Saturday, May 6, 2017

Drone for iPhone



This year, the world saw a long-theorized weapon in action: a commercial drone for iPhone, like a person might find at Best Buy, dropping a bomb on a target in Iraq. These drone bombers, used by the ultra-violent quasi-state ISIS in Iraq and Syria, are the flashiest combination of modern technologies with the modern battlefield. Cheap, camera-carrying robots, put to nefarious ends by a group that could never otherwise dream of fielding an air force. Dropping grenades isn’t the deadliest thing an insurgent group can do with a small flying robot, but it leads to a very important question: What, exactly, is the answer to such a drone? There is—and this is rare for the defense world—no clear answer yet. The answer to a tank is a guided missile, fired by shoulder-launcher, helicopter, or low-flying attack plane. The answer to a machine gun nest is a tank, supported by infantry, or a mortar battery firing from over the hill. But a drone? The burgeoning world of drone countermeasures is a primordial soup of possible weapons that may someday be what clears the sky of lying robots. It’s a young industry, defined as much by outlandish promise and novel ideas as it is by useful tools. Here is just a short sample of the more out-there anti-drone tools: net guns, drones carrying nets, squads of drones with nets, drones with net guns, and a smart anti-drone bazooka that fires, you guessed it, a net at a drone (we liked that last one). There was a vaporware drone concept that ensnared the propellers of other drones with wire. A Russian firm floated the concept of a microwave gun, to fry the electronics of hostile drones. And most famously, there are the Dutch police eagles, trained to snag a drone from the sky. The burgeoning world of drone countermeasures is a primordial soup of possible weapons Part of the problem for law enforcement, the Pentagon, and other entities trying to protect against drones is that they’re cheap. Workable quadcopters cost as little as a couple hundred dollars. Is there a way to knock drones out of the sky that’s just as cheap as the drone itself? Depending on the circumstance, yes. A shotgun can technically knock a drone out of the sky, provided the drone is within range and the person firing the shotgun is ready for the legal consequences that come with discharging a firearm at a robot. And, on a practice range, enough machine guns can take down a drone that’s playing at being a clay pigeon, though this isn’t really a practical suggestion for anywhere outside of a special, machine gun friendly shooting range. Bullets and shotgun shells are cheaper than drones, but the target they’re aiming at is small, the ammunition will ultimately have to hit something else, and both police and military planners are looking at other ways to disable the flying robots. One such option is lasers. Laser weapons are expensive to develop, but once built and set up on, say, a ship, the cost of each shot is miniscule. This was the logic behind the Laser Weapon System (or LaWs) mounted on the USS Ponce, which the Navy demonstrated in the Persian Gulf against a target drone in 2014. There are a lot of laser weapons in the works, from the likes of defense giants Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, with the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps all aiming to have a working weapon available by the next decade. Besides the United States, researchers in Israel, the United Kingdom, and Germany are all developing laser weapons to melt holes in hostile drones and other flying threats. One thing that makes commercial drones and toy drones so cheap is that they operate on the unrestricted part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The same radio waves that make wifi work allow drones to communicate with smartphone apps or handheld controllers. That opens another avenue to counter drones: simply make it so the drone can’t communicate with its controller. If the drone’s wifi is unlocked, a simple code sent at it will turn the drone off, crashing it to the ground. That was the approach of the Army Cyber Institute, which built a “cyber rifle” as a demonstration, and then later trained West Point cadets to use it against a drone in a simulated raid. Rather than exploiting a known vulnerability, other anti-drone weapons, like the DroneDefender from Battelle Memorial Institute, simply jam the drone’s radio and GPS signals, overpowering them and causing the drone to crash. The DroneDefender is apparently useful enough that it’s been spotted with American forces fighting in Iraq, and it’s inspired imitators in Iran and elsewhere. Lugging a special, bullet-free rifle isn’t for everyone, and while it may be a good tool for protecting a squad on patrol, it doesn’t scale up well to protecting an entire facility. Multiple European defense