The guy who built this is an editor at IEEE Spectrum. I think it's safe to say that this has more to do with building something cool (just like there are people who build furniture or build cars) rather than being too lazy to walk his kid down the driveway.
The guy who built this is an editor at IEEE Spectrum. I think it's safe to say that this has more to do with building something cool (just like there are people who build furniture or build cars) rather than being too lazy to walk his kid down the driveway.
This. It's sad that everyone here has overreacted to the extreme because one inclined gentleman did something awesome. I bet his kid is going to get to learn and build a lot of very cool gadgets and toys that most kids only dream about when he's older.
He's the editor of an online technical magazine. He built something and then wrote a piece about what he did, using whatever creative license he felt would make his piece more interesting to readers. That's all there is to it. Beyond that, any allusions to his lazyness or his worth as a human being is nothing but unsubstantiated conjecture from people who may not fully grasp the context for which the comment was made and the publication for which it was first published in.
I think it's safe to say that this has more to do with building something cool ...
Well, this american guy didn't really build it.
He bought the "quadrocopter kit and attached a smartphone with a video chatting app enabled." The open source app already has GPS tracking so all he did was put a GPS beacon on his kid.
Anyone can do this, if you buy the quadrocopter kit. There are some on Amazon for under ~200-250$.