Anki slot cars controlled by iOS

At WWDC 2013, Apple featured independent developer Anki Drive, with a demo of slot cars controlled by iOS.

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Wayne Cunningham reviews cars and writes about automotive technology for CNET's Roadshow. Prior to the automotive beat, he covered spyware, Web building technologies, and computer hardware. He began covering technology and the Web in 1994 as an editor of The Net magazine.

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Wayne Cunningham

June 10, 2013 10:36 a.m. PT

Anki Drive game — Boris Sofman demonstrates his Anki Drive slot car game at WWDC 2013. James Martin/CNET

At Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference keynote, Apple CEO Tim Cook welcomed Boris Sofman on to the stage to show off a slot car demonstration. More than just a game, the slot cars, controlled by iOS, serve as a proof-of-concept for artificial intelligence technology from a new San Francisco startup named Anki.

The demonstration showed four slot cars racing around a track, using their programming to adjust speed and braking based on upcoming curves. For the game, which comes out this fall, players will be able to control individual cars via Bluetooth using an iOS device and race against AI-controlled cars.

Beyond racing, the cars have a virtual weapons mode, so can send signals out indicating they have fired, and the game's algorithms determine if a hit has been made.

Sofman said that the Anki Drive beta app is available on the iTunes store now, so people can get familiar with it before the full game is released.