I have been watching the conversation here about chip, camera and drone companies. No one seems to have any measure of what the pushback may be from the community at large.
Well I recently had to submit to a hobbiest flying his very noisy drone over my little vacation spot. His wife finally grounded him (put that darn thing away) I was going to give her a medal.
Do none of you think that the hobby drone market, which I think is what GoPro is after will be legislated out of existence? Think selfie sticks and national parks for a start.
How many more instances like the drone that invaded the Open or the college stadium or the wild fires or the White House before the laws start clamping down.
A young man in CT armed one to show that he could. Took a couple of shots with it in his back yard.
How long before one carries some plastic c-4 into a crowd. You new I was going there.
Commercial works for me but how big is that market? How quickly can it be monetized?
Just saying.
Bruce
I have been watching the conversation here about chip, camera and drone companies. No one seems to have any measure of what the pushback may be from the community at large.
Well I recently had to submit to a hobbiest flying his very noisy drone over my little vacation spot. His wife finally grounded him (put that darn thing away) I was going to give her a medal.
Do none of you think that the hobby drone market, which I think is what GoPro is after will be legislated out of existence? Think selfie sticks and national parks for a start.
How many more instances like the drone that invaded the Open or the college stadium or the wild fires or the White House before the laws start clamping down.
A young man in CT armed one to show that he could. Took a couple of shots with it in his back yard.
How long before one carries some plastic c-4 into a crowd. You new I was going there.
Commercial works for me but how big is that market? How quickly can it be monetized?
Just saying.
Bruce,
RC airplanes have been around my entire life. They have a place. Drones will too. While completely illegal, white noise generators will pretty much ground a drone.
This actually bodes well for AMBA. High quality optics allows stand off video. In fact, if I were a marketing person for AMBA and my market was getting cut by low prices sub quality chips, I would start an ams race to make drones stand off further.
Second, how big is the commercial market?
How many miles of pipeline are there, how many square miles of wheat are planted, how any ships need air surveillance for fish spotting and piracy avoidance?
With the advent of Occulus Rift we will need not one, but 16 chips per drone.
Finally, we have only covered aerial drones. What about RoV equipent for sub sea completions, land drones for fire rescue, or even something simple as picking tomatoes.
We are all about drones, what about cars, with self driving cars we will need 360 video on each car, both for liability and for machine learning. We also need high quality video for connected home. Not sure how big those two will be? Google the AT&T initiative for connected car and connected home.
If you believe that low quality will be good enough, think about the fact that the U.K has been using face recognition in its surveillance systems for a couple of decades. This technology is now at the consumer level and can be deployed for integrated connected home systems. (This is way beyond security)
While AMBA could stumble like IvenSense, right now they seem to be firing on all cyclinders.
By the way, if I ever get good enough with programming I might try to build a fully redundant auto pilot with some AMBA sensors and IvenSense Sensors ran by some El Cheapo Rasbery PI s. Tie those to an Occulus Rift system and completely change the meaning of “air traffic controller”.
Cheers
Qazulight
Drones are not new, R/C helicopters have been around for years but were expensive and very hard to fly.
The new drones bring to to the masses.
And yes, they beg for regulation because many of the new masses flying them will be idiots.
And the bigger drones are plenty heavy enough to be dangerous even when not deliberately aimed at somebody.
Lacking a good place to shoot skeet I think shooting them down with small gauge birdshot would make a nice hobby in less densely populated areas… (#8 birdshot or smaller is not dangerous when falling if shot nearly vertical, it goes too slowly coming down due to air resistance. )Pointed at you up close it is another matter. As the scar on my hand from a careless bird hunter will attest.
Personally I see no difference between a Peeping Tom in person and one using a drone. Stay out of my yard. One I can chase away or hold for arrest, the only defense for the other is to shoot it down. Because by the time the cops get there it will be gone and untraceable. Anything that can be abused will be abused by some. We are already seeing that with drones.
At the minimum licensing of the operator will be rquired and all drones must carry identifying numbers and papers.This is already in existence for smaller far safer R/C aircraft in the city where I live. Likely they will be limited to prescribed areas too. Anybody relying on 300 million Americans each having a camera equipped drone is likely to be disappointed.
RC airplanes have been around my entire life. They have a place. Drones will too. While completely illegal, white noise generators will pretty much ground a drone.
While RC planes have been around for a long time, very few of them have cameras. Not only does this mean that one tends to fly them in place where one has long open line of sight, but one flying overhead is primarily a noise issue, not a privacy one. Plus, the move on, not hover. A drone with a reasonable camera completely changes the expectation of privacy.
See link below for the UK Civil Aviation Authority rules for drones. In particular, note that:
Drones fitted with cameras must not be flown:
within 50 metres of people, vehicles, buildings or structures, over congested areas or large gatherings such as concerts and sports events
Alex
Here is a TED talk about ‘the one thing Police track about you that should give you heartburn’ - or some title like that.
https://www.ted.com/talks/catherine_crump_the_small_and_surp…
It turns out the ‘one thing’ is license plate readers. Also mentioned are all kinds of remote sensing tech - military/spy stuff.
Is Amba’s tech in the license plate reader application?
I envision consumer license plate readers on cars, mailboxes, etc.
Putting the tech on a drone should be doable, too.
FWIW
ralph
Is Amba’s tech in the license plate reader application?
This is in AIOCF’s (AVIGILON) wheel house. They make a camera with software that allows license plates to be read and stored. Their camera SOC is supplied by Amba. 
Andy