contractors have put forth concepts and plans for big, elaborate anti-drone systems that track drones and then jam them or take them over. There’s the Falcon Shield, from Italy, which relies on an elaborate network of cameras before somehow taking over the controls of the drone. Airbus has an anti-drone system that tracks and jams or spoofs the GPS of incoming unmanned aerial vehicles, redirecting the robots to somewhere they’re less of a threat, and a British company put together an anti-drone system that combines cameras, jamming, and radar to find and identify its threats. A new system competing in this space is MESMER, by Virginia-based Department13. MESMER debuted last month in a segment on drone countermeasures on the Today Show. According to Department13 CEO Jonathan Hunter, it’s "a non-kinetic means of taking commercial drones and controlling, truly controlling the airspace." Which is to say: if it works as designed and tested, MESMER can stop drones without crashing them or shooting them. Hunter’s explanation for how his company built their anti-drone weapon goes back to an earlier threat, another piece of cheap technology engineered to deadly effect. Hunter is a former U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer, which meant his job was dismantling explosives in war zones. Insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan was defined by IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, some of which were set off by radio controls as simple as a garage door opener. To block those radio signals, the U.S. Army spent $17 billion on jammers, with mixed results. Department 13’s approach, which led them to MESMER, wasn’t to jam the radio signals, but instead find out everything about the radio sending the signals and then send a more sophisticated signal to override it instead. “What we’re doing is we’re essentially communicating the same language of the drone,” says Hunter. “So when we do our transmission to take over the drone, essentially we’re talking the same language, we’re not beating it with power. I don’t have to yell louder, I just have to speak the same language. Once we’re speaking the same language, it will only listen to me.” What if the drone signal is encrypted? “Most people don’t implement encryption well,” says Hunter, after noting that MESMER doesn’t decrypt encryption. It can do a password search if need be, but mostly the software is looking to find pathways into the drone’s controls that don’t require breaking through any secure channels. I should note, at this point, that Popular Science hasn’t witnessed MESMER in demonstration yet. There is footage of it on the today show and in an explainer video at Department13’s site, and Hunter says they’ve demonstrated the technology for a long list of potential customers, including the Department of Defense and the Australian Defense Forces. And, perhaps most confusingly, MESMER is both a system-in-a-box and a kind of software than customers will ultimately work into their existing networks of sensors and jammers. “We also like to think of it as software, but in order to sell software you have to have hardware, so what we do is build a reference platform,” says Hunter. “We’ve found most people have a hard time wrapping their heads around it. People want to buy a black box, so here’s a black box.” If it works in the field as well as it does in closed demonstrations, MESMER could hit at cheap drone through the very thing that makes them useful and affordable: the basic, open radio channels from the unregulated part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The danger of using a remotely controlled device is that the same pathway to control is open to other users. In an anti-drone field teeming with nets, lasers, and powerful jammers, MESMER hopes to simply sneak in through the same open door as the pilot. MESMER is just one possibility in a vast and diverse field of anti-drone tools, and even settled counter-weapons took years or decades to develop. Machine guns reigned supreme on battlefields until years of work led to driving bulletproof armored boxes right at them; what we now know as tanks were once a narrow solution to a specific, muddy problem. Will nets, so effective at catching quadcopters in demonstrations, rise to the challenge of stopping drones on a battlefield? Could major investment in lasers, long promised as an antidote to cheap airborne projectiles and machines, ultimately lead to a future of drone-melting weaponry? Could human-carried jammer rifles win the day, a new tool in a familiar package and form factor for a new threat? In Iraq, ISIS learned how to build its own drones, as well as adapt commercial models to meet its battlefield and propaganda needs. Whatever countermeasure ends up in the field, it’s likely only a matter of time before a solution is engineered around that, too.

