Profiteering from Drone Hysteria

 

A Seattle Web site that resembles a supermarket tabloid has published a silly bit of drivel under the headline Worried about peeping flying drones? Defenses coming on line that links to the above YouTube video in which a voice full of teenage angst, complete with ominous background drumbeat, begs for funding by trying to frighten you about the inevitable hordes of drones that are about to cluster around your bathroom and bedroom windows like moths around a streetlight. Hi-tech props include a Parrot "drone" strapped to a laptop and a mockup of the proposed product, cleverly named "DroneShield," that appears to be a pack of cigarettes painted flat black. Now, all DroneShield supposedly will do is send you an email or text when it detects a drone in the vicinity, which it does by listening and comparing what it hears to an "open source" database. I'm not sure where the "shield" part comes in, though maybe it could be used like a fig-leaf. The accompanying text alternates between pathetic and hilarious, as do the comments on YouTube. Don't watch/read this thing with a mouthful of coffee!

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Comments

  • Male bees are called drones. Perhaps we all are failing to see the truly intended use of this.

  • Argh...darn mobile site making it difficult to reply.
  • Mikel-ange...I am allergic to bees. I had good cause to run. (: This thing guy is a modern snake-oil salesman.
  • This is laughable upon the revelation of the government spying on all phone calls and the internet via prism. if your head has been in the sand like an ostrich lately Google

    Edward Snowden

    These clowns should be more worried that Facebook, yahoo, Microsoft and Google and all USA phone calls already tapped by the government if there SO worried about privacy and GTFO my hobby =)

  • Moderator

    Can you imagine how rich a person could become if they were half the saleman this guy must be(?)

    Pure nonsense!

     

  • you mean things that are 1-2 feet away from the microphone.. which is how they make the profiles.. not something 400 feet up.

  • not to mention all the other environmental noise..  it might work in a enclosed apartment but outside with other noises likely doesn't work at all.

  • oh and nice false advertising.. this thing won't pick up a airfoil but just multi-copters.. however they use the drone plane to promote their product.. nice.  Also thinking that the altitude at which agencies fly is not something they are using for their signatures.. seems like they use the quad copter right on top of the microphone.. so I highly doubt that this will even work at altitude.. which at 400 feet won't be much to even pick up.   Also I highly doubt they have signatures from the devices that gov't agencies use that are in the 60k price range.

    Seems like a highly problematic toy and they likely will be sued for false advertising, basically overselling what it can/will do.

  • T3

    Next time you fly, look over your shoulder to look for the guy recording your copter with a microphone.

  • so by the time the mic picks up something I think the person sitting there would pretty obviously know it was a UAV overhead..  and having a signature database seems bad as a lot of drones are homemade that wouldn't have a signature.. and the home made ones I think would be the ones you would be more worried about. 

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