AR.Drone in an iPhone controlled helicopter
No household pet is going to be safe once you have the AR Drone to torment them.
Parrot, a company best known for Bluetooth products, is unveiling the must-have geek toy of the year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week. The AR.Drone is a quadricopter (a helicopter with four rotors) that can be controlled by an iPhone or iPod touch by using the accelerometer and touchscreen as controls.
Apparently you connect the devices via Wi-Fi and then you are off for oodles of fun with your new toy. The AR.Drone has two camera in it: one to show you what it sees, and the other is a vertical camera to measure speed. There are also ultra-sound sensors on the bottom to give you altitude readings. In case you plan on flying your new toy in confined spaces, there is also a removable polypropylene hull to protect the rotors as you fly the device around and through obstacles.
The copter also features two augmented reality games for when you get bored with just buzzing your pets with it.
No price is known at this time as the Parrot Web site is currently over traffic capacity. The more important piece of information for me is what the range will be. While the promotional video (embedded below) shows you flying this toy outside and down long walkways, you are of course going to need to be in range of Wi-Fi to make it work. Unless your city has city-wide Wi-Fi, it doesn’t seem too likely you’ll be buzzing trains as is demoed in the video.
As CES is just getting rolling, I am sure we will see many more cool gadgets announced, but as far as toys go, there is going to have to be something pretty spectacular to beat the potential cool factor of the AR.Drone.
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