iPad Controlled Drone


When you’ve got two drones from the same company that features ratings as impressive as the AUKEY Mini Drone and AUKEY Mohawk ipad controlled Drone, you had better not miss the opportunity to save when a sale comes around.

The first is a tiny little compact drone that makes a perfect Christmas gift for any kids in your family, and it has a 4.9-star rating on Amazon. The second is a larger model with a perfect 5-star rating. Both of these drone quadcopters are on sale right now, but only for one more day so check them out as soon as you can. AUKEY Mini Drone Easy to maneuver UAV drone for beginners Flies at 3 different speeds and can flip in all directions Lightweight pocket-sized mini quadcopter, 2.4G Quadcopter with 6-Axis Gyroscope Fly for 5 minutes on a single charge with up to 82ft flight range from remote control Package Contents: AUKEY UAV Quadcopter Drone, USB Charger, Remote Control, 4 Replacement Blades, User Manual, 24 Month Warranty AUKEY Mini Drone, One-key Landing & Take-off Quadcopter, Intelligent Fixed Altitude, 3 Speed Op… $23.99 From Amazon | Use code AUK2MINI by 10/27 BGR may receive a commission Buy Now AUKEY Mohawk Drone Mid-size

Mohawk Quadcopter Drone with 4 channel 2.4Ghz remote control Easy to maneuver with one touch commands – Take off, return, flip, headless mode 6-axis gyros provides exceptional flight stability and maneuverability 10 minutes of flight time on a single charge with up to 390ft flight range from remote control Package Contents: AUKEY Mohawk Drone, Remote Control, 780mAh Lithium Battery, 4 Extra Blades, Charging Cable, Screwdriver, User Manual, Warranty Card

Cheap Drone with Camera



While it may have been a disappointing holiday season for some cheap drone with camera makers, dollar-for-dollar drone sales in the United States have more than doubled over the past year. According to a new report from market research company the NPD Group, "premium" drones -- classified as anything over $300 -- were the biggest money makers for the twelve months starting in February 2016, but high-end features like autopilot and "follow-me" mode are now making their way into the best-selling consumer level devices. During the first two months of 2017, professional-level drones in the $1,000-plus category were the fastest selling, followed by drones and quadcopters in the $300-$500 price range, indicating that just slapping a decent camera on a quadcopter doesn't cut it anymore. As an NPD analyst notes, autopilot-equipped drones sold five times faster than dumber models and drones with a follow mode sold nineteen times faster during that two month period. Although the FAA now has more than 770,000 registered UAVs in the US, another wave of amateur pilots and hobbyists came online during the 2016 holiday season, when the sudden variety of cheap drones in the $50-$100 range made up about 42 percent of all the unit sales across the country.

Cheap Drones with Camera





While it may have been a disappointing holiday season for some drone makers, dollar-for-dollar cheap drones with camera sales in the United States have more than doubled over the past year. According to a new report from market research company the NPD Group, "premium" drones -- classified as anything over $300 -- were the biggest money makers for the twelve months starting in February 2016, but high-end features like autopilot and "follow-me" mode are now making their way into the best-selling consumer level devices. 

During the first two months of 2017, professional-level drones in the $1,000-plus category were the fastest selling, followed by drones and quadcopters in the $300-$500 price range, indicating that just slapping a decent camera on a quadcopter doesn't cut it anymore. As an NPD analyst notes, autopilot-equipped drones sold five times faster than dumber models and drones with a follow mode sold nineteen times faster during that two month period. Although the FAA now has more than 770,000 registered UAVs in the US, another wave of amateur pilots and hobbyists came online during the 2016 holiday season, when the sudden variety of cheap drones in the $50-$100 range made up about 42 percent of all the unit sales across the country.

