GoPro Developing Line of Consumer Drones

> There are two kinds of autonomous flying machines that we call drones: small quadcopters that hobbyists fly around, and winged planes that our govt. uses to monitor and attack their enemies.

In most cases (in both classes), aren't these remotely piloted rather than autonomous? (And there are several others -- the term is generally used for remotely piloted vehicles, including, e.g, target drones.)

> I just wish we'd separate the terms so we can deal with toys and war machines separately.

"Military drones", "Armed drones", "Predators", are all terms of various specificity that are in use to specifically refer to the "war machine" kind.

"Delivery drones", "civilian drones", and other terms of varying specificity are in use to specifically refer to the other kind.

I don't really see any problem when "drone" itself is used in a context where the kind of drone doesn't need further specification in the term, since the longer description already tells you which class it falls in.

They are drones though. A drone is just an unmanned air vehicle (UAV).

The armed ones are in a subcategory called "unmanned combat aerial vehicle" (UCAV) or just "combat drone".

I suppose they will use real drones,the ones that are semiautonomous(even military have not 100% autonomous machines, as they have problems recognizing another objects in the air so they need pilots on land).

I bet they are working on a "follow me while doing crazy things" drone, like this: http://online.wsj.com/articles/gopro-developing-line-of-cons...

About personal drones nos being as powerful as military, well, like computers it is about time. I have several drones with ARM processors on them that could do amazing things, bad things too.

Like a knife, you could use it for killing.

I dislike the use of the word drone too. To me it means something that is autonomous. Most hobby quadcopters are not autonomous, although they could be with a sophisticated flight controller. So they can technically be autonomous but usually they are not. So "drone" is a generalisation. It's kind of like saying "I drove my vehicle" rather than "I drove my car".

That's not working for me, even in an anonymous browser window.

The current de facto standard is a GoPro on some sort of DJI or DJI-clone quadcopter. That's a monopoly the brand would be foolish not to try to exploit - and rebadging a clone quad with some GoPro-ness (physical robustness, integrated photography and control app, some follow-me features maybe) is a fair bet.

I highly suggest reading the book "Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things" by Michael Braungart & William McDonough. Essentially the book explains how things currently are made in a "Cradle to Grave" style, meaning products are sourced from the earth and then deposited back in an unusable form. Cradle to cradle would be where a product is made and when it's life is up we reuse the product's materials to build a new product. This is not how recycling works. Recycling could be better described as "downcycling" in that every time say plastic is recycled it's grade is lowered and it becomes less useful due to being mixed with other plastics and contaminates. The book explains this much better than I and is also a great primer on material science.

Here's a simple example of how a consumer product can be created in a cradle to cradle fashion.

1) Raw materials are sourced from the earth.

2) Raw materials are manufactured together in a way where they can easily be seperated.

3) Product ends up with a consumer.

4) Product lifecycle ends.

5) Manufacturer pays consumer for the product.

6) Manufacturer uses product's raw materials for step 2.

Is there something specifically about drones that makes them have a larger environmental impact than any other average consumer product?

I'm with you completely. With the re-usable resources I have in my RC-model 'section' of my personal laboratory, I can fabricate any number of different flying machines - quadcopter included. The only reason thats possible is because the idea of re-using parts is and has been an essential part of the RC/Flying-thing hobby sphere, for almost a century now.

The old saying goes: Build -> Fly > Crash -> Goto Beginning (Build..)

In the RC/Flying-thing hobby sphere, we're sort of experiencing our own "Long September" with the entry of all these new pilots, who don't seem to have much field discipline, nor construction/re-construction skill of any worth. It is really disturbing to see it happen at some flight fields, but it is a matter of market and economy - and, somehow, general willingness to commit to the hobby rather than just consume it.

For the cost of one ShinyCatalog-friendly disposable drone, (Parrot, I'm looking at you.. DJI too..), you can get yourself a full set of electronics and parts and other components, and use it to build yourself a fleet of different flying machines.

In short: crashing is part of the hobby. By parts you can crash easily; learn to build, too! building is a big part of the hobby - or at least, should be.

I'm not sure why you are getting down voted, most consumers use this sort of thing a couple of times then it ends up in the trash.