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Nixie Wrist-Ready Flying Selfie-Cam Drone
(Nixie video)
The Nixie, created by a team of engineers led by Christoph Kohstall, a quantum electron microscope developer at Stanford University, is an innovative derivative of the quadcopter drone. Super-lightweight, the Nixie can be folded around your wrist and flung into the air on command—at which point the Nixie will hover, snap a few photos, and then fly back home. So far, the drone’s creators are angling their invention towards mountain climbers, who could benefit from the Nixie’s portability and use it to take photos where they might not be able to reach.
As I recall, there are several other competing personal drone selfie-cameras that are either available or under development.
I think that Nixie's size and feature set was imagined by sf author Karen Traviss a decade ago in her novel City of Pearl.
He set his camera to follow him, and it hovered behind him like a large tame bee."Tight mid-shot and pull out on but behind me," he told it. He checked the shot on his handheld screen and moved a few meters to the right. That was better.
(Read more about Karen Traviss' bee cam)
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