Top 5 Best Drones of 2017

From youtube:
December 29, 2016

Nominees Announced for 2017 NYC Drone Film Festival

World-class event to be held at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts and Liberty Science Center March 17 - 19, 2017

droneblog.com
By Droneblog Editor
February 16, 2017


NEW YORK, NY, Feb. 15, 2017 — Nominations have been announced for the 2017 New York City Drone Film Festival, the world’s first and largest film festival dedicated to works filmed by drones. The complete list of nominees can be found below.

The festival, with headline sponsors RED and Freefly Systems, will be held March 17-19, 2017 at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts and the Liberty Science Center. Tickets are available by visiting www.nycdronefilmfestival.com.

“This year’s films not only dazzle the senses with their beautiful imagery and high-flying acrobatics,” said Randy Scott Slavin, founder and festival director. “They take us to far-away places, examine social issues like climate change and the Dakota Pipeline, and riff on pop culture. One of them even features a team of drones making a cake. With films originating everywhere from the ocean to the desert to the skate park, the 2017 festival is our most diverse one yet.”

“Drone camerawork has already attained new realms of astonishment,” said David Pogue, founder of Yahoo Tech. “What’s so cool about the New York City Drone Film Festival is that it culls the best of that brilliance, and presents to the world the best of the best. I thought I’d seen it all. I was wrong.”

Awards will be presented in 13 categories including Best Narrative Film, Best News/Documentary Film, Best Extreme Sports Film, and Best Dronie, a selfie taken with a drone.

A series of master classes focused on various aspects of drone filmmaking taught by industry leaders has also been announced. Visit www.nycdronefilmfestival.com for the schedule.

2017 NYC Drone Film Festival Nominees

NARRATIVE

Drone Star Wars
Corridor Digital (USA)

The Mountain Within
Philippe Woodtli (Switzerland)

Rendez-vous
Yan Giroux (Canada)

X-FACTOR

Mixed Motion Project
Ilko Iliev and Marin Kafedjiiski (Bulgaria)

Caos en la ciudad
Roberto Hernández (Mexico)

Balance
Tim Sessler (USA)

NEWS/DOCUMENTARY

#NoDAPL: Drones Monitor North Dakota Police
Shadi Rahimi (USA)

Manabi 7.8
Juan Fernando Rojas (Ecuador)

Beauty & Bounty
Doug Armknecht (USA)

LANDSCAPE

An Aerial Perspective of Nordland
Michael Fletcher (Australia)

Perspective
Jay Worsley (USA)

Australia
Caspar Mazzotti (Australia)

EXTREME SPORTS

Moon Line
Frédéric Rousseau (France)

Sessions
Eric Sterman (USA)

Cala d’en Serra – Drone Parkour
Giles Campbell Longley and Kie Willis (United Kingdom)

Doonies 3: A Drone’s Eye View
Jake Yubeta (USA)

FREESTYLE/FPV

Drone Free Style
Rafael Paiva (USA)

Stone Eagle’s Flight
Gabriel Kocher (Switzerland)

One Night in Atlanta
Johnny Schaer (USA)

Fresh Squeeze
Robert McIntosh (USA)

ARCHITECTURE

Byzantine
Joris Favraud (France)

Dizi
David Etienne Durivage (Canada)

From Inside to Outside
Stephane Aboudaram (France)

FEATURING DRONES

Drone Cake Baking
Lucas Zanotto (Norway)

Light in Motion
Daniel Riley and Henning Sandstrom (USA)

Dron’t You Love Me?
Madeleine Dudley (Australia)

DRONIE

Cape Town Dronie
Matthew Wade (USA)

A Man (Almost Two) and a Dog
Mauro Pagliai (Italy)

Family Island
Florian Fischer (Germany)

SHOWREEL

Skynamic Pilot Reel 2017
Skynamic (Germany)

KopterCam 2017 Showreel
Koptercam (Finland)

ThisIsTilt Showreel 2017
Tilt (Norway)

STILL PHOTOGRAPHY

Climate Change Claims a Lake and an Identity
Josh Haner/The New York Times (USA)

Kim on the Rocks
Karim Iliya (USA)

Lost in Foliage
Dirk Dallas (USA)

Sea and Salt
Wellington Rodrigues (Germany)

The Tree of Life
Michael Bishop (USA)

Drone Runner
Gerard Juarez (USA)

About the NYC Drone Film Festival

The NYC Drone Film Festival is the world’s first and largest event exclusively dedicated to celebrating the art of drone cinema. The festival provides a platform for aerial filmmakers to showcase their work, shot anywhere in the world, emphasizing innovative storytelling, flight technique and aesthetic beauty. The festival offers an international platform for filmmakers from every corner of the globe to exhibit their work in front of industry professionals and the drone cinema fan community.

Read more:

http://droneblog.com/2017/02/16/nominees-announced-for-2017-nyc-drone-film-festival-sponsored-by-red-and-freefly-systems/

Infographic: Drone buying guide in 2017

droneblog.com
February 8, 2017

 


The consumer drone market added a ton of new products in the last year, and people need an updated guide to face all the chaos.

