Iphone 4th generation.
Summer 2010.
Until summer only thing i can do is this.
Control a toy helicopter.
iPhone games could be headed toward another dimension. A new augmented reality toy helicopter, the AR.Drone by Paris-based technology firm Parrot, is controlled via Wi-Fi with an iPhone or iPod Touch.
Moving the iPhone or iPod Touch, which have built-in accelerometers, directs the toy helicopter forward and backward and turning and other directions. Buttons on the iPhone make it go up or down.
The chopper has four propellers and two on-board video cameras. One camera assists in flight, the other broadcasts video back to the device. That's where game developers could use the toy's capabilities to create augmented reality games to play in the real world, says Parrot founder Henri Seydoux.
"For the first time, you can play together with a friend like a flying ace," he says. "You pilot your copter and could shoot him in the game, and the video camera makes that connection."
Adding the AR.Drone to a game could get gamers off the couch, he says. "You are not playing in front of a display, you are playing in your backyard in reality, you are piloting in reality. You will see that is much more interesting because you have to factor in the wind and places you can hide for real," Seydoux says.
Parrot is demonstrating the AR.Drone at the Consumer Electronics Show and talking to game developers who might want to use the technology. "This will bring imagination to the game space," Seydoux says. "It is a new kind of gaming platform."
