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- Hacker News
- noise, autonomy are real constraints. And the wind resistance is a safety critical issue. To make it wind resistant you need to increase the drone's power/weight ratio which works against battery life/autonomy and weight (more battery, more weight) This is a nice technical experiment but cannot work as a general public product in my opinion (I build drones since 2013 and know this topic in depth)by hdorchy
- That's cute. They need to be able to deal with other flying umbrellas nearby, if this is to be a product, of course.
This would probably sell in Shenzhen.
by Animats - >what was supposedly a small project ended up big and complicated
Welcome to the drone world! So many moving parts and one tiny mistake, you end up losing a $60k drone in the ocean (true story!)
That being said, regulations prevent flying drones of any size above people, unless the drone is high to certain altitude, because of all the dangers that bring, a small issues and the props will harm them.
Cool project tho!
by tamimio - Better than losing the expense vehicle prototype and the pilot as well.by projektfu
- The kid would appear to have a future job opportunity at Cyberdyne Systems.by SoftTalker
- Bonus: free hairdryer!by mlmonkey
- And drenches them in soundby 4b11b4
- The usecase requirements for an umbrella are not just hovering over the person, and I suspect even that core requirement might not be met in windy conditions.
The other important specs are its weight and space requirement, handling requirement, cost, ease of operation. If it regressed in all these specs compared to the standard umbrella, then it already failed to be an innovation.
by zkmon - Lacking a bit of sleep, I initially read this as “anonymous flying umbrella follows and shields users from rain” which certainly intrigued me more than the actual title.by beaker52
- That would piss me off so badly! Wanting to get rained on, get soaked to the bone, and then some &@^# hoverella prevents that from happening. Aargh!by RetroTechie
- Following the Ukraine war has basically made me flinch at the sight and sound of drones.
- I think this is in the category of excess application of technologyby zkmon
- consider captain america, perhaps an autonomous flying riot shield that protects, and strikes out.by rolph
- I don't know - I got an automatic garbage can that not only opens and closes, it also ejects the garbage bag when it is full and vacuums in another one into place.
today's luxury is tomorrow's necessity.
things get normalized. pop-up ads, selfies, subscriptions, the cybertruck...
by m463 - I saw this on Facebook before I saw it here. While it bears a superficial resemblance to 1000s of clickbaity tech stunts this one really delighted me. Some of these should be edited into a remastered release of Blade Runner.by Zigurd
- IMO it's worth watching the video rather than reading someone's writeup of it. My favorite part is this (written) list of everything that went wrong [1] ... and how much of it is due to the intersection of hardware, software, vendors, and linux
- > and how much of it is due to the intersection of hardware, software, vendors, and linux
They should have used Apple hardware.
by amelius - That's useless as a product, fun as a project.
I don't even like carrying the smallest of folding umbrellas around in case it might rain. Then if it does, this thing will hover so far above and away that you get wet anyway optimistically saving up to 50% of raindrops. 50% wet is still wet. If I have an umbrella I hold it close over my head unless I'm covering someone walking with me.
by karmakaze