Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at DroneDJ, where he covers all drone-related news and writes product reviews. He also contributes to the other sites in the 9to5Mac group such as; 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, and Electrek.
Haye can be reached at haye@dronedj.com or @hayekesteloo
Good morning, We have some exciting news. Yesterday, DroneDJ was officially accepted to the Google News section, which is kind of a big deal for us as it means recognition for our hard work. More importantly, however, this means that more people will be able to find our articles and it will be easier for Android users to access our information. So we are pretty excited about this! Now let’s get back to drone news.
A Florida woman shouted to the police: “Just kill me! Just kill me!” Instead, the police used drones to help end a 4-hour-long standoff. The 57-year-old woman had parked her Kia sedan right in front of a semi-truck at a Walmart parking lot on Dec 8.
Back in 2015 DJI acquired a minority stake in Hasselblad, the famous Swedish medium-format camera company. Early in 2017, DJI increased their share to a majority interest, although how much the drone manufacturer exactly owns has never been made public. DJI’s recent efforts to increase the global online sales of their products received a boost due to a new partnership with Worldpay, so it should not come as a surprise that Hasselblad now opens their virtual doors with a new online store. To celebrate the Grand Opening, you can now receive a 10% discount on all the Hasselblad cameras and lenses. Keep in mind the discount is for a limited time only, starting today until the 18th of February.
Note: The online store is only available to German customers for the moment. Hopefully, that will change soon.
Update: We have contacted Hasselblad and the U.S. online store will open in March and will have a Grand Opening Promotion as well. Details will follow.
With drone sales growing rapidly around the world, DJI has partnered with Worldpay to improve online payments and increase their eCommerce part of the business. DJI’s goal is to make it easier for their customers to buy their products through the DJI online store, especially in Europe and Asia-Pacific. A partnership with Worldpay makes sense, as it also facilitates country-specific online payment methods, such as iDeal in The Netherlands and SOFORT in Germany. You can read the official press release below.
An Israeli attack helicopter takes out an Iranian drone as soon as it entered the airspace of Israel. The drone was based on an American stealth drone that was intercepted six years ago by Iran.
Good morning! Here are the headlines you may have missed from last week. Also, we have a different kind of video today. This time it is a video of a DJI Mavic Air chasing a cruise ship that is leaving Miami.
A 22-year-old man, an international tourist, drowned on Wednesday while swimming near Fingal Beach in Northern New South Wales, Australia. For the first time, drones played a role in retrieving the body from the ocean.
DJI just released a new firmware update for the DJI Mavic Air drone. Version: v01.00.0200. Waypoints have not yet been added to the Mavic Air. One thing the firmware seems to have fixed is the shaking that happened in cold temperature. See this video for more info on that. Other than that, it seems that this firmware update addresses a number of bugs and small issues.
DJI just released a new firmware update for the DJI Mavic Pro drone. Version:V 01.04.0300.
Intel’s just set a record with 1,218 drones that flew together and created different patterns in the sky as part of the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The drones take off separately and are being controlled by one single computer. Once in the air they fly in harmony and create spectacular three-dimensional shapes such as a moving snowboarder or the famous interlocking Olympic rings.
With all the hype around the DJI Mavic Air and the rumors flying around about the upcoming DJI Mavic Pro II and Phantom 5, you would almost forget about the smallest drone in DJI’s product line, the Spark. Will our favorite Spark (review) receive an updated version as well? Are we going to see a Spark 2 anytime soon?
Last year DJI announced a special contest together with SkyPixel and a few days ago they announced the winners. There are some truly amazing photos among the final picks. The Grand Prize, The 2017 SkyPixel Photo of the Year was awarded to the “Above the Polar Bear” photo taken with a Phantom 4 Pro by Florian Ledoux.
Good morning. In case you have missed it here are yesterday’s headlines!
These photos of special landing gear for the Mavic Pro were posted by Jeff Ray on a Facebook group. They look really good for landing in snowy conditions like we have right now in New York. Although it seems that they would also work well in the summer when landing your drone on the beach or in the grass.
Through a software update, Chinese drone manufacturer, DJI has added new No-Fly Zones around several sporting arenas that will be used during the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. In an official statement from DJI, the company says that: “The decision to implement Temporary Flight Restrictions in Pyeongchang and other Korean cities is to increase the safety and security measures and will be in effect for the duration of the competitive events in February 2018.”
We tested the DJI Mavic Air ourselves in high winds and freezing conditions last week and came away impressed. The Mavic Air flew without any problems, even though it was being pushed around by the wind quite a bit. The video footage turned out to be very stable due to the improved gimbal on the Mavic Air. In this video, posted on YouTube today, similar results are shown and it seems that that the Mavic Air handles high winds just as well as the trusted Mavic Pro. Have a look.
Organizing the Winter Olympics is a massive undertaking in itself and one part that has become increasingly important, and more difficult, is to make sure that the event will take place without any threats to the safety and security of the athletes and spectators. Nowadays, the possible threats include attacks by drones. We have seen before, that drones have been used to drop bombs, distribute propaganda during sporting events and deliver contraband to prisons. To be concerned about drones being used to disrupt the Winter Olympics, unfortunately, is a very real possibility.
Good morning! Today we have a couple of things for you, among which a poll to measure the level of interest of Mavic Air owners to bring back Waypoints to the Mavic Air. We spoke with DJI about possibly bringing this feature back with a firmware upgrade. With enough votes, DJI will consider this. So, go ahead and vote here.
Last week, we reported on DJI quietly removing Waypoints as one of the Intelligent Flight Modes available on the Mavic Air. The original Mavic Pro and Mavic Pro Platinum both have Waypoints available and many drone pilots love and use this feature. The Waypoints feature allows you to have the drone fly itself from waypoint to waypoint so that you can focus on capturing the photos or video footage. We asked DJI why they removed the Waypoints feature and if we can have it back.
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Good morning. Today we’re getting snow in NYC so that means probably no drone flying outside unless we’re going to a snow test for the DJI Mavic Air. We are busy creating a new and better studio for our videos on YouTube, so expect to see improvement in that area soon. And with that let’s take a look at the latest news.
Just a short post this time to summarize all the information, we have seen about the new Mavic Pro II (or Mavic Pro 2). This post contains some old rumors as well as some that have surfaced today. We wanted to make a list of all the specifications that have been rumored up till today as an easy point of reference. A lot of the information has come from a single source, but as we have seen with the launch of the Zenmuse X7, the Osmo Mobile 2 and the Mavic Air, more sources will come forward as we approach the launch date.
Take look at this video. The DJI Mavic Air may be the most robust unmanned aerial vehicle ever built by the Chinese drone manufacturer, DJI. The new drone undergoes and survives severe punishment in a series of tests. The video starts out with some warm-up tests, like the forward and rear sensor test, but pretty soon things get more serious and the little drone gets shot at, doused with water and flown into a tree at high speed.
Good morning! New rumors keep coming in. Watch our posts later today for the latest news on the Mavic Pro 2.