• friend_of_satan@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    I kinda hate this. What I’d really like is the option to turn it on or off. I live near an airport airspace boundary and it’s nice to have that wall keeping me from straying into airspace I’m not authorized for, but at the same time, sometimes the drone freezes and won’t come back, so it’d be great to be able to get full control back temporarily.

    Their reasoning is to give responsibility back to the pilot. A responsible pilot might want that guard rail. Having it as an option only makes sense.

    • CluckN@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      DJI probably wants to avoid lawsuits. I can imagine anyone caught flying in these zones can blame their software.

      • friend_of_satan@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        Yeah, and doesn’t want to pay people to maintain that feature. It makes sense for them. Still, that feature and their maps were awesome. I hope they don’t stop updating their maps that show the boundaries because IMHo they’re better than anything else, though I think they may not meet FAA requirements. All the FAA maps I’ve seen look so primitive and have seemingly contradictory information.

  • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    DJI voluntarily created its geofencing feature, so it makes a certain degree of sense that the company would get rid of it now that the US government no longer seems to appreciate its help, is blocking some of its drone imports, calls DJI a “Chinese Military Company,” and has started the countdown clock on a de facto import ban.

    That sounds exactly like how Trump does business, tit for tat and quid pro quos… thats also why Zuck is acting out - gonna be a wild 4 years

  • seathru@lemmy.sdf.org
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    13 hours ago

    They were about the only hobbyist level drone manufacturer that was doing any sort of geofencing at all. Unsurprising they stopped when none of the other companies saw repercussions for not doing it.

    • potatopotato@sh.itjust.works
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      11 hours ago

      They’re the only hobbyist manufacturer with any scale. If you look at the Dedrone stats it’s just entirely the DJI show followed by AUTEL by a mile and then DIY stuff. The DIY drones can be built from anything and can be trivially designed to avoid surveillance so you’re not gonna get anywhere with them anyway.

  • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    So, just like how pretty much every other drone manufacturers drones already work. Somehow people only give DJI shit over this and develop a curious blind spot about everybody else.

    It is trivially easy for anyone with thumbs to kit-build a drone with no regulatory compliance whatsoever, in nearly any size, with absurd range and capabilities, for just a few hundred dollars. Despite that state of affairs having been the case for years, this has mysteriously failed to cause the Earth to fall out of its orbit into the sun.

    • potatopotato@sh.itjust.works
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      12 hours ago

      IDK, most of the kits require soldering (because the industry is fundamentally braindead) and if you go look at the various online communities, you’ll quickly see that this is one hell of a filter.

          • lud@lemm.ee
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            9 hours ago

            Yeah lead free solder is perfectly fine.

            Where I live, lead solder is even illegal to sell and buy unless you have a permit which is impossible to get for individuals

            • potatopotato@sh.itjust.works
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              9 hours ago

              Interesting, I haven’t heard about that.

              For systems that…may experience some degree of vacuum…it’s common to use lead solder still because it doesn’t tin whisker so unfortunately it’s still around for some of the stuff I’ve worked on.

        • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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          8 hours ago

          Same here, but I’d still be pretty annoyed if I had to do it to put together a drone, it’s a pain in the ass.

          • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            I find it interesting more than anything else.

            In high school electronics we also used a tesla coil (that can kill you if you touch the wrong place) so they disconnected the mains cord so it had to be rewired prior to use to keep us safer.

            They taught us how to wire plugs the following week…

              • MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net
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                8 hours ago

                Middle school for me. Was about a month of machine shop. We built a breadboard, demonstrated the difference between series and parallel using light bulbs, that kind of thing.

                • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world
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                  7 hours ago

                  Did half the class also make tazers after learning what a capacitor does, which wasn’t three best thing to know with wooden desks…

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago
      1. so what if no other manufacturers do it? Maybe they should be forced to.