Chinese markets exploded with so called beginner drones for cheaper prices, and that’s a very good thing.

However, if you’re new to this, it can be very overwhelming and we really don’t want you to drop off the thought of getting in the hobby.

Our friends at DronesBuyer.com created this drone infographic for 2017 that should help you focus on the most important points when buying a drone this year.

Although it’s dedicated mostly to people who want to buy their FIRST quadcopter, it can also be used as a guide for more advanced gear. This being said, I don’t recommend getting a cheap beginner drone with a camera on it, as it’s pretty useless for a quad that you should just use for learning how to fly.

Here are the main points underlined in the infographic below:
Safety and Durability – A MUST for beginners that are certain to crash the drone a lot (I still do it even now) It’s a normal part of life to fall down, but this way we make sure you are able to get up (and not hurt anybody)
Battery Life – Nobody wants to get in the action and finish it before you had the chance to even warm up. This is why a bigger battery life might come in handy.
Speed – No reason to stay for longer in the air if there’s no fun out of it. Hit that throttle… in a safe way.
Drone Portability – Just as I wrote this I thought about the new foldable drone from DJI (Mavic) and I can’t stress enough how important it is for ANY drone to be portable. But don’t worry, being bigger also comes with its advantages.

SOURCEDronesBuyer.Com

TAGS
beginner drones
buying guide
DJI Mavic
mini quadcopter

Read more:
http://droneblog.com/2017/02/08/infographic-drone-buying-guide-in-2017/

FiFish grabs the attentions, brings CES innovation award

thedronenews.com
January 8, 2017


BEIJING, Jan. 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — On Jan 5th, 2017, FiFish, Qiyuan Technology ‘s underwater drone, makes a brilliant appearance at the 50th CES Convention. Among over 3,600 products from 150 countries, FiFish has won the 2017 innovation award, and has become the only winner among its kind. FiFish is an important sponsor project from Taihuoniao technology.

CES innovation winner is getting lots of “likes” from Industrial Leaders

FiFish product



FiFish is the first underwater drone for consumer market, It fulfills the demands of customers with desires of underwater exploration, and provides a brand new way for photographers, diving and water sport lovers, and underwater explorers.

As a convention recognized internationally, CES’s awards are considered as ” the Olympic awards in consumer electronic industry”. After last year’s debut, FiFish has another “intimate contact” with this industry this year.

The innovation awarding FiFish caught the eyes of leaders in the many fields of industries. Dr. Weicheng Cui, the previous deputy chief designer who has designed one of the world’s deepest diving submersible “Jiao Long”, gave his full affirmation and praise upon FiFish’s design concepts and photographing ability. The first Chinese Hasselblad portrait and marine photographer, Mo Xie, has always paid close attention to the FiFish latest news, from the concept design all the way to product launching.

First to begin, setting the trend of popularizing ROV

Since the very beginning, mankind has never stopped exploring the Earth because our passion and curiosity for our homeland. On the other hand, exploring the ocean has meaningful purpose since the ocean takes an important role of environmental and climate change, origin of live, earthquake prediction; the list goes on.

Nowadays, there are countless drones that can fly in the sky, and yet only few can go under the water.

“71% of the earth is covered by ocean but only less than 5% of which has been explored. So far 12 people have walked on the moon; around 500 people have visited outer space, but there are only 3 people has been to the deepest ocean at Mariana Trench. The underwater world is still mysterious and it is time for us to rediscover the ocean”, said Chong Zhang, the founder and CEO of Qiyuan Technology.

In July of 2015, the team started the consumer underwater drone project, with the determination of reshaping the traditional ROV industry and the passion of exploring the ocean. And that is the origin of today’s Qiyuan Technology and the FiFish.

Mastering the core technology, Leading the new trend of ROV field

Fifish is the first attempt to bring military and industrial underwater drone into the consumer market; it is also the inspiration for people to explore the mysterious underwater world. It created a new market demand. Fifish has at least one year advance in progress compare to other products in the same field due to the developers’ anticipation and judgment for market. With this advantage, we not only accumulated a fully understanding of the industry, but also became a pioneer to leading the market.

Qiyuan Technology focuses on the key technology development and breakthrough for underwater drone. We have our own core technologies and algorithms, including state of art component design, robot operating system, video/data collection system, cloud processing and terminal application etc. FiFish equipped with the company’s independently researched and developed core components: underwater propeller system, camera and lighting system, control system, underwater communication system and real-time feedback system. It can stream the real-time high resolution video under the water. At the CES Convention, Qiyuan Technology has been working with Xiaomi VR team to provide VR devices for guests to experience mysterious underwater world, and immerse into the incomparable beauty of the deep sea.

A new ear of personal underwater exploration

At this year’s CES, Fifish gets all the attention from the variety of industries and potential partners. Zhang Chong, Founder and CEO of Qiyuan Technology, mentioned that the launch of Fifish has started a brand new way for personal underwater exploration, and lowered down the barrier for ocean explore. At the same time, the innovative technology has brought revolutionary changes to the industry’s application and expanding. We are working actively to bring more well-developed technology from consumer market to the marine fields; and establishing partnership with leading organizations all over the world on the key technologies for the marine field. We are convinced that we can bring meaningful revolutions for the world and put its application into widely uses.

