Gadgetory

you all right hello everyone and welcome back to the cnet stage in the South Hall the Las Vegas Convention Center and live coverage of CES 2014 I'm Donald Bell editor with cnet and here we are in the next 15 minutes focusing on drones joining me today is Henry sagoo chairman and chief executive officer of parrot and Jason sure beanie vice president of sales and marketing at 3d robotics welcome thanks for joining us today I have to say right off the bat out of anything I've ever see at CES the thing that draws everyone's attention immediately turns everyone into children are drones I want to know what you think is going on there because there's something about drones even more than any other kind of RC aerial vehicle that just is mesmerizing the people Henry what do you think the magic is here I think the magic is flying and flying is like a dream and we make flying so easy that a kid of eight years I can take it and in a minute in order to fly so it's something that is unbelievable and the technology make it to ya and then John was what's been your experience about what the appeal is coming for people coming to 3d robotics for the drama it's just being able to get a new perspective on all the regular stuff that you've been doing so you know water skiing or snowboarding or whatever you're able to get a whole new perspective on what you're doing from the air and then what's I think I my assumption is both of you are coming to this from different perspectives what's been for you Henry the from Perry the first time I heard parrot it was through bluetooth headphones headset bluetooth speakers and then suddenly drones popped up and it didn't you know no one was complaining because there was a lot there a lot of fun but what was the the journey for you getting towards this as a product so we do and technology around the cell phone we do products with bluetooth or under cell phone and one day like seven years ago the company was going and say okay now I can do what I limit and I've seen all those components that you have on a cell phone the cameras as a accelerometers and I said with this with it's so cheap now I can make toys so I start to to make toys I make a first one was a car with Bluetooth and camera and I give to my son and the prototype and I did not see in his eyes that you know it was something I say okay I have to do more so I I look for something flying and I found we have to do an airy cop there because in the room in your home you cannot fly with a plane sure so this is all we get into into drones and then it took us four years to make the first one for consumers and then from there we get more ideas and more technology and now we developed one or so for professionals and that sounds like a lot of fun I think you will really parrot the ar.drone I think with one of the first ones I saw here at CES and the kind of first kind of commercial commercially available yes I think for the iphone you know to make it super simple you know really like a nap you know it's not not more difficult than enough you have a button take off and take off so this is what we we like you know on the technology of today so you can hide the sings very complex into intuitive things and now John you're coming from another perspective here I know it a lot of the 3d robotics rigs are meant for more of a professional user what what got everything started off what's the inspiration behind we started it's very similar so in 2009 we started off making auto pilots that flew primarily fixed-wing airplanes and then started moving in new technologies that were able to leverage from the cell phone revolution and the accelerometers and gyroscopes and barometers and GPS and started moving the the code that we use into controlling multirotors for four motors six motors 8 motors 12 motors and and that's really been the progression is starting off you know very simple infrared based thermopiles that controlled the aircraft's and moving into these more complex MEMS sensors and and you know the end goal is ease of use and Henry and parrot have done a great job at that and we aspire to be as easy to use as they are it's into it's it's easy to get that lost in like a lot of what we're talking we actually just got out of a panel discussion on sensors it's easy to look at these as toys and not realize how much of this technology is reliant on sensors for the stabilization for everything tell me about your latest product what's going on that makes this the thing that you guys are showing off this year so this is iris it's our first kind of foray into the consumer drone market we have typically been a little bit more in industrial design style where we're using more aluminum pieces and cut carbon fiber pieces and things like that but this is our first foray into you know injection molded consumer-facing products and along with this we've also upgraded our auto pilots to a 32-bit platform and 32 get hardware and still leveraging the experience that we've had over the last four years with our code so we've actually created a hardware abstraction layer to take our existing stable code and poured it over to the 32-bit hardware platform but this is this is for someone who's not fooling around they want it they really want to have a product that's going to get up and take some you know controllable aerial shots is there's the brushless gimbal down here moving the camera once it's in the air this thing ready to fly is about eight hundred dollars and so you know I would say you know any sports enthusiast or somebody who really enjoys taking pictures from the air it's very accessible and you know it obviously goes up from there but you know it'll also go down from there eventually as well so I'm not Henry you've got some you know very high in products too but the one that we're most excited about seeing at CES this year is the smallest quadcopter we seen from her tell us about what you've got so what we show here at the at the CES what we introduce is the mini drone so it's really a drone for indoor and for the phone so this drone roll it but it were also on the ceiling it hold on the walls and also it fly so it's really something that we do a power know there are lights yeah my kids all uh I'm sure and this kind of gets back to I what sounds like your original inspiration of trying to find something fun for your kid as well to this is actually it seems like the top of my list of my five year olds you know I think to do things for the kid is difficult you know it's a challenge don't believe that we do this because we believe it's easy you know we do it because we believe it's very difficult today the kids are most of the experience they have of playing is video games of course video games are beautiful you know they are very aesthetic and they show the world a kind of a world of today but I want to do something that for the kid it is as sophisticated as video games but on the real world right so this is why we get those idea of the schematics for key to have fun with the technology of today on a certain way you learn for example ah drones everything is repairable so you can find any part and we put tutorial and videos on the internet so any key which is a 10 years old can fix the ground chandrapur chandrakala and it's a part of the game and so that gets to another question I had about the hurdles for developing this prob of these are you know some products I've had years of development going into variations and other products if you guys have on your belt what are the what are the struggles that have happened what do you see in drones that is kind of the biggest struggle against the category growing more is it the perception like even the word drone kind of sounds like a loaded word is it safety concerns I mean I see like you're saying like building something for a child is a lot different process than building something that's going to get up near and have a lot of power what drugs are for us there's a safety is very