Muck Rack hosts Drone Journalism Q&A

What are the rules on drone use right now? What would you use one for in journalism? What about ethics? Last week, the Muck Rack invited Nebraska Drone Journalism Lab's Matt Waite and DroneJournalism.org's Matthew Schroyer to a Twitter Q&A on drones to help answer those questions and more.

Read more on Muck Rack's site, which documented the fourteenth installment of their #muckedup chat.

Reposted from DroneJournalism.org

Drone Development In Progress: Aerial Photos and Videos

Despite JournoDrone 2 still being in the shop after its maiden flight, drone development is continuing onward and upward. Above is an aerial photo taken from my latest drone project, which has caused that previous drone to collect dust in the basement.

However, this new drone is superior in at least a couple of ways. One, it's much more stable in flight, thanks to its 68.5" wingspan. Its size also means it can loft a larger payload. The photo above was taken using an 11Mpx GoPro Hero 2, which is small, but has a not insignifcant weight penalty.

JournoDrone 2 was a plastic shell that I wrapped in carbon-fiber and epoxy, which could take a crash on the nose without much harm. This newest drone is made of balsa wood, but it's such a docile aircraft that the need for crash resistance is minimal. All that balsa, some 5 or so pounds of it, is also pretty good at flexing and absorbing a hard landing.

Drone Journalism at SXSW, now on the PanelPicker

We almost didn't make it on the list, but at the last minute, several of the DroneJournalism.org developers and myself were able to get on the PanelPicker for SXSW Interactive.

We want to show one of the most important tech conferences in the country what Drone Journalism is all about, with a panel we call "Drones for Journalists: Reporting Evolved." We'll be taking the audience through the basics: what is a drone, how can journalists use them to cover live events and augment investigative journalism, and what's been done to this point. We'll also answer questions about ethics, regulation, and the DIY tech behind this emerging field of journalism.

Here's the description we put on the PanelPicker:

Civilian and commercial drones are coming. As many as 30,000 drones, or unmanned aerial systems (UAS), will be flying in the national airspace within 8 years, by FAA estimates. For the first time, the kind of intelligence once reserved for governments is opening to journalists and the media. This panel brings together an expert in disaster reporting, a data-minded journalist who is developing drones to conduct investigations, and a former war reporter and Discovery Channel documentarian who uses a drone to record landscapes and events from a new perspective, to discuss how this technology is being used today, and how it may be applied in the future

At the speed drone development is coming along, March seems pretty distant in the future. But we've got some pretty interesting things to show, and we anticipate even more impressive things (i.e. some brand new drone-assisted reporting that we have in the works) will happen by presentation time.

We just have one problem. Many of these panels and presentations vying for a spot in this prestigious event had at least a couple more weeks than we had to generate votes (these votes count 30% to the ultimate decision). We are trying to get as many votes as possible to narrow the gap, so we can make it to SXSW and show the public what these drones are all about.

Hopefully we will see you in Austin this March.