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Not much info yet but at least we know the launch date:

Woodman also revealed the company is working on a quadcopter — or drone, as they’re more commonly known. He declined to share any details about its design and pricing, but it’s slated to launch in the first half of 2016 and will be aimed at consumers. 

“It’s incredible to see our world from new perspectives. It’s a real ‘Oh my God’ moment,” said Woodman. “We did that with our GoPro cameras, and we see a similar opportunity in the quadcopter market. It’s something that’s in our DNA, and we are excited about it across the company.”

Though it’s working on its own hardware, GoPro plans to continue working with other drone manufacturers to provide cameras and software solutions for aerial video and photography.

“We recognize that consumers want choice,” said Woodman. “Our primary focus is enabling great content, and however they want to do that, we’re excited to be part of that.”

Woodman also announced virtual reality accessory:

The first is the Six-Camera Spherical Array. The ball-shaped accessory mount can accommodate six Hero4 cameras positioned in different directions to capture high-resolution images and video for virtual reality. The recorded video and pictures can then be stitched together using Kolor, the virtual reality software company GoPro acquired in April, to create one unified 6K spherical image.

The resulting video can be viewed on VR headsets like Oculus, Google Cardboard and Microsoft HoloLens. It can also be viewed on your smartphone or PC using the Kolor app or YouTube 360. If viewing on a mobile device, you can physically turn around to look in any direction — up, down, left, right. On your computer’s browser, you can use your cursor to get different views. Here’s an example video GoPro shot for the Code Conference.

more:

http://recode.net/2015/05/27/gopros-next-adventure-virtual-reality-drones/

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Comments

  • I'd rather see GoPro put some effort in to coming up with a better lens with less distortion. 

  • maybe they will finally incorporate a usable image triggering interface!

  • Without DJI or 3DR controller i don't see it working perfect. I'm very interested how will GoPro do with a drone :)

  • Based on the price of Go Pro I assume this GoPro quad will go for at least $1500  ... :)

  • Can you imagine bayonet lenses so you could pick the focal length, RAW output with RC control. Oops I just described the Blackmagic micro.

  • I think they will put out their own drone (maybe use a 3dr controller though). I would imagine they would create a new camera for the drone too. Change the lens, strip the battery to save weight. They have the capabilities to build a drone around an industry leading camera platform. I would expect this to very easily challenge/beat the Phantom 3 and Solo.

  • It sounds like they want the drone to be an accessory to the GoPro camera which implies that it wont be integrated like DJI does. I think they will still support 3rd parties like the SOLO but I wonder if there will be features that are only available on the GoPro brand quads. Also, I wonder who will be making the drones for them, I cant imaging that GoPro is going to do it on their own.

  • Soon as DJI came out with their own camera I figured this would happen.

  • Just saw this news also.  Very interesting.  What does this mean to 3DR and SOLO since it is tightly coupled with  GoPro?  "Lily" seems like a perfect platform for the GoPro crowd.  I wonder if GoPro will just buy out 3DR for the SOLO or buy Lily or put out their own?  I am wondering from a business perspective. But then again 2016 is a lifetime away in the drone business.

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