Gadgetory

the next generation of drones won't need a pilot I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet update personal flying drones are becoming a popular tool for taking aerial video you just hook up a GoPro camera to the small quadcopter and control it with a remote now most sports action shots are a two-person job someone does the cool skateboard tricks and someone else is in charge of flying the drone but the next generation of drones won't need a pilot they could be set to automatically follow you to drones asking for funding on kickstarter promised to do just that airdog is one that can follow a set path freeze in position and hover at a spot or maintain a certain distance from you at all times it works by following a signal from a device called the air leash which you would wear on your wrist or helmet airdog plans to charge $1,500 for one another auto flying drone is called the hexo plus you program the flight using a smartphone app it tracks you based on the location of your phone an eight hundred dollar donation gets you a complete hexa plus kit with a gopro hero3 HD camera the makers hope to have it out by next year but if that's too much excitement for you maybe you like to curl up with a nice book the popular book subscription service oyster is now available on android devices oyster is like a netflix for books you pay ten dollars a month to get unlimited access to half a million ebooks and that includes titles from big-name publishers like HarperCollins and simon schuster it also includes children's books some from Disney previously it was only in itunes but along with android there are also apps now for the kindle fire and the barnes and noble nook HD tablet and for those of you that rather use icons to communicate instead of words new emojis have been created to expand your texting vocabulary emojis also called emoticons are pitcher characters that in a way have become our modern-day hieroglyphics the nonprofit Unicode consortium released 250 new icons the group offers a suggestion of what the images should look like in black and white but it won't be in color on your phone until the operating system maker like Apple or Google ads these icons into the keyboards now some new ones we can look forward to include a squirrel the Vulcan salute and a levitating businessman among these important advancements in our digital communication there is also now an icon for the middle finger for when words aren't enough that's your tech news update but there's always more at cnet com from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey