As temperatures are rising throughout the Southern hemisphere, more drones are hitting the skies to capture the beauty summer has to offer. While you might not be doing anything wrong in the sky, your drone could be struggling due to the high temperatures edging on the limits of the drone and its battery.
Aussie couple Jolie King and Mark Firkin, who were locked up in Iran after illegally flying their drone, are now free and are back in Australia. The Australian government has been working hard to bring the couple back safely, but has yet to be successful in their efforts to bring an Australian academic home.
A Pennsylvania man has been charged with flying an unregistered drone and the illegal use of a drone after he tried to drop explosives from it in March. In June, police raided Jason Muzzicato’s house, finding seven homemade explosives and 10 guns.
Drone strikes on two oil production facilities have seen a sudden drop in oil and gas coming out of Saudi Arabia earlier this week. A reported ten drones were used in the strikes to take out around half of the companies output capacity.
An Aussie couple has been locked up in Iran after an illegal drone flight earlier this year. The couple along with another woman is looking at a ten-year plus sentence for the drone flight that would change their life forever.
Drones are being used to keep the USS Midway, once an active vessel corrosion-free as a part of project Topside Drone. The drones utilize various sensors and a corrosion checking algorithm to detect possible rust. The project is a result of the Office of Naval Research sponsoring the technology.
Earlier this week, Indigenous rangers from around Australia came together at this year’s Indigenous Ranger Forum to learn, share, and gain new skills. Australia’s Indigenous rangers are turning to drones to protect and watch over sacred land, save time, and make the land more manageable.
In the wake of the Las Vegas massacre last year, the police are increasing security at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival with the help of drones. This year the festival enjoys a larger footprint and is expected to receive 125,000 visitors daily. Drones will provide extra sets of eyes in the sky and will also be able to reach any area of the festival much faster than officials on the ground. In line with the FAA rules, the drones will not be flown over the crowds.
Russian billionaire Abramovich tried to confiscate a drone from the co-founder of Droneworks Studios in the Caribbean with an anti-drone device. Last Thursday co-founder Justin Oakes posted a video on YouTube in which he explains the bizarre story of almost losing his drone to the Russian billionaire mid-flight. The incident took place in December while Justin and his wife Elaine were on vacation.
Last weekend during the NYC Drone Film Festival, I joined a session where children were writing code to program Parrot drones. The fact that the students got to fly the drones after they were done coding made all the difference. Those kids were stoked!
That’s also why this news got my attention. Recently Apple experts visited the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired to show software that allowed students to write code without having to look at the screen and fly Parrot drones. One of the students, Demetria Ober knows now that being (partially) blind does not mean you cannot program or fly a drone for that matter!
At the DJI press event in Shenzhen, China last week, the Chinese drone manufacturer announced the following drones aimed at the agricultural market, the MG-1S Advanced, the MG-1P and the MG-1P RTK. It seems that these drones will be available soon for the Chinese market. No word, however on when and if these drones may come to the US.
According to the latest PEW Research Center survey, 8% of Americans say they own a drone and 59% have seen a drone in operation. Just like in the UK, drones are catching on as consumer goods in the US. However, regardless of the unmanned aerial vehicles’ increasing popularity, many Americans have reservations about where and under what circumstances drone operations should be allowed.
On November 14th, 2017, the Federal Aviation Administration publicly released a database with non-identifiable information of every drone registration up to October 31, 2017. Dan Gettinger and Arthur Holland Michel at the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College have published a preliminary but detailed analysis of the FAA registration information. They confirm some things that we already knew, such as DJI being the undisputed leader in the drone market as well as some surprising insights. The information released by the FAA shows registrations geographically for both hobbyist and non-hobbyist segments of the drone market.
We already reported on a new law coming into effect in the UK, that would grant police officers more powers to ground drones and to increase the criminal penalties associated with flying drones in an unsafe or illegal manner. Well, today we are one step closer to that new reality for hobbyist and commercial drone pilots in the United Kingdom, as the Department for Transport has announced a raft of new police powers as part of a crackdown on the civilian use of drones.
Over the last few days, we have pointed out various deals that are available on DJI drones. We have had some of the absolute lowest prices that you can see here as well as DJI’s own special Black Friday promotion. Today, however, we’d like to point out some of the great prices that can be had on the DJI refurbished store.