important we pass all the walls of a toy so it's a it's it's a legally otay so and but for us you know what is the biggest difficulty is the technology is going so fast so it's a very interesting but it's like making self you know I don't do suffered I imagine you know to stay on the on the self and to hide from the wave to the beaches not easy you know so the technology is going fast new techniques are coming every year right so to to get the good product that's a good time using the latest technology for me is a challenge I can imagine too quickly with the competition now everyone come in coming out of the product at a different point maybe people to pick up on a different way to the technology now the category also is more popular and I don't think people outside by a drone you know like they are not afraid by robots and I think they like them now the customers are different for your products you know this is the this is you're saying this is your consumer product but this is still a relatively expensive product this is for someone who describe your customer I guess you know like i mentioned earlier you know we're really targeting kind of those consumer action oriented markets of sports photography and and taking aerial images from from this consumer perspective you know we have a ton of other application viable applications like you know mining construction agriculture all of these are things that we're moving into with other platforms but for iris here in particular we're really looking at those you know action sports photography kind of markets now I'm assuming both of you have heard about Jeff bezos's claim about him wanted to have a fleet of drones for product delivery how much are you buying that as a legitimate proposition for for either he or even a smaller business I might want to have a fleet of drones to deliver products but you know when you have a new techniques people don't believe so when you say maybe tomorrow we'll deliver drugs by drones and so people find it's crazy but at the end everything is done you know so the question is I don't know when but for sure for something like a drug you have a pain you want the thing why not you know so it will I have today the drones the usage professional is to collect data collect data for for my knee for agriculture so it's making photography mainly making photography and then process the photography for different applications this is the application today for the drone and there is a lot to do it's super useful we have a big jobs and 3d robotics was also in agriculture because if you can get pictures of your field and every month you see how it go how much you have to put chemicals you can put less chemicals you can put the chemicals at the right place you can put less water or you can so for article to the drones should be a very ecological progress for agriculture so this is a target for the next year for the company while in professional goals I what do you think about the basis vision of delivery I think he's a little ahead of his time at this point in time but it's Henry's right we are going to get there I think there are certain ways to create you know easements and leverage existing space and cities that we can do this in a safe and reliable way I think it's just going to be a few more years before we're really able to scale it because you would also have to make a quadcopter that is inexpensive enough to sacrifice correct I mean I just my mind goes immediately the people trying to shoot them out of the sky you know got with a packager we will definitely have disposable drones to where it's it doesn't you send a hundred out to go do a job and 80 come back it's not that big of a deal right now that also gets the point of look legal issues lawsuits the idea i mean with any new technology people are afraid i also i think legitimately I would be concerned about you know amazon drone falling out of the sky and you know hitting me in the head in the head I know a lot of people are probably scared about Jones because of issues around getting hurt is that unfounded how dangerous are these things at like a commercial scale version of this I mean we you know we always stay under 400 feet within line-of-sight and away from people and objects I wouldn't want this this guy falling on my head either but I think from the commercials perspective that we were touching on earlier is that it's it's a matter of creating safe zones for these things to travel in and and you know improving the safety and reliability of the hardware all right and then overall in terms of the formula for the designs that both of these I feel like the quadcopter is in a mature state I mean I've seen the hex copters and the other you know more rotors more lift better cameras but what's the formula for the whole thing that you guys are honing in on year after year is it is it making a lighter is it the battery is it the the range to describe to me it's not just one specific thing what the the laundry list of things are that kind of get dialed in it's like an insect you know you have a small teeny bugs you have a large huge bugs like like planes also so you don't have a drone for for everything the the quad walk up there is certainly the formula the most Madonna because it's very hottest and it's easy to manufacture you don't have mechanical parts no so the quadrocopter which is a very old idea of the quadcopter is the oldest idea of the ricotta it's come from the nineteen ten or 1912 where they did the first public up there so the quadcopter photo/lee cocktail is is very good but if you need to make a lot of pictures and to go into large fields you need to to have wings so but one is the nice thing of it you know it's like the aviation in nineteen twenty or nineteen ten you know everything is to do you know for example at the hot we like to make wheels and flying because we think it's more funny but also it has more usage for example for for delivery sometime you have old you cannot go on the old and sometimes you cannot you you will fly off I don't know you know so jealous it's really an open field for imagination and then John what are the things that you're dialing and the most on kind of week to week is it is it getting a lighter is it new materials the processor yeah sensors I mean I would say all of the above I mean we you know we've recently moved to this 32-bit autopilot and you know we call it a universal autopilot because it is with one piece of hardware you are able to control multiple pieces multiple configurations of hardware I can control a tricopter a quadcopter a hexacopter an octocopter a rover a fixed-wing airplane so it really does depend on the application that you're looking for as to what platform you would choose we feel we have an advantage in that you know our Hardware has enough headroom and has the code that backs it that's able to allow it to operate multiple vehicles so it's honestly it really is all of the above if you're talking agriculture you're typically talking for larger areas fixed-wing airplanes for smaller areas you can cover them with things like hexes and things like that but it really depends on the application you're talking about as to what you want to what you want to maximize on your on the hardware today's and technologies cooler you know maybe drones will be printed you know because the clinics you do the autopilot for everything so maybe you will choose what you do and you will print your voice this does look like 3d printed material on my right is those are three different a class I can imagine getting pretty crazy with people sounds like a lot of fun a lot of work a fun work to be done in making these more interesting year after year thank you guys for both joining me today and talking about the magic of drones and quad copters all right we look forward to seeing more projects from these guys but we'll be back live at the top of the with CES in depth so 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