GoPro Could Go Robo With Consumer Drones Launching Next Year

GoPro is working on a lineup of consumer drones to supplement its action camera lineup, according to the Wall Street Journal. The new product category would offer aerial drones like the Parrot Bebop and DJI Phantom and Inspire 1. The drones would reportedly retail in the $500 to $1,000 range, and come with GoPro action camera tech onboard, which is a natural fit given that outfitting drones with GoPros is already a popular option among hobbyists and videographers.

Drone sales could help GoPro diversify its product lineup, too – right now it has the majority of its eggs in one basket, with its action camera line. GoPro has done a terrific job of creating a vibrant first-party accessory lineup to accompany its core camera offerings, but many established camera makers are entering the market, or else focusing on improving their existing efforts. GoPro has made the right moves to maintain its leadership, with a new entry-level Hero camera that costs only $129.99, but achieving an early foothold in the burgeoning consumer drone market could make a lot of sense, given its existing popularity in that realm.

WSJ’s information pegs the launch window for these devices at “late next year,” which means I likely wouldn’t anticipated seeing them ahead of holiday 2015. GoPro will also have to offer something that differentiates it from the competition – both Parrot and DJI, two market leaders in consumer aerial drones, have launched next-generation hardware with advanced camera features, including advanced onboard software image stabilization and 4K recording. Drone-makers like DJI also seem to be increasingly interested in including their own camera hardware built-in to drones, which likely allows them to up the average asking price.

GoPro can stand out not only by promoting the use of its tried-and-tested industry-leading action cam tech, but also by offering price benefits compared to some of its potential competitors. The DJI Inspire 1 retails for $2,800, for instance, so if GoPro can offer optics with similar quality on drones that retail for less than half, it could stand to grab a much wider market.

We’ve reached out to GoPro for comment and will update if we receive any additional information.

How To Hide Text In Microsoft Word 2007, Reveal It & Protect It

Sometimes what we hide is more important than what we reveal. Especially, documents with sensitive information, some things are supposed to be ‘for some eyes only’. Such scenarios are quite common, even for the more un-secretive among us. You want to show someone a letter composed in MS Word, but want to keep some of the content private; or it’s an official letter with some part of it having critical data. As important as these two are, the most common use could involve a normal printing job. Many a time we have to print different versions of a document, one copy for one set of eyes and others for other sets. Rather than creating multiple copies and therefore multiple printing jobs, what if we could just do it from the same document? That too, without the hassle of repeated cut and paste. We can, with a simple feature in MS Word – it’s just called Hidden and let me show you how to use it to hide text in Microsoft Word 2007. It’s a simple single click process. Open the docum...

Boom, the startup that wants to build supersonic planes, just signed a massive deal with Virgin

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Fun Tools to Translate Your Name into Japanese Calligraphy

Japanese calligraphy is an artistic writing style of the Japanese language. Its Chinese origins can be traced back to the twenty-eighth century BCE. Calligraphy found its way into Japanese culture in 600 CE and is known as the karayo tradition. For Westerners, calligraphy is forever fascinating. However, it takes years to learn how to properly draw the signs. Two basic principles must be known to understand Japanese writing: there are different writing styles and different alphabets. Kaisho for example, is a writing style most commonly used in print media. Tensho on the other hand is used in signatures. Other writing styles are Reisho, Gyosho and Sousho. The alphabets include Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Katakana is used for writing foreign words. It can also serve to highlight words, in analogy to capital letters as we know them from the Roman / Latin alphabet (Romaji in Japanese). Each Kanji character has a meaning of its own, while Hiragana or Katakana characters merely repres...

Kiran Upadhyay

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