Over the weekend, these images appeared online. They seem to be ‘leaked‘ photo and drawing of a new DJI product. It looks a bit like a Frankenstein device if I’m honest, with bits and pieces that you will recognize from other DJI products. However, looking past its appearance, this modular product might be a new handheld, gimbal-stabilized DJI camera that can also be controlled remotely. Let’s have a closer look at this new DJI product that seems to be geared towards professionals. NAB 2019 anybody?

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Last Tuesday, President Trump signed a bipartisan bill into law that pushes federal agencies to start using drones to fight wildfires. The details are described in Sec. 1114. titled “Wildfire technology modernization” of the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act. Not only is this new law good for the use of drones in fighting wildfires, but it may also help the use of unmanned aircraft in other industries, such as deliveries by drone, search and rescue missions, and the use of drones for agriculture, inspection and construction.

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The Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 has been out of stock since early November 2018. And, now, the regular Phantom 4 Pro is officially out of production, according to the official DJI website. So even though you may be able to pick one up at the retailer of your choice, you can no longer get a Phantom 4 Pro (or V2.0) from the drone maker itself. The question is why? Is it related to DJI’s fraud case? Perhaps the DJI severed the relationship with some of its suppliers? Or is it because the Phantom 5 is indeed around the corner? Obviously, we hope for the latter but this tweet about the Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 may indicate differently.

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Today DJI is making a huge step forward in the Enterprise drone market with the release of the DJI Matrice 200 V2 series and new DJI Flighthub Enterprise software. The combination of improved hardware and new software is meant to take enterprise drone operations to the next level. Yes, we’re talking beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) and night-time operations. But, also the ability for enterprise customers to deploy and large numbers of drones. The Matrice 200 Version 2 now offers Ocusync 2.0, encrypted data transmission (AES-256), top and bottom anti-collision beacons, DJI’s AirSense system using an ADS-B receiver and more. DJI’s Flighthub Enterprise offers many new customization options for commercial drone operators such as private cloud hosting, new DJI Pilot PE app designed for users with high data security requirements, centrally manage and deploy drone firmware updates, mission planning, and device maintenance information. FlightHub Enterprise and the Matrice 200 Series V2 drones are now available worldwide. Today’s announcement from DJI is a huge step forward and it will allow commercial drone operators to start using drones in ways we haven’t seen before and on a much larger scale than we have seen before. Exciting stuff!

Read DJI’s official announcement below.

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Flying a drone FPV can be an exhilarating experience. Whether you are racing, doing freestyle or just having some fun it is an experience that is vastly different than piloting line of sight.  It takes both practice and preparation but is well worth it in the end. I’ve outlined some of the steps in two previous articles How to Fly FPV part one and How to Fly FPV part two. If you haven’t read them make sure you check them out. Hopefully, you have already picked out your transmitter and quad, done some laps in the simulator and you are confident and ready to go. Here’s what you’ll need to do next. expand full story

Last Friday, I wrote about the DJI Smart Controller and when it might be shipping to customers in the US. Sometime that same day, the FCC re-activated the equipment authorization system and the filing for the DJI Smart Controller appeared. Since then the product listing on DJI’s online store has been updated as well and the product is now available for purchase.

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