Reports show that by the year of 2020, China’s unmanned submersible market will reach a total of 80 billion RMB every year, and 30 billion RMB for the military unmanned submersible market. And for the civilian unmanned submersible usage, there will be 43 billion for B2B market, with about 6 billion RMB for research and rescue, 13.7 billion for security monitoring , and up to 370 million for research. For personal diving companion unmanned submersible, there is also going to be 6 billion.

With this huge market availability, Qiyuan Technology is committed to create a new era for personal ocean exploration. With the usage of virtual reality, live video streaming and social media, we can let more people to understand the ocean, and start the exploration and protection of the ocean, this “last frontier” of our blue planet. And let the beautiful, embracing ocean inspire everyone who has passion of underwater exploration. With a dream like this and the mind of persistent, Qiyuan technology has gathered 10 million RMB investments from Taihuoniao technology, Wanqiang Li, the co-founder of Xiaomi Technology, and Kaifu Li, the founder of Sinnovation Ventures, and Rainbow Fish Technology.

SOURCE Taihuoniao

Read more at:

http://thedronenews.com/2017/01/08/fifish-grabs-the-attentions-brings-ces-innovation-award/

Why 2017 will be the year of drones

venturebeat.com
BEN MARCUS
DECEMBER 31, 2016

Image Credit: Shutterstock

2016 taught us a lot about drones and their potential to deliver benefits for consumers, communities, and businesses alike. Google and Chipotle tested burrito delivery on the campus of Virginia Tech, while cities nationwide turned to drones to help first responders, inspect bridges and roads, and monitor construction sites. We witnessed the launch of innovative products from Intel, Yuneec, DJI, Sensefly, and others — not to mention GoPro’s first drone. Through it all, we experienced changes in FAA regulations and the advent of Part 107, which has opened the skies for drone commerce, making once experimental drone operations completely routine.

And we’ve only scratched the surface. In 2017, we’re going to see drones come to the forefront of business, tech, and our daily lives. Let’s talk about what drones have in store for us next year.

Follow the money … away from venture capital

We’ll see VC investment in drones decline in 2017, but that doesn’t mean total investment will slow. Expect large enterprises like telecom companies and large consumer electronics brands to begin investing more seriously in the drone space — along with increased M&A activity and more strategic partnerships. More drone companies will prove they can generate revenue and will attract partners who can help them accelerate.

Big players will get into the game

Logistics companies like Amazon and DHL will start to put more and more drones in the air. Traditional retailers that have been developing drone strategies behind closed doors will announce their ideas for innovation and implementation, heating up the marketplace. Cloud players and corporate giants (think IBM or GE) will stake out expanded drone positions with long-term impacts for the entire industry. And Uber, after publishing its flying car white paper earlier this year, will convene its first “Elevate Summit” in 2017, bringing together a community of stakeholders that is looking to low-altitude airspace, not our roadways, for the future of mobility.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s 20,000 drones!

Today, we commonly see about 5,000 drones flying simultaneously around the world. With large consumer electronics, logistics, and telecom companies making major plays in the drone ecosystem, I predict that by the end of the year, that number will reach 20,000 simultaneous drone flights worldwide. That would represent a 400 percent increase next year.

Smart cities get even smarter

Many cities with “smart” inclinations are already considering what transportation and infrastructure will look like in 20, 50, and even 100 years — and are planning accordingly. These “smart government”-minded cities are investigating how unmanned aircraft could affect this future, and in 2017, we’ll see them make moves to establish themselves as top places for drones to do business. Next year, smart cities will invest in civic drone technology to be adopted by fire departments, police departments, and local administrators. And we might even see competition among the most connected cities as they try to attract the first drone deliveries to their communities.

Drones will be easier to buy and fly — and safer than ever

Prices for drones will continue coming down, even for drones with sophisticated features. The experience of flying a drone will become easier, especially as autonomous flight capabilities improve.

In 2017, the drone industry will build tools to help drones and their operators make accurate risk assessments, which can be used to identify safe flight plans, prevent accidents, and make drone flight even safer. In the U.S., we should see significant advancements on the road to Unmanned Traffic Management (the public-private partnership that will enable air traffic control and data exchange for millions of drones). Abroad, I expect we’ll see other countries open the skies for more automated flight beyond visual line of sight.

The bottom line: 2017 is the year of the drone

Whether we’re talking about who’s paying for them, who’s buying them, or how they are being used, drones will be pushed to the forefront of cultural, political, commercial, and consumer conversations in 2017. A shifting adoption landscape combined with new sources of funding and advanced improvements in technology should make 2017 a monumental year for the drone. I can’t wait to see what’s next.


Read more at:
http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/31/why-2017-will-be-the-year-of-drones/

Happy 2017

The FUTURE

 2016

 2017