GoPro’s Karma drone crashes into a recall – but is there hope in the smoke?
Following last week’s financial near-death experience with their stock, now comes news that GoPro is recalling ALL of its recently sold Karma drones. Following reports from users that a small number of the drones have shut off and plummeted to the ground mid-flight, GoPro is telling buyers to return the drones now for a full refund. Additionally, GoPro says that replacement drones are not in the mix – at least, not yet.
A recall like this could not have come at a worse time: just before the holidays – you know a lot of those drones were going to be gifts – and right after GoPro had a dismal quarter that saw its stock fall by nearly half. Yet, we have to give the company’s leaders due respect for doing the right thing. Following the bungling of the Note 7 recall by Samsung, GoPro’s quick action is a lesson in corporate responsibility no matter the consequences, even if it kills the company.
Indeed, while the drone recall is another gut-punch for the company, it might help it in the long run in terms of good faith and renewed sales from consumers down the road. GoPro said about 2,500 Karma drones were sold before sales were halted. So far there have been no reports of injuries from malfunctioning Karma drones, and we have a link here to get you started on returning yours.
A new (but also really old) way to think about charging stuff up
Despite solid sales of Apple’s new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, the tech world continues to look forward to the iPhone 8, which will arrive on the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone and is expected to be a radical departure from current designs, with an OLED screen, possibly top to bottom, a glass back, better cameras and so forth. But BGR is reporting they are seeing solid information that the phone could house a very novel wireless charging ability.
BGR says Apple has been working with Energous, a tech outfit that is developing a kind of wireless charging system that charges the phone in your pocket while you’re in your house or at work, no matter where you are in the building for the most part. In truth, it’s not new tech or even that complex: genius inventor Nicola Tesla demonstrated such a system over a century ago. But so far, no one has incorporated the tech into a cell phone, and it could be a game changer.
Imagine your phone charging up in your pocket wherever you are: at home, work, on the train, in your car, wherever. More than any fancy new camera or appearance change, it’s a feature that could change the way we think about charging up our phones – or charging anything at all.
Apple’s new Touch Bar MacBook Pro is touching some stellar sales numbers
More Apple news now: the new MacBook Pro, with its fancy video Touch Bar, is a certified monster hit, according to Slice Intelligence.
Slice analyzed data from over 4 million shoppers and says that in just its first five days on sale, it outsold the Microsoft Surface Book sale totals for all of the last year by a factor of four. Apple has also indicated the new laptops are on full hot, with Phil Shiller saying Cupertino is ramping up production to meet demand. Granted, there was a lot of pent-up demand for the new MacBooks after a four-year stretch of no real redesign, but these sales results are unexpected.
Want one for yourself right now? Good luck! Right now, it’s looking like a four or five week wait for new units to ship.