Best Cheap Drone




According to new research by Currys, the best cheap drone sales up by 786% year on year. Far from the novelty purchase they started off as, better technology means that whatever your budget, you can use the sky-high gadgets to shoot quality video footage of holidays, weddings or even your own version of Planet Earth. ADVERTISING With the fun gadget quite literally flying off the shelves, we round up the best cheap drones out there - all for under £100. If you're not quite ready for a drone, find cheap deals on other tech and gadgets here . READ MORE Cheap laptop deals: 10 of the best for under £300, including Dell, HP, Apple and Lenovo Top drone deals Here are the top nine cheap drones online at the moment, so you can enjoy the latest craze, without spending a fortune. Hubsan x4 Quadcopter with camera, £31.90 Embrace the drone dream with this cool-looking new toy. (Photo: Maplin) While it only has seven minutes of flight time, the battery recharges within an hour. The built in camera means that there's less chance of it getting damaged. There's four different flying modes over a range of 100 metres, meaning you're more likely to get the exact shot you fancy. Get it from Maplin here for £31.90 or from Amazon for £31.90 or Menkind for £39.99. READ MORE Amazon launch daily deals on thousands of DIY accessories, electronics and home products for Easter Parrot swing drone with Flypad, £89.99 (was £109.99) This drone's unique shape gives it a leg up over its rivals. (Photo: Currys) The unique X shape allows vertical take-off and landing, hitting speeds of up to 19 mph, with built in boost mode and tilting. Filming incredible footage will be made even easier with the swing drone's ability to loop and barrell role - all controlled by a free app. Get it from Currys here for £89.99 or from Very for £99.99. Parrot mini-drone evo, £49.99 Its 'free fall take-off' starts the engines automatically when the drone is released into the air. (Photo: Currys) If you can't decide between a drone with a camera or one to fly around for fun, this hybrid version is the best of both worlds. Featuring small compartments for holding small objects and a base to attach mini figures, it can also turn 90, 180 and even 360 degrees with a simple swipe or click. Get it from Currys here for £59.99 or from Zavvi or IWOOT, both £49.99. READ MORE Currys launch huge flash sale with 30% off TVs, laptops and Dyson vacuums Arcade Orbit Cam HD Drone with Controller, £80 Get 720p footage and make your own mini film. (Photo: Currys) For the best quality HD aerial footage, invest in this HD beauty, which comes with a microSD card included. It's super easy to fly as it comes with a handy remote control, and has a special motor cut off to ensure the drone lands safely if its part of a collision.

Best Camera Drone


One of the hottest tech trends this year has to be best camera drone. No, not the hunter killer type used by the military, but the consumer contraptions aimed at hobbyists. In the consumer drone sector there are primarily two types of drones: those made for photography and those made for play.
Drones are becoming a much bigger part of the way a lot of people shoot video and images - particularly for extreme sports like mountain biking, climbing, and skateboarding. If you follow any big channels on YouTube – particularly car and travel ones – you will see them using drones more and more for aerial shots. Historically, the only way to perform these types of shots before drones was with helicopters, which are, as you’d expect, pretty damn expensive to lease for a day of shooting!
Drones, therefore, while quite expensive for the type used in broadcast media, are a vastly cheaper alternative than hiring a chopper for the day. You don’t need a pilot or insurance and anything like that and the results you get are more or less the same – great, engaging aerial footage.
Even for casual users, drones have a massive appeal. They're a ton of fun to whizz around on a summer's day, particularly if you have a FPV (first-person-view) camera model where you can see the live footage on your phone or through a headset. Plenty of new drones fall into the sub-£100 bracket, even some with FPV mode, making them a lot cheaper and more accessible than old school R/C aircraft, and as most have hover capabilities they're a bit more agile and suitable for a wider range of terrain types too.
And even if you're just spending a hot day round a pool or lake, or having a BBQ this summer, a drone is a fun way of capturing images and video of your party or gathering. It's also cool as it gets everyone involved.
Photography drones are the usually more advanced of the two–they’re also costlier. That’s because they usually have more advanced mechanics, such a gimbals to help stabilize the drone itself or the camera in the drone. Of course it’s the camera that separates these drones from their cheaper cousins made for play. Camera drones include impressive cameras which can take both high definition pictures and video. Some camera drones even record in 4K now. These are drones for people who want to record landscapes from unique angles or survey large areas.

Cheap Drone


Thanks to cheap drone, adventurers and sports enthusiasts can achieve movie-like shots without much training. You just need to fork over enough cash to actually buy a drone.

So what do you do if you're too cheap or poor to buy a drone? Just throw your GoPro in the air like Nicolas Vuignier, who shot this pretty neat video using a GoPro and a product called the AER.
Basically, the AER turns a normal GoPro into NERF football, allowing you to get super steady aerial shots you couldn't get before. And it's a whole lot cheaper than a drone.