To be fair I can't test the hypothesis that contrails are H2O either.

And then for headaches = wifi etc I think some people don't understand why their experience isn't sufficient evidence, or rather what constitutes an experiment.

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parenting lesson, class 403



This is a great way to teach your boys about some of life. Go to your nearest gas station/restaurant with a couple arcade games.. this time of the century it might be going to a spot with WIFI.... but you could do it, competition your kid(s) against a stranger and learn them life lessons of perseverance etc. etc.

WiFi is also an Australian invention... so you know, they can watch porn on your laptop in your living room when you have guests.

Yes, but you don't need the phone service to be active to use wifi. It was my phone until last year, and still works fine

I'm the only one on my dev team who is using a Windows laptop instead of a MacBook. Every time someone else needs to present, it's a scramble for a dongle, and then their WiFi drops and it takes five minutes to get reconnected.

Yeah, my ThinkPad looks like an industrial accident compared to those admittedly sexy MacBooks, but unlike those, my Windoze machine "just works (TM)."\

I dunno, the camera doesn't need to be extremely high end, and plenty of things with wifi tech aren't prohibitively expensive.

I'm thinking that once economy of scale kicked in, those two bits might add as little as $20-$30 to the price. Add in the LCD screen and it could still be well under $100 (beyond the price of base microwave).


Basically, IF the price was right, I'd be interested. If not, I probably would be again after the early adopters covered the initial economy of scale problem. Or it wouldn't ever catch on, and I'd still be out nothing... But, I like the idea.

I agree that having a screen on the front would be silly. If a wifi+FLIR camera can be added for App viewing, and adds maybe $100 to the cost of the unit, I would consider it. but my guess is it will cost a lot more.

Plus, it seems like the microwaves emitted inside would wreak havoc with the CMOS or CCD of the IR camera... and anything that would shield those, would also block the IR (why you can't use through glass)

lol. Yes, if only that was an actual option. The problem is, in my experience of having been on diferent networks---for anyone who travels, the two biggest and most expensive networks to be on---AT&T and Verizon--offer the broadest and most competent voice and data networks.

They can be slaughtered pricewise by Sprint and T-Mobile in any given location---and maybe, if that location has a good antenna network, be given a decent run for the money by these cheaper networks...

Of course, if you want the cheapest mobile phone plan, you end up with a sort of hybrid phone --Republic---which uses Wifi calling when in range of a network you've signed onto---and Sprint's network otherwise.

And that's the American story...

If there's any after effects in this, I would be seriously disappointed with OK Go. They've "kept it real" so far, and I think post cheats would be horrid.

I was just thinking of a way to do the human LED board.

What I figure is little wifi-signaled lights to each umbrella holder. ON means open the umbrella, Off means close it. Then all the people have to do is hit their marks (the tape crosses and lines on the ground) and follow what the light shows.

Yeah, but they are looking for funding, so someone is going to pony up. I watched the video. Most of what they show is a Hubsan FPV quad that you can get through places like Banggood it uses a spreadspectrum 5.4 system to broadcast the video and a 2.4 system for control, but it does not have any autonomous capabilities. Hubsan makes some of the best stuff out there and we work very closely with them. The wrist thing is cludgey, and while it conveys the idea (You can see the needed twist I was talking about), it wont get them anywhere near their presented final design. Wifi would be an option, but it would require a wifi hotspot be built into the quad. I know we aren't talking about components that require a bunch of power, but we are talking about small batteries, so every mV counts. Especially for something that is wearable.
Now the Hexo+ is very much like the Airdog. Both seem very viable and are using existing technologies. My only concern about either is what do they do about object avoidance and low battery response. In either situation you can wind up losing the vehicle or injuring someone. Most higher end quadcopters have the ability to Return To Home (RTH) which is great since the pilot is in a stationary position, but put a pilot on the move and things get weird. If you are out surfing and the quad gets a low battery warning due to either a battery failure or having been waiting for 30 minutes for you to catch a wave, where does it go? It could go back to the take-off position, but if you drifted from there then it will need to calculate that distance and make sure it can get back. Salt water and electronics don't play well together. If you take your quad with you for a ride on a skateboard down the boardwalk, how do you make sure it doesn't hit a light post or a tree while it is zipping after you? You could fly at a higher altitude, but the zoom lens on the camera may not be enough. Hexo+ has a video of the founder riding a skateboard while the quad films. Notice that he stops short of going into the wooded area. I wonder why?
There are issues, but at least in both cases I think they are starting from proven technologies and have footprints that are achievable.

@My_design good info, thanks.

A few things though:
they're not actually looking for crowdfunding at the moment (at least, it's not on their website http://flynixie.com/ )
there are some videos of them launching a proof of concept from the wrist http://youtu.be/_VFsdPAoI1g
but admittedly, you don't see it fly and it's not a slap band as of now.

I have a gopro and it does broadcast, although not in HD in real time. You can connect it over wifi to your phone and see the shot as it is being framed with about a 2 second lag in SD. Both of which are fine as long as the footage is captured in HD. I'll grant you the weight is an issue, but most of that is in the battery and the housing. Nixie wouldn't need a housing, and I'm guessing the wifi/camera power requirements are much less than the motors. Plus it only needs less than a minute of flying/recording time.

