Flying Toy Drone Controlled by iPhone
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| Click image to watch a preview of the flying, iPhone-controlled Parrot toy drone. |
For those who want to replicate the experience of piloting a Predator-like drone from the comfort of their own couch, look no further than the Parrot’s A.R. Drone quadricopter.
This drone, which retails for $299, sports a 640-by-480-pixel wide-angle lens that links up to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch via Wi-fi. The drone image is beamed to the idevice, where it can be populated by virtual moving targets that the user can interact with.
The quadricopter itself flies on four 35,000 rpm rotors, which can propel the drone at 11.2 miles per hour.
Unfortunately, the flight time on this bad boy is a less-than-sexy 12 minutes. Considering that the battery takes 90 minutes to fully charge, it means the Parrot Drone will spend more time grounded than taking out virtual bogies.
