The 3dr solo is probably the closest feature-wise, but it is not exactly charp compared to the phantom, neither Open Source. BTW, parrot drones really sucks. Don't even think about them if you are looking for something similar to the DJI phantom. Their products are children toys.
Crazyflie from http://www.bitcraze.se/ is also pretty cool. I own one myself, and I like it a lot. This is a tiny fully opensource quad which can be flown indoors. I think I'll add a camera like the post to make it FPV.
Fortunately, someday sooner, iPhones will become effectively useless to thieves.
As a victim of an iPhone theft - it was literally ripped out of my hand on a very public boulevard - I was grateful to be able to remotely wipe it within hours. I am even more grateful now that it will require a passcode within 12 hours if it doesn't get a touchID, and I really look forward to the day that "wipe and make unable to be re-authorized except by taking it to an Apple store, and also mark this phone as stolen" will be built in to "find my iPhone".
Since the phone hardware will only run software signed by Apple's private key, Apple can make a stolen phone effectively unusable. You need to have a key to put it in recovery mode, and even with signed software the hardware ID won't change, so the only signed code could be code that will check the hardware during the authorization process (I think this is already happening for anti-counterfeiting purposes.)
For the RF geeks here - can't manufacturers implement some kind of anti-hijacking protocols into the RF I/O between the radio and the receiver? I understand it's hard to defeat jamming if the attacker has more power at hand than you do, but it seems like it would be easy to defeat devices that want to try and MITM or otherwise spoof the original remote controller.
I am waiting on my new printer and have the option of getting either PLA or ABS material as part of the initial package.Can anyone help advise me on which would be best?
GPS navigation is generally a good thing. GPS tracking is a slippery thing, seen by some as an invasion of privacy. The vehicle owner should be entitled to know where their property is, but it is none of their business where I go and what I do during the day. Insurance companies would love to hike premiums based on where you park, where you eat, how many mistresses you entertain, or those brief stops in the seedy part of town.
On one hand, GPS tracking can help against theft, or at least facilitate recovery. On the other hand, it opens up a wealth of possibilities for abuse
It's really incredible to be part of the security industry and know how widely used these things are as part of private investigations. At a rough guess I would say at least a third utilise them in some way.
Would it be plausible to make a sort of mobile wifi scanner? Just something to output on an lcd what the strongest wifi is? So I don't have to pull out my laptop to check if a place has wifi? Just an idea that I've been tossing around.