      2. the hyperbole at the end of your comment is not necessary or helpful. We literally just saw a drone ground a firefighting plane in Los Angeles, so we know they can cause major problems at the worst possible times. Maybe it’s not a big deal on an everyday basis, but in disasters like the Los Angeles Fires of course more idiot content creators than usual are going to have their drone in the air collecting footage.

      3. more and more people are getting drones so there are only going to be more and more problems as they grow in popularity.

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Replace the plastic blades with sharpened metal ones, and you got yourself an anti-personnel terrorism machine.

    • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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      7 hours ago

      So is a riding lawn mower. Or a car. The sun can kill you. As can weak ventilation. You could be bitten by a spider, or poisoned by bad food. An aneurysm could take you any second. Death haunts you every day and night, and there is never a guarantee that you’ll wake up any time you rest your eyes.

      But sure, drones are the threat.

      • Ace@feddit.uk
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        5 hours ago

        What is your point? That there are already a variety of ways people can die so therefore nobody should be worried about people creating new (easier?) ways?

        • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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          2 hours ago

          You think forging and sharpening custom blades that are capable of lifting a drone and maintaining enough lift while cutting through human flesh to keep operating…you think that’s the easier way? Buddy you can kill someone with a sharpened pencil.

          If they said “strap a bomb to the drone” it wouldn’t be so comically stupid and it would be easier.

          Finally, there’s just not much of a point in making up a new thing to be vaguely scared of.

  • moncharleskey
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    13 hours ago

    You know, they’ve been dropping a lot of ordinance with cobbled together drones in Ukraine. Just sayin, for no reason in particular reason.

  • Etterra@discuss.online
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    12 hours ago

    This will last exactly as long as it takes somebody to fly a drone into the side of the White House. Not any kind of special drone, just some idiot trying to get a cool shot for their YouTube channel.

      • potatopotato@sh.itjust.works
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        11 hours ago

        I’ve done some work related to the anti drone systems and I assure you even the best of the best is an absolute joke against all but the most naive operator. The ultimate drone defense right now is somewhere between magnum #6 bird and #4 turkey shot :/

        • If said work was more than a year ago then it is significantly outdated.

          Watch perun’s videos covering drone warfare in Ukraine it gives a good overview of what has been tried and its effective.

          The us government absolutely can shoot down a couple hundred dollar drone its just a matter of if they need to use a half a million dollar intercepted to do it.

          • potatopotato@sh.itjust.works
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            9 hours ago

            Ah a fellow perun addict.

            Honestly I think he oversold the effectiveness of the systems. The work I did is still ongoing so I’m up to speed on the available systems, though mostly on the RF side. If you watch the stuff coming out of Ukraine the drones aren’t really being impeded all that much and if you know how to use ardupilot and selectively enable your data link you can pretty much get away with whatever you want because the US isn’t gonna allow anyone to jam GPS right next to multiple major airports. If you want to avoid even relying on GPS there are starting to be mature solutions out there too.

  • venusaur@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    DJI pilots are either very skilled professionals or inconsiderate wannabe photographers. Freestyle quad pilots rule.

    • potatopotato@sh.itjust.works
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      11 hours ago

      Yeah the FPV community is way better because they actually have to know what they’re doing mostly. They’re mildly noncompliant but only regarding the regs that shouldn’t apply to the size of stuff they fly; RID, registration, and BVLOS don’t make sense for airframes lighter than a goose. They tend to avoid other people because they understand the public is wary of drones and they’re wary of Karens and untrained cops. They put far more hours on their airframes than any of the other amateur operators but every single time I’ve been near a drone doing something dangerous, stupid, or annoying it was a DJI.

      • venusaur@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Yup. Of course there are some risky fpv pilots but it’s always a DJI user, I won’t even call them pilot, that’s doing something stupid and/or dangerous and ends up on the news.

  • N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    13 hours ago

    “We’re looking to expand into the terrorist market. We see it as a growth industry given the mounting civil unrest all over the world.”