Send In The Drones: The Lily Camera Drone Is Capable Of Flying Itself
Yes, you read that right. Apparently, the Lily Camera drone is capable of flying itself. Should you want to leave Earth before the inevitable machine takeover, we wouldn’t blame you. Still here? This device is kind of cool when considered from the right perspective. Yahoo mentioned that the intended use is for sports enthusiasts to be able to capture their stunts without needing someone to man the camera, and in that regard it’s easy to see how the Lily Camera would be useful to that particular niche. When you put aside their negative possibilities, drone technology has many positive sides to it too, like re-planting fallen rainforest trees, for instance.
Given that even GPS has become pretty sophisticated these days, the Lily Camera could also be useful for taking bird’s eye view pictures of terrain to use as information for both print and online maps. It might one day even have more scientific purposes like aiding in the study of what’s below the surface of Earth, but this is pure speculation at the moment. Engadget mentioned that the camera literally just needs to be thrown in the air to launch, and will then follow you along your route. Even more amazingly, the site mentioned it’s small enough to fit into a backpack.
Interested? You can grab the Lily Camera at a special pre-sale price of $499 from now until June 1; after that date, the price shoots up to $999. The site also mentions that the camera will start to ship in February 2016. As of late, companies like Amazon and Google have also been looking into the applications of drones to use them for delivering packages right to a customer’s front door. Amazon’s site promises a drone delivery system called Prime Air that will get packages to the customer in 30 minutes or less using unmanned drones, while Google has been turning heads over the fact that it’s snatching up small robotics companies left and right.
It’s safe to say that, even in the new-ish field of drones, the Lily Camera is pretty revolutionary. In a world where dependency on machines is ever-growing, unmanned drones seem to be the next logical step. It’s predicted that pretty soon there could be drones arriving right at your doorstep, whether for the purposes of surveillance, dropping off packages, or beaming ideas into your head (just kidding about that last one). One day, there may even be drones or robots in some form who can drive cars without the need of human input (the technology is already thought to be in the works).
The pace at which drone technology is evolving is both awesome and slightly creepy, especially when you consider that the military is actively using them as tools for surveillance and missile strikes. They do have plenty of positive (and really creative) applications, too though; as with pretty much any other technology, it’s all in how the drones will be used.
[Image Credit: Gizmodo.com]
