If you want additional functionality beyond the DJI Fly, you'll almost certainly want Litchi. Source: 6 months ago

If loading the DJI app on your phone is a concern, you could use one of the Litchi apps instead (which are developed in the UK) or use the DJI controllers that have the screen and app built in, without connecting it to the Internet. Source: 6 months ago

If you are using a DJI drone, you can use https://flylitchi.com/ to do this. It uses a second cell phone and is $25. Source: 8 months ago

I think it's also worth pointing out that DJI's first-party app isn't required to operate many of their drones. Most of their drones, apart from all but the most recent (i.e. The one this announcement is about probably won't have support for a while, but the previous gen will) has support through apps like Litchi and Dronelink via the developer API, which have additional features and don't have the exact same... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago

So something's changed about DJI's API as well. In the past, you could use 3rd-party apps that extended features, and offered new ones. One popular app is Litchi https://flylitchi.com However, DJI seems to have stopped updating their iOS API, so 3rd-party iOS apps won't work with any newer drones and Android stuff seems to be available only by side-loading. Perhaps there's something in the newer APIs that neither... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago

> they deliberately didn't patent it If you'll check the historical record you'll find, for example, patents US2524035A (Bardeen&Brattain, Three-electrode circuit element utilizing semiconductive materials, oldest priority 1948-02-26) and US2569347A (Shockley, Circuit element utilizing semiconductive material, oldest priority 1948-06-26). > How 'bout the amplifiers on the optical fibers? patents.google.com... - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago

I don't have that hope with past "due diligence" track records. Performing a quick peek for the author at Google Patents I only see mentions of his involvement with neural networks in past work [1]. I am not an expert in patents but I assume that they will apply there and/or publish papers before the company is launched. Except if the breakthrough is not there or it is really revolutionary but statistics are not... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago

Yeah. Last I'd heard (2018?) they were trying to get into the 3d printing business, but since their main site doesn't say anything to that note I have to believe it's not going too well. https://patents.google.com/?assignee=Xerox+Corporation&sort=new. - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago

Its actually a hard problem: the massive boom that's required to provide reach is inherently quite unstable, not in the mm or cm but we're talking decimeters here. Some of the core tech of FBR dating back ~15 yrs addresses this kind of dynamic stabilization. FBR is impressive and they've built decent an IP. [1] https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Mark+Joseph+Pivac. - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago

The process of analysing some of the patents is quite tedious I have to admit. Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/) is great and all, but it's not fun to browse patents. So far I haven't found a better way of doing this. If you are interested in just the gist of some of these patents you are welcome to read my notes daily on them here: https://100yearpatents.com. Source: 9 months ago