The big hit of press preview show at CES 2010 was the Parrot AR.Drone. You could hardly get through the door of the Preview show floor because of the crowd oohing and aahing over this wicked little toy.
This plastic and styrofoam aircraft looks like one of those toy copters or spaceships you see at the mall. Not so fast though.
Look closer and you’ll find out quickly that the AR.Drone is a much smarter toy. In fact, it’s a video game.
The AR.Drone takes video games to an entirely different level.
The controller?
Your iPhone.
That’s right. This quadricopter is controlled by an iPhone or iPod Touch thanks to the on-board Wi-Fi system.
Video, more pics and details after the jump.
The AR.Drone is able to maintain flight thanks to micromechanical accelerometers, combined with an embedded Linux platform and two video cameras. The source code for the game demos is open source, which you can learn more about the software development opportunities at www.ardrone.org.
An inertial unit, ultrasound sensors and a vertical camera under the cockpit make up the Smart Parrot Piloting Software. The AR.Drone detects the movements of your iPhone or iPod Touch to go up, down, turn, reverse or go forward.
Because of the ridiculous amount of Wi-Fi devices and networks at the CES Preview show floor, they couldn’t show off the Wi-Fi controlling with the iPhone, but instead showed us the tricked out autopilot mode with a neon-colored tomato can.
No word on the price yet, but the AR.Drone should be available sometime this year. I want one.
You can check out some of the game demos on the AR.Drone’s website here.
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