Haye Kesteloo

According to the Adirondack Explorer, a Canadian Hiker has pleaded guilty to flying a drone in the High Peaks Wilderness in the Adirondack Park. The hiker, Keven Descheneaux of Trois Rivieres, Quebec was fined on June 17, 2017, by a forest ranger for operating a drone near the ranger’s outpost in Johns Brook valley. Descheneaux has the questionable honor of being the first person to be convicted of operating a drone in the Forest Preserve.

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Today I stumbled upon this video on Facebook, from a talented drone pilot, who on a recent trip to Iceland flew his DJI Mavic Pro through a rock and into Iceland’s world of wonders. By doing so he convinced me that;

1. you don’t need crazy expensive gear to make amazing footage and,
2. I need to book a flight to Iceland asap and witness the amazing landscape and scenery myself.

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DJI, the world’s leader in civilian drone and aerial imaging technology presented new drone technology hardware and software during the AirWorks 2017 event in Denver, CO. Michael Perry, DJI’s Managing Director for North America announced in his keynote, FlightHub, a new drone fleet management system, a new Software Development Kit (SDK) to allow developers to do more with DJI drones, two new customizable drone, the DJI Wind 4 and DJI Wind 8, and a strategic partnership with the Menlo Park Fire Protection District in California and lastly a new investment by its SkyFund investment arm.

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Scientists have believed that the narwhal’s tusk was mainly for sexual selection, however, new drone footage shows that the tusk may be a multi-purpose tool for the unicorns of the ocean. The drone aerial video confirms scientific theories and traditional Inuit knowledge, but at the same time, it raises new questions.

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Two weeks ago we wrote about the 9 question DJI Knowledge Quiz that DJI will launch in the U.S. This is a mandatory quiz that every owner of a new DJI product needs to answer before they can fly their new drone for the first time.The questions will appear in DJI GO 4, DJI’s main flight app, which runs on smartphones and tablets connected to drone remote controllers. DJI worked together with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop the quiz questions and correct answers for the United States market. Now, DJI would like to develop a similar safety quiz for the Canadian market and DJI is actively reaching out to work together with Transport Canada to do so.

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Time to update your DJI GO 4 app if you (or your phone) haven’t done so already.

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A couple from Marshfield, WI is thankful to be reunited with their dog that had gone missing in the marshes for three days. Mollie and Steve Schrodi told NewsChannel 7 how last Saturday a routine trail walk in the McMillan Marsh with their Wirehaired Pointing Griffon Jax took a turn for the worse.

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Today, Epson, providers of the Moverio AR smart eyewear platform, and DJI, the Chinese drone manufacturer, announced a glassed based augmented reality drone flight simulator app. The app has been developed by Y Media Labs exclusively for the Epson Moverio BT-300 (FPV/Drone Edition) smart glasses. This app could be used as a drone pilot training tool to prevent drone incidents from happening.

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RedBull recently spoke to the doctoral assistant behind the cargo-carrying and collapsible PackDrone, inspired by Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. According to Przemyslaw Mariusz Kornatowski, the Swiss-based doctoral assistant, the PackDrone is designed to be deployed in search and rescue missions to deliver food, water and medical supplies to people who are trapped. The drone’s collapsible, cage-like structure ensure the best of both worlds, portability and safety. Redbull caught with Kornatowski to find out how he went from paper to origami-drone and what lies ahead of us.

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The New Zealand Herald reported two drone incidents with airplanes on their approach to Auckland airport. A passenger on board the flight said that the drone passed so close to the airplane, it was only meters below the airplane as it came into land at Auckland airport. This report comes in after we reported on similar incidents in The Netherlands, Canada, and Great Brittain.

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A member of the public captured a video with a drone of about 124 acres (50 hectares) of protected woodland missing in the Semenic-Cheile Carasului National Park, on the border with Serbia, Digi24 TV reports. The National Park has one of the largest virgin beech forests in Europe and has been included in the Unesco’s World Heritage List this summer.

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Earlier this summer, on July 2nd to be exact there was a drone flying in the restricted airspace of Gatwick Airport in Great Britain. This 2-minute video released by NATS shows the chaos caused by the drone pilot. Various airplanes were directed to holding patterns and some planes ended up diverting to other airports.

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Time to update your DJI GO 4 app to version 4.1.16 if you (or your phone) haven’t done so already.

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This report is the first in an ongoing series, called Drone Takedown, of drone counter techniques and other methods used to bring down or destroy airborne drones. With so many instances where drones have become an accidental hazard or have been used on purpose to inflict harm, it comes as no surprise that new companies spring up to offer ways in which a dangerous drone can be inactivated.

Today we will take a look at the Australian company MySky Technologies, that has invented a kamikaze drone that can take out enemy drones, including fixed wing ones.

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Ok – this doesn’t have that much to do with drones but it is so good, I wanted to share it with you all.

With help of his friends, Max Lanman wrote and directed this short clip. Lanman put this short commercial together to help his girlfriend sell her used 1996 Honda Accord on eBay. The video starts out talking about the girlfriend and how she is different and unique. She doesn’t care about things and the used Honda Accord is perfectly fine for her to get from A to B.

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Seriously? That was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this video of a guy being lifted in the air by a drone to go skydiving. I mean, what is wrong with just using an airplane, which would be able to get you much higher and thus giving you more airtime?

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A fleet of unmanned boats, or ocean drones, are traveling from the Arctic to the equator collecting data on climate change. The autonomous ships are officially called “Saildrones” look like bright red dinghies and are outfitted with a 200-foot-high carbon fiber sail and 16 sensors that measure things like carbon dioxide, acidity, water temperature and currents.

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You can now update your DJI Spark drone to the latest firmware version. Some of the newly added features foir your Spark are: Shere Panorama, Dynamic Home Point, Low Battery Return to Home will no longer trigger automatically in Gesture mode, save Wi-Fi frequency, improved stability and security.

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Well, I believe this is a first. During a World Surf League event at the (in)famous surf spot Jaws, a helicopter simply blows an unauthorized drone out of the sky and into the drink. Original? Yes. Smart, and safe solution, recommended by the FAA? Not so much.

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Starting today, Part 107 drone operators, or commercial drone pilots, can use the Skyward Low Altitude Airspace Notification Capability (LAANC) cloud solution to request automated FAA approval to fly their drones in controlled airspace.

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