Need
a Drone that can fit into your top pocket….and I mean LITERALLY in your top
pocket? Become a paparazzi by spying on someone at a moment’s notice?
Then
maybe the Kickstarter project by inventor Jacob Lam and his company Aericam called
the Anura
Pocket Drone is worth US$275 as started in the article “Spy
on the fly with this pocket-size Drone”, published October 28, 2014 12:15
PM PDT by Michael Franco, CNET News and “Anura
is a pocket-sized flying camera Drone you can take with you wherever you go”,
published October 4, 2014 By Jason Hahn, Digital
trends.
He's
not new to the world of Drones, having founded a company called AeriCam that built a US$12,500 sexocopter
(six rotors) that are used mostly in film-making.
The
Anura
Pocket Drone is smartphone small, with dimensions of 7.62 x 12.7 cm (3 x 5
in) and weighing only 113.40g (4 oz). With a flight range of some 18.29m to
27.43m (60 ft to 90 ft) it gets some 12 to 16 minutes worth of flight time on a
single charge, which takes about 40 minutes via its included USB Cable.
Interestingly,
this Drone can take still photo or video
with sound and stream them live via Wi-Fi Direct to your smartphone, be it
Apple iPhone or Google Android, making this as must-have for the amateur spy.
Thus
far inventor Jacob Lam and his company Aericam kickstarter campaign have
garnered some 716 backers, who have pledged some US$147,509, far exceeding the
targeted amount of US$100,000. Unfortunately, the Project was cancelled on
Wednesday December 17th 2014 by the Aericam Team, as the manufacturer they’d
secured for the product had backed out for reasons not specified.
Probably
they and the manufacturer came under pressure to cancel the project, it would
technically place military grade Drone and camera technology in the hands of
the average citizen, making Drones as common as smartphones?
So
he’s now turned his expertise in Drone design and 3D Printing to making Drones
that are small enough to fit inside of your pocket and be controllable via
smartphone in a regular customer’s hand. Albeit a lover of innovation myself, I
somehow don’t see much good coming out of this.
US$275 Anura Pocket Drone
- Why Mini-Drones getting smaller and inexpensive in the Year of the Robot
Sheep
Please
note that by no means is this the first mini Drone I've come across. The US$265
Zano mini-Drone is equally small as noted in my blog article entitled
“US$265
Zano mini-Drone - Your personal Paparazzi shooting Videos and taking Selfies”.
An
even more expensive option if the Pocket Drone that costs some US$495 as stated
in the article “Pocket
Drone: Collapsible, camera-toting copter costs $495”, published January 16,
2014 9:33 AM PST by Amanda Kooser, CNET News.
What’s'
significant here is the fact that this Drone design is collapsible like the
Airdog Drone as detailed in my blog article
entitled “AirDog
Personal Drone – Action Selfie-Drone with an attachment for a GoPro Camera”.
It’s
also small and able to literally fit into your top pocket, having dimensions no
bigger than a smartphone. The Anura
Pocket Drone rotors neatly fold
up into a 7.62 x 12.7 cm (3 x 5 in) inconspicuous smartphone sized brick.
This
design is a significant innovation that suggests that Drones for commercial
usage will potentially get smaller and interested individuals can hire fleets
of mini Drones to be used for personal surveillance.
Suddenly
those Americans who may be getting jobs in the future as Drone Pilots making
some US$100,000 per year may not all be flying large model plane sized Drones
as pointed out blog
article entitled “FAA
to allow Commercial Drones in 2015 - US$100,000 per year for 100,000 Drone
Pilot jobs for the next five years”. Law Enforcement or even Newspapers may
start hiring persons to remotely spy on people using mini-Drones that only cost
US$275.
So
albeit this is a leap in innovative design, I suspect we may not have seen how
small or how low the price of mini-Drones that can be purchased by the consumer
can really get and deliver the same quality images, video and sound like an
expensive mini-military Drone. Mini-Drones, smaller and inexpensive, may be the
new personal Robot, making 2015 potentially the year of the Robotic Sheep.
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