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AR.Drone: $300 Spy Chopper Flies From iPhone Or iPad (VIDEO)
Travis Walter Donovan :: Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 9:10 pm
Available in September, Parrot’s AR.Drone is a wifi quadricopter equipped with two cameras that can be controlled from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. Now you, too, can terrorize innocent civilians with a predator drone, just like your government.
The $300 device is paving the way in “augmented reality” video games, as interfaces will overlay the display screen, allowing pilots to virtually blast digital enemies, or even combat other AR.Drones, while flying in real physical spaces.
The AR.Drone has both a downward and frontward facing camera, streaming a video feed in real-time back to the display of the chosen control device. The ‘copter is flown with tilt controls, but currently only lasts 12 minutes on a single battery charge.
Ars Technica reports that the software is open, so while initial video games for the AR.Drone may be limited and shallow, developers will likely come up with some interesting programs in due time.
Get ready to dodge swarms of these beasts in your local geek hangouts. Hopefully, users will be considerate enough to not dive bomb random strangers and lurk into girls’ locker rooms, or instead of AR.Drones virtually battling each other, they may just end up an annoying nuisance slaughtered by baseball-bat-wielding bros.
WATCH CNN‘s Kristie Lu Stout take an AR.Drone for a test flight:
