Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | TuneIn | RSS | More
I was back on air this morning with Mark Murphy and James Hazell to talk about drones and the immense rise in their popularity.
With popularity comes a degree of public worry and a much larger degree of press coverage. Should drones be licensed? Should people need to take a proficiency test to use them? All of this was covered on BBC Radio Suffolk this morning along with interviews with The Civil Aviation Authority and local pilots.
Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles come in all shapes and sizes and can range in price from £10 to literally thousands. Many of the more expensive semi professional drones have ‘Geo Fencing’ which stops the drones from flying in banned areas or ‘No Fly Zones’.
Of course it is possible to build your own drone. Kits are widely available and many people have built their own drones from scratch using light weight computers such as the Raspberry Pi. In this case, no licensing is going to stop the production of these kinds of drones and increasingly advanced techniques such as GPS ‘way point’ route planning means that the pilot does not need to be in radio contact during the flight and therefore distances of 7km possible before battery charging is necessary.
Currently in the UK, I can’t see how any ‘proficiency’ testing can be brought in being, it would be far too costly and reliant of the purchaser of the drone. Tracking the drones is equally difficult without elaborate (and expensive) tracking transmitter/receivers being added to the drone.
Consequently, it lays with the manufacturers of these devices to ensure that their equipment is safe, easy to use, legal and abides by any global no fly zones.
I will be reviewing the Parrot Bebop 2 camera drone very soon, so stay ‘tuned’.
In the words of Deep Purple; “The Nights Are Closing In”, and with it the increase of Seasonal Affective Disorder or S.A.D. which affects around 3-6% of the UK’s population.
If you live in the UK, you will have noticed the sudden change in temperature over the past couple of days, whilst this time a few of weeks ago we were basking in warmer than normal October, are now plunged into the depths of winter.
The gloves I tried were standard knitted type with the addition of silver woven in. The silver gives conductivity and allows the electrical signals from your fingers to travel through the glove material onto your touch screen device. Not only that, the palm side of the gloves had rubber dots attached meaning that even the most slippery phone would stay secure in your hand.