east of Tokyo. Golfers will be able to order from a menu of roughly 100 items through a dedicated Android app, and each drone delivery will be limited to 2kgs of goods. The service will be offered daily from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and suspended during bad weather. To operate the service, Rakuten has a dedicated drone depot where an operator will pack the goods and set the delivery location.