Has a new era of birding photography arrived? FarseerTech, a company formed by former DJI engineers, has Kickstarted what it calls the "world's first robotic extreme zoom camera." The RocXZoom was designed to recognize and track subjects automatically while physically moving the camera to keep them in frame, addressing one of the biggest challenges of shooting at extreme focal lengths. It combines a 50x hybrid zoom, motorized pan-and-tilt movement, and AI-powered subject recognition, thanks to an onboard AI chip. The project has already drawn significant crowdfunding interest.

  Thursday, October 7-Sunday, October 11: New York Comic Con at Javitz For its milestone 20th anniversary, New York Comic Con trades some of its sleek corporate sheen for a brilliantly gaudy nod to old-school Gotham, endowing the Javits Center in a celebratory Coney Island theme. While its highly commercial media reach inevitably draw the crowds, the true pulse of the festival remains anchored in the sprawling rows of Artist Alley and the Comic District. Here, away from the Hollywood spe...