14 DAY TRIAL // Flying drones, those small quadcopters that you see on and off on TV and the Internet, can have many uses, especially if you can get them to act semi-independently.
The Iris+ was made for this, possessing the ability to fly under its own power and direction, even keeping track of you and following you around like a particularly attached bird. All it takes is having a GPS device on you, which every phone and tablet possesses these days. Even smartwatches can fill the part.
A camera is used to keep you in sight, and the drone even has a gimbal it automatically uses to keep you always in the center of the image.
The quadcopter was made by 3D Robotics and has another ability: it can accept flight paths plotted by you. So you could, say, sketch a flight path using a tablet or smartphone app, after which the drone will trace that path exactly.
The 3D Robotics Iris+ drone can also be controlled by a joystick, of course.
The Iris+ drone can stay in the air for 20 minutes on battery power (15 minutes with gimbal and camera attached), which is a lot better than the original Iris' 5-6 minutes.
Iris+ costs $750 / €581, but the gimbal and GoPro cameras pull it up to $1,300 / €1,007.
