Affordable drones are the new wave of underwater exploration

Underwater exploration has never been a cheap endeavor. Aside from a submarine or an underwater rover, your options for unlocking the secrets of the deep are rather limited. Two companies are working to change that by creating compact, affordable underwater robots. The first is O-Robotix, the maker of Seadrone, which takes concepts from aerial drones and modifies them for use under water. The 10.5-by-12 inch Seadrone is compact enough to carry in your hand and has a gimbal-mounted HD camera that streams live video directly to a tablet. You can control the drone via the tablet interface or a joystick.