Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Emerging Tech
  3. Photography
  4. s

Want to be an ace pilot before you buy an expensive drone? Practice with this $120 quadcopter

Add as a preferred source on Google

As far as drones go, the Swann Xtreem Gravity Pursuit is as stripped-down as a bowling ball. It doesn’t contain GPS,  or any sort of piloting assistance to aid you in flying. But its $120 price point makes this one of the most affordable mid-sized drones you’ll find, and it’s perfect for those who want to get into the drone hobby without learning to fly for the first time on a $500+ platform.

Higher-end drones do have smart features to make it easy for anyone to fly, but they don’t always work all the time. So learning to fly on the Gravity Xtreem is akin to learning how to drive a stick shift car. You’ll have to be in control the entire time you’re flying, and you’ll also have to correct for wind and even occasional drifting. The learning curve is a bit steeper, but the experience will help make you a better drone pilot when you’re ready to up your game and graduate up to a more advanced multicopter.

Alexander Thickstun
Alexander graduated with a degree in Aerospace Engineering in 2005 and an MBA in 2011. He's an outdoor enthusiast and avid…
Yet another study says AI is bad for elections, and the rabbit hole gets worse
AI may be an election bomb waiting for someone to light the fuse
Voters cast their ballots on Election Day

Another election, another study has concluded that asking an AI chatbot for political guidance is a spectacularly bad idea. Research conducted during Hungary’s 2026 parliamentary election found that ChatGPT and Google Gemini offered not just inaccurate but also inconsistent and unreliable voting advice. The chatbots misclassified voter profiles, overlooked relevant parties, recommended parties absent from the ballot, and sometimes produced materially different answers when given the same information repeatedly.

AI keeps failing the voter test

Read more
Samsung’s humanoid robot ambitions are real, but factories come first
Samsung’s new robotics division has humanoids in its sights, although its immediate business is far more practical factory automation
Robot Touch Human Finger

Samsung wants a place in the humanoid race, but its new robotics push begins with machines built for factories rather than homes.

The CEO-led RX robotics division will initially focus on manufacturing robots. Samsung has separately identified humanoids as a priority, although it hasn’t announced a commercial model or explained where one fits into the division’s immediate plans.

Read more
The future of AI may depend on this one behind-the-scenes change
Running Claude on Android.

Whenever a new AI model arrives, it's easy to get caught up in the bells and whistles. We talk about how much smarter it is, how quickly it answers questions, or how realistic its images have become. But here's the thing: none of that matters much if the AI can't reliably work with the apps and services people use every day.

That's why an upcoming update to the Model Context Protocol (MCP) caught my attention. It isn't a new chatbot or a fancy AI model. In fact, most people will never even know it's happening. But it could quietly make the AI ecosystem a lot healthier. If you've never heard of MCP before, don't worry. Think of it as a shared language that lets AI assistants safely talk to apps like Gmail, Slack, calendars, databases, and countless other services. Instead of every company inventing its own way to make those connections, MCP gives everyone a common rulebook.

Read more