I wonder if this this is related to their national role as government agenda-pushers…
…because my conspiracy theory has the drone crackdown occurring in the next 3-7 years, and articles about how they are the WORST are fuel for that fire. 
The Lily one looks quite big. The Nixie one seems to be much lighter, though also likely more frail and damage prone (but also less capable of causing damage itself).
If a remote image feed could be fitted in, could be handy as a scout to check things in moderate distances without having to walk there. Possibly combined with augmented reality glasses.
If modified for use in vehicles (allow higher speed, for example, and automatic docking onto the roof or trunk at full speed), could be handy to provide better information to the driver - no more corners and turns that are hiding an approaching other car.
If fitted with a panorama camera and realtime uplink, could be more than handy for telepresence.
She should have been glad to go there at all. Particularly on a day when she was mostly alone. I was there as a kid and loved it. It was far from empty then. 35 years ago.
That people could explore it by drone (you can’t see a lot of what you would like to in any amphitheatre I have been in) would have thrilled my childhood self if I had imagined the future was like that.
Mind you I probably couldn’t have imagined that people would still be Flying, long haul at that, using such ridiculously polluting technologies.
I actually have a design in mind for such a dock, with charging plates built in, thought it would be good for news crews to be able to deploy a chain of drone wifi repeaters into any area without signal/power/whatever.
That, or people that don’t fly them find them quite annoying. Which is most people.
Go for resonant energy transfer coils, if you can. That way there’s no chance the contacts get dirty or misaligned.
Also put a high-contrast sign on the landing pad, possibly lit up or backlit, and a downward-facing camera. Then use something like OpenCV, in combination with GPS coordinates (to tell where approximately the bird should look), for image detection and precision landing. Then use magnes or servo-actuated locks to hold the bird in place, so it won’t be damaged by mothership vehicle’s movements.
The tech is getting here fast. The Lily drone should be capable of this with just minor changes.
…if thermal imaging is added, could this be usable as a replacement for facility-patrolling guards?
The other day I was maneuvering my remotely operated camera around a Roman amphitheater catching some incredible shots when the scene was spoiled by one of those horrible shutter bug tourists that always like to ruin a good day’s work. They should be banned or at least given a set time they are allowed to visit like when the weather is too nasty to fly.
Imagine sunsets at the lake or beach with dozens of selfie-drones cluttering the sky, each vying for that perfect shot.
I’m relaxing on the beach when all of a sudden I get to watch a dogfight?
I’m not seeing the downside here.
Lest you think I joke, consider that in May the singer Enrique Iglesias, who is well past his teenage years, sliced his fingers while trying to snap a photo with a (remote-controlled) drone during his concert in Mexico.
Will no one think of Enrique Iglesias?!
Strolling Sheep Meadow in Central Park in New York on a warm spring day
is already an art with all of the dodging of footballs and Frisbees one
must perfect to survive.
Parabolic panic or…hyperbolic?
The sky is falling, but just look at the framerate!
I was more distracted by the freshman-level prose. Don’t they have editors at the Times? If you don’t talk that way out loud, it’s no better in print.
Now now, there’s no need to insult freshmen.
I see the ellipse you used.
Reflexively I turned away and tugged on the hem of my dress. Who knew
where this flying Roomba was looking or what it was recording?
I think I know what one of the angles will be…
Can they tap into the EARTH’S HARMONIC ENERGY LEYLINE GRID? If not, why not?!
Not powerful enough to capture an amount of energy that will drive stuff…motors in particular.
Just my guess.
Was figuring titanium plates (with titanium contacts on the drone) for lighter weight and being non-corrosive as well has having a higher rate of charge.
Ooh, I like that. Was figuring to have the mother-ship take over control for the last bit (using on-board cameras there) but really that’s just extra complication and there should be enough onboard CPU power to do it on the drone. Though there’s always the chance of a nearby pretend mother-ship spoofing it.
That works, though I was thinking of a bowl or funnel shape so it could drop in any which way and still have the contacts end up in the right spots. Also thinking of it being built into one of those roof-mount cargo clamshells like you see on mini-vans everywhere. Mounted to one side it could hinge open flat for deployment and you could fit probably a dozen units in one of those easily (qty-6 in each half of the clamshell).
I don’t see why not, as long as the base station had enough horsepower for video processing and threat analysis. Still need a human in the loop.
With mini spectrum analyzers on board (aka programmable radios, which are super tiny/cheap now) the deployed drones could also find/map sources of radio emissions, like cell phones of survivors, (or radios carried by the responders for team tracking.) Or in your guard case could still have some human guards wandering around but any interdiction could be detected immediately, (unless the attacker grabbed the radio and stayed on the guard’s route.) Really any situation where it would be nice to know who was using certain frequencies, and where…
Correct. It takes about a mile of wire stretched out to harness enough energy even to power a small light-bulb.
(Unless you’re next to a high-tension line, but that’s a different thing altogether. 
Some folks have proposed that drones could latch onto high-tension lines and leach power to recharge but I don’t believe anybody has actually succeeded in doing so. (Or maybe they have, sure are a lot of birds on the wire these days… lol!)
“Many an ellipse twixt cup and lip?” 
Don’t worry about it. Eventually they’ll become so small and so numerous you’ll be as unconscious of them as you now are of bees.
My plan to have sex on the stones of an ancient Roman ruin have been dashed.
Apart from my inability to find someone else interested in sex in an ancient Roman ruin.
