drones

A robotics company has unveiled a new drone that flies by itself and acts as your personal videographer.

“Lily” is described on the company’s website as the “world’s first throw-and-shoot camera.”

You place a tracking device on whatever you want the drone to follow, throw it up into the air when you’re ready to starting filming, and Lily will take it from there.

The camera shoots 1080p HD video, can snap pictures and also uses “computer vision” to monitor you. And unlike other drones, Lily will also record and sync audio through the tracking device.

The promotional video above shows the device in action, which looks pretty cool, although it probably takes a while to build up the courage to throw your expensive new gadget off a bridge.

The drone is waterproof and also floats, however, so if the 20 minute battery time expires while over a body of water, you won’t have to go sprinting after it like these guys did.

Lily was invented back in 2013 by two students at UC Berkeley, Antoine Balaresque and Henry Bradlow, but was officially launched Tuesday.

“It’s not the future of drones,” writes Wired, who got to test out the device. “It’s more like the future of the point-and-shoot.”

It’s currently $499 during the pre-sale, but the price will eventually go up to $999.

Drones are pretty cool but in the wrong hands they can do some pretty scary things, like spy on people or drop any number of harmful things on an unsuspecting public. Or this:



The point is, it's important to have a defense against drones. That's why the Dutch National Police force have started training eagles to take down drones and look awesome doing it. These birds of prey are the perfect weapon to take down a drone because of their super strong talons and the fact that they can fly.

The only problem so far is that the drone blades could still injure the eagles which means someday our future may include armored eagles.

Quick: What’s the worst part about Amazon?

That’s right! Sometimes things can take, like, a day or two to get to you. But what if you need that loofah right now?

via Reddit

Don’t worry, Prime’s got you, bro.

Amazon Prime Air, the drone driven delivery service that Amazon has been quietly testing for the last few years, made it’s first delivery a week ago. The contents? Nobody knows, but the delivery was successful. They even made a video commemorating the event.

via Cantho TV

So apparently, while we’ve been waiting for days for loofahs, like suckers, Amazon was running a private test project in the Cambridge area of England, which doesn’t look like it has any places where you can get loofahs. The company set up a small, nondescript fulfillment center, which doubles as a hanger for their electrically-powered drone fleet. Flying over the lush, England countryside, the drone, probably carrying a loofah or something, completed its mission to one of its two customers.

The company promises that the program will be expanding from here. Hopefully, soon, we’ll live our fantasy of looking into the sky and seeing an army of drones carrying an army of loofahs.

As part of a recent story for "60 Minutes," filmmaker Danny Cooke shot this haunting footage of Chernobyl and the abandoned city of Prypiat in Ukraine.

The nuclear meltdown was 30 years ago, but the reactor, which was simply buried in a tomb, is still very dangerous. According to the CBS report, there is a project underway to come up with a more permanent solution, but it's three quarters of a billion dollars short of its goal.

Cooke calls it "one of the most interesting and dangerous places I've been."

Make sure to turn on the captions for this one!

WARNING: Volume.

Welcome to the future!

Now you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your own home to get your nicotine fix.

Watch as a drone does all the legwork for these guys, flying a pack of cigarettes straight into their window.

No exercise required.