• CNET
  • All ar.drone posts

ar.drone

Remote-vision quadcopter soars over LeWeb

PARIS -- LeWeb's focus this year on "the Internet of things" this year brought Net-enabled door locks, houseplant monitors, and footstep loggers to the conference stage. But the gadget that caught the most attention was a remote-controlled quadcopter.

Quadcopters are all the rage these days, popularized best by the Parrot AR.Drone. Here at LeWeb, startup Team BlackSheep showed its take on the tech with a model that's remotely piloted by an operator who sees what's going on from a camera mounted on the drone itself.

Raphael Pirker, founder of the company, piloted a TBS … Read more

CES: AR.Drone lesson: Don't dogfight in a Wi-Fi war zone

The AR.Drone helicopter demo was going really well, until the 'copter, under the expert pilotage of a company employee, veered out of control from its demo arena and smacked into a CES attendee's head. Fortunately, the foam bumper on the drone was installed, otherwise the guy might not have laughed off the collision.

Shortly thereafter, in a demo set up for me of the new AR.Drone dogfighting game, Flying Ace, one demonstrator mercilessly (virtually) pounded another pilot's copter, which hovered motionless, locked in place by the Wi-Fi interference that plagues this conference every year (check out … Read more

Taking flight: Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter

Parrot's AR.Drone is a mash-up of several interesting tech concepts. It's a remote control quadricopter that's piloted via an iPhone/iPod Touch app, while also providing a live-to-screen video feed from its built-in video camera, as well as optional augmented reality gaming apps.

A free App Store download called AR.FreeFlight is necessary for pairing and controlling the Drone. Once set up and installed, you have two flight-control options. In the beginner mode, users hold the left onscreen button to maneuver the Drone with the iPhone's accelerometer--tilt it left and the Drone glides to the … Read more