There’s a reason autonomous flying modes have been a key element of this year’s big drone announcements: most people aren’t that great at controlling them with what’s in essence a legacy R/C plane controller. The Shift Drone overcomes that not with autonomy, but with a novel new control scheme. To fly it, you simply grab a stick-like box and wear a special ring on your thumb, which floats above the sensors on the top. Move your thumb up to go up, left to fly left, etc., giving you intuitive one-handed control. There’s a 13 megapixel/4K camera on board, and an optional extension lets you control the camera and view real-time feed back via your smartphone.
