The new iPhone controlled flying toy has Matt Greenop in geek heaven.
Whoever said toys are for kids? An incredible piece of high-tech gadgetry has just hovered its way into the New Zealand market - a "quadricopter" drone that can play around in virtual worlds.
French Bluetooth specialist Parrot's AR.Drone is an impressive flying toy that is controlled by Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad - and uses on-board cameras to feed live video straight to the devices.
The $499 drone is basically a chassis surrounded by four rotors that spin at varying speeds to allow for easy, responsive control, with a choice of "indoor" or "outdoor" polystyrene bodies that fit on top.
To control the AR.Drone, users download apps from Apple's AppStore - some created by Parrot itself, others from enthusiastic coders in the open source community - which allow for different flying experiences.
The basic Free Flight app was surprisingly simple to use - first up, a direct Wi-Fi connection is made between the iDevice and the drone. Once that setting has been made, it's a case of hitting a "take-off" button that starts the blades spinning and sends the drone into a hover pattern a metre off the ground.
One on-screen joystick is used to rotate the quadricopter 360 degrees, while another is pushed in conjunction with tilting the device forward, backwards or to either side to propel it. Landings are particularly easy - slow down, lower the drone and push the "landing" button. If you get a phone call while your iPhone is being used to run the drone, it stops and hovers where it is.
This control system can be simplified to one button in "ace" mode, but is quite difficult to come to grips with initially - let's be straight up on this one, you'll have a few minor air disasters before being anything like an "ace".
But if things do go a bit pear-shaped, there is the Hail Mary approach - push "emergency landing" and all power is cut and the AR.Drone falls gracelessly to the ground.
Other applications allow drone pilots to fly in "augmented reality" worlds. This digitally puts items within the game space - for instance, if there are two AR.Drone owners, they can have dogfights, firing virtual missiles at each other; flying among buildings or tackling obstacle courses that are only visible on the iPhone, Pad or Pod's touchscreen.
The drone has two cameras on board - one front-facing, and one that points directly downwards. The software allows Virtual Biggles to switch between the two cameras, or to display both in a picture-in-picture format.
There is a third party program that allows users to capture video or stills from the AR.Drone - stalkers' delight, probably, but governed by the same privacy laws that stop people hanging over your back fence with a camcorder.
Delve into YouTube and you'll see many videos demonstrating what the drones are capable of - whether chasing each other around New York's Central Park or harassing golfers. Joggers around my local park quickly learned that it is quite difficult to outrun the 18km/h drone.
See the official AR.Drone YouTube channel's selection here.
Battery life is quite good for a remote flying machine - the brochure says it will last about 16 minutes of flying, but it was happy for 20 minutes-plus before the iPhone started beeping that it was time to land as the juice ran out. Recharge time is up to 90 minutes.
Is the AR.Drone the ultimate grown-up geek toy? I'm definitely inclined to say yes - it makes the Viewmaster, Tyco slot car sets and even the good old plastic skateboards that populated my toy box seem positively archaic.
