Smile for the dronies!

From news gathering to checking crops, drones do all jobs. Now, welcome those that shoot selfies

June 25, 2014 02:31 pm | Updated 02:31 pm IST

Last week, two drones made their debuts on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter, both designed to allow people to shoot drone selfies, or dronies (that is, a selfie shot via drone). Photo: AP

Last week, two drones made their debuts on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter, both designed to allow people to shoot drone selfies, or dronies (that is, a selfie shot via drone). Photo: AP

Drones, those hovering, helicopter-like flying devices that the military has used for years and that are slowly, in miniaturized form, are finding their way into the consumer world.

Over the last few years, drones have been finding jobs in industry. They are used for gathering news, checking crops on farms, as well as photographing houses for real estate agents, and at least in the imaginations of some Amazon executives drones will one day deliver packages to consumers who just can’t wait for the UPS truck.

Yet mainstream users have had trouble figuring out where an unmanned aerial vehicle fits into their lives.

It looks as if we may have an answer, and its some serious stuff: Among the first mainstream uses for drones will be airborne selfies.

Recently, a number of new products and social media services have popped up, in a noble effort to help people take better pictures and videos of themselves with the aid of a drone.

Follows wherever you go

Last week, two drones made their debuts on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter, both designed to allow people to shoot drone selfies, or dronies (that is, a selfie shot via drone).

The Hexo Plus, which comes with the tagline, Your Autonomous Aerial Camera, is compatible with a GoPro camera and is billed as an intelligent drone that follows and films you autonomously. A competitor, called the AirDog, treats a drone like a dog on a leash, tracking and following you wherever you go and snapping video and pictures of you as you do action sports. Based on sales, consumers seem eager to buy these kinds of products. Hexo Plus hoped to raise $50,000 on Kickstarter. In three days, it passed $700,000, or 1,300 percent more than its goal. AirDog quickly flew past its $200,000 target, too.

At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this week, Twitter showed off a company-sponsored account, Dronie, which let people at the festival take free drone selfie videos.

From a photography standpoint, this all sounds wonderful. Having a drone with a camera on it feels like you have a giant tripod in the sky, said Amit Gupta, the founder of an online photography store

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