My first reaction as well. I met the Amimon team at the 2012 IBC. They had a tiny little booth buried at the back somewhere. Paralinx was sharing a booth with someone else and Teradek were doing what they do - massive marketing and publicity with a huge display, complete with glass walled broadcasting TV studio.

Teradek produces nothing better than anyone else, because they are all using the same Amimon technology, but has prevailed through sheer brute force corporate marketing.

This is not good news for the consumer.

My sentiments precisely Richard Krall. Apple has completely lost the plot.

Over the past seven years they have removed all the connectivity and versatility of their laptops in this ridiculous obsession with thin. To add insult to it all there are now built in fkng EMOJIS. I detest, detest, detest Apple's direction with both hardware and their OS which becomes more kindergarten with every iteration, and their stupid six month update cycle that obseletes not only your computers but all your ancillary gear and software at a ludicrous rate.

I started rebelling six years ago and I keep two 2011 iMacs running, with SSD and HD installed, and a 2010 17" special order MBP. So easy to open and service, modify, upgrade or repair ALL of them. I have Firewire, USB, Ethernet, Thunderbolt, CD/DVD drive, SD slot and an Express 34 bay that gives me eSATA and USB3.

No need to lug around docking bays, adapters, external DVD drives.

I felt myself being surprised that everyone was not kitted out in hazmat-style anti-dust suits, hair nets and face masks.

The "10 Best Drones"?
Not setting the bar very high are we?

This is a BAD idea.

Before the multi-rotor copter burst onto the scene - via an open source project that ultimately evolved into Mikrokopter about six years ago - there were only traditional single-rotor helicopters to carry cameras. These required some pretty specific mechanical knowledge and flying skills. Electronics were largely limited to the radio control components, with perhaps speed governors and tail gyros to ease the pilot workload.

In other words, you had to know what you were doing.

Then along comes the multi-rotor, or drone. Full of gyros, accelerometers and other miniaturised electronics. It was still home-build but there were a few kits around to at least help with the individual components selection until DJI, who had previously made only add-on auto-pilot electronic systems for single rotor helicopters, released their S800 hexacopter.

With a very modular design that included clip-on/off booms, plus their own multi-copter flight control that drew on their previous helicopter auto-pilot experience that came in nice neat little plug-together boxes, instead of circuit boards that had to be completed by soldering on a few microscopic little bits, the S800 was quite a step forward.

Unfortunately, DJI had not really ironed out all the bugs before starting to pocket everyone's cash and probably 50% of all those S800's crashed due to unforgivable faults in various components. In the end pretty much every single important component of the S800 was upgraded at least once, sometimes twice - at the customer's expense. This included the booms, the GPS puck, the IMU, the undercarriage and an anti-vibration transmission system that finally isolated the camera from airframe vibrations.

It was an expensive business getting an S800 up to scratch. At the same time as the S800 was released, DJI announced the Zenmuse brushless gimbals. These were ground breaking camera mounts at a time when everyone was struggling with servos and Piclocs in valiant but ultimately vain attempts to get steady in-camera footage.

The BIG move came with the Phantom quad-copter. I can barely bring myself to write the word in this post, such is my disgust for that very capable bloody insect.

Every wanabee twit who knew nothing about everything bought a Phantom and started being a tit in the air. Crappy GoPro videos started flooding YouTube and governments around the world started freaking out about bloody quad-copters (read DJI Phantom) being flown in every stupid inappropriate place by ignorant, irresponsible A-Holes. A-Holes who knew nothing more technical than how to hold down the power button to turn it on.

Fortunately, DJI helped out quite a bit here. Their crappy Flight Control made sure that a large percentage of Phantoms flew off into oblivion - although this did also have the negative effect of freaking out the regulators even more.

Nothing much has changed in the meantime. DJI is pumping out ever more sophisticated and smaller products and wanabees are still dreaming about being 'Aerial Cinematographers', but the general level of knowledge of how these things work, how to analyse and fix faults, how to even fly them without GPS assistance, all this is still dark, foggy science to the vast, vast majority of 'drone operators'.

So for MIT to jump back in time to produce a home-build kit is to invite swathes more ignoramii into the game.

Just forget the idea entirely and let the likes of DJI continue to rule the roost, because their products do actually work now.

If someone wants to build their own drone, let them get practical experience first via the long way round. Because then, and ONLY THEN, will they have any appreciation whatsoever of how these things work and maybe they fill be safer in the air. It is very important that a pilot knows how his aircraft works.

All these cheap, shortcut, easy solutions for the stupid, the ignorant and the lazy are just dangerous.

Innovative as the MoVI was when it first appeared, I still don't see connectors on the camera plate. Even the lowly DJI Zenmuse kept Shutter/Record remote and HDMI cables organised. In fact ALL DJI gimbals have camera shelf connectors to reduce flying cable spaghetti.

Every ready-for-action MoVI I have ever seen is a disgusting clusterf*ck of wires, ropey inline adapters, gaffer/insulating tape and tie-wraps.

A missed opportunity.