Out of interest, since you seem to know about this stuff, have you heard of Hexo+ and if so, what do you think of it?

The slap bands don't work because the arms are at angles to each other. Slap bands can only rotate in a straight direction (They are basically tape measure metal), so they wouldn't be able to come back to meet in the center like they illustrate. Also they have the motors all prettily lined up and facing directly off the wrist, that would require the material to be able to twist.

For the rotor size, these are fixed pitch rotors. You can change the pitch of the rotor to give you different flight characteristics and in general you have to match the pitch to the motor to be the most efficient. I may have this reversed, but a lower pitch prop gives you more torque and less overall speed, but a higher pitch prop gives more top speed, less torque. Making a prop that can be injection molded at that size that even works is difficult, making one that is super efficient would be even more so. QC would have to be incredibly exacting. As a gauge, the 2" x 2" quad has 1" props. They can lift it and buzz it around pretty well. Those things were a pain to get correct and I have a hard time imagining anyone making them more efficient than they are. In the case of the 2" quad, we didn't even paint the body because we want to limit the impact on flight time from added weight. All molded in color. That's how sensitive these things can be. There are better motors if you are willing to pay, but even then it may not be enough.
Go Pro records in HD, but doesn't actually broadcast anything (plus it is big enough to keep this thing from flying anywhere). If you want to broadcast video you have to do it in 640x480 tops. To do that you need something like an FPV system that broadcasts on a spread spectrum. If you went bluetooth you have an effect range that is pretty small. Wifi requires more power to get a longer range. A video transmitter system would require a separate device to attach to your phone to receive the signal and translate it to a PPM signal for through the headphone jack. But a VTX is pretty heavy as well.
And things may drain just a little bit of power, but it stacks up. At most you have a 250mAh Lipo battery that can fit in there. That isn't going to buy you a bunch of flight/video time.
Video on the phone is going to be subject to interference, so you would want to record on the quad. this would get you HD quality, but also adds weight, which means more battery draw, which means less flight time.
-B

Yeah there are slap bands out there, but they don't work like this is presented to work. The arms would have to bend in multiple dimensions, and then straighten out and be able to provide a stable flying platform. The closest thing I think of for doing something like that is the "bendy" character toys where the metal wire is co-molded inside the body. That is a very heavy solution.
I misspoke on the 2" square, it is 2" x 2", so 4" square. I'm not sure that I agree that theirs is 6" x 3", but even if it is that would mean that the prop size would have to be about 1.25" and that doesn't work for a 6" x 3" vehicle. There isn't enough thrust and the motors at that size don't provide enough RPM's for that kind of weight.
On the electronic side, they show it connecting to a smart phone with video feedback. That means you have to have bluetooth at least, or a 5.4ghz video system if you want more than 30' range. or it has to have a Wifi TX on it. All of those thing require power. Sure it could analyze the video signal to determine subject matter, and provide guidance but you have some very serious issues there. If you do it on board it requires some processor power (More drain), if you do it on the smart phone app it will create lag.
Your phone has over 1,000 mAh in it (1440 in Iphone 5), that is a TON (4-10x) more than what this thing would have. Battery technology may be a big research project right now, but there isn't anything on the horizon that will get them to where they need to be. Most of the tech research is in sub 1C rated batteries for things like full size cars. Something like this needs a 10C rating minimum if not a 20C rating. Unfortunately most of the upcoming technology can not handle drains that fast. Things tend to go "Boom!". When you do something small, and even 6" x 3" is small, you have very serious power vs weight issues. It all comes down to issues of power density, and nothing exists today that will give it to them as they would need..

So right now these guys need to figure out:
1) A new light weight material that can lock rigid but also bend as needed in multiple directions.
2) A new battery technology that allows them to get the power they need, for a 6 axis gyro, 4 motors, control board,a RX, a HD camera and some sort of VTX while reducing weight. How long it powers all of that would be open, but if it is under 10 minutes I think people would be a little disgruntled. Right now people are wanting the video quads to get about 30-45 minutes of flight time on the 5200+mAh batteries.
3) Write code that allows them to analyze video in real time so as to provide object tracking and avoidance without lag while capable of running on a smartphone. It would also need to return to home when the battery runs low. That would be a little tricky on a cliff face, or if you are riding a bike through a forest. Another issue is that they tilt the camera down, they don't say if this is actuated, or done by hand, but it could lead to serious issues with programming object avoidance if you can't see anything above you.
4) Since they show the image as HD on the phone screen, they would also need to come up with a new way to broadcast HD video wirelessly. Right now that system costs $40K and is rather large.

All in all it is a dream product that people are going to get suckered into funding it. Some tech may come out of it that could be monetized, but I don't see the item coming out in this format, at least not in the next 3-5 years. You'd be better off going with AirDog.

Just tap into the undersea fibre, there are repeaters every few miles.

Seriously though, I never thought about it. My guess would be not very well, and after a quick search I found this video - http://youtu.be/49K2hjV9OOY ("How to make your GoPro WiFi working underwater"), so there wouldn't be a need for such an "antenna extender" if WiFi did work well enough under water.

Any submarine experts on the sift??
I suspect that very low frequencies could work, but there is probably a max depth below which they couldn't communicate well.