126 Ariel Seidman and Hivemapper

The Hivemapper community-edited mapping and real-time navigation system for drone fliers.GuestAriel Seidman is co-founder and CEO of Hivemapper, which has been called “Waze for drones.” With Hivemapper, drone operators have a real-time view of obstacles and no-fly zones to help guide a safe flight. The growing database is a combination of data supplied by Hivemapper, observations from drone flights, and data added by drone operators. To date, this system has mapped over 30 million building boundaries and almost 20 million building heights.We talk with Ariel about the problem that Hivemapper solves, and where the system is in its development. Ariel explains how your drone can make passive contributions to the database as you fly, and how it can capture photos that are sent to Hivemapper for additional data extraction. We discuss how Hivemapper hooks into the drone, which drones the system can work with, and what territory is covered. The Hivemapper app is available now for Android, and will be coming soon to iOS.Previously, Ariel Seidman was Principal Product Manager at Siebel (Now Oracle), Director of Product Management at Yahoo, and CEO / Founder of Gigwalk. Find Hivemapper on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The article Hivemapper for Beginners on Medium provides an excellent overview of the system.Video of the WeekNew Underwater Drone Flies AND SwimsThe “Naviator” is part submarine, part aircraft. Developed by Rutgers University researchers.Video: New Underwater Drone Flies AND Swims