This is a remote-controlled helicopter that works in tandem with a NeuroSky MindWave Mobile EEG headset. It reads the waves running through that skull of yours and translates them into flight commands for the helicopter itself. The Puzzlebox Orbit is spherical, with the outer rings protecting the rotor blades from hitting walls, furniture and other obstacles. The whole system works with a docking pyramid, which acts as the relay between the EEG headset and the Orbit helicopter itself.

Yes, the helicopter can still work with just an app on a smartphone or tablet, but it’s really this EEG-based interface that makes this so unique. Of course, it’s going to take some practice, but fun toys like the Orbit can certainly help with your concentration and focus. They’ve already reached the fundraising goal of their Kickstarter campaign, so they’re just working on getting ready for some mass production. You can still get one of the early units by pledging at the $189+ level, getting delivery some time next month.

Check out puzzlebox.info for the latest information on this project.

[Source]

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This one’s not a fake!

Remember those good old school days? Remember the crafts we used to do, including the strategic designing of paper airplanes. The wings had to be just right, and we would try so many different styles to beat our friends. Well, there’s still a little kid in all of us that’s for sure, some more than others, and that’s why the giant paper airplane flew over the Arizona desert this week.   The thing weighs in at 800 pounds, is 45 feet long, and has a wingspan of 24 feet.  It was launched by the Pima Air & Space Museum. The design of the airplane was inspired by 12-year-old Tucson resident Arturo Valdenegro, who won the paper airplane distance contest held at the museum earlier this year. That’s why it was named Arturo’s Desert Eagle. As he was the winner, Valdenegro got a chance to meet the aviation experts who worked for making the big airplane a reality.

The airplane was hoisted into the air by a helicopter and it flew from an altitude of 2,703 feet. It reached a speed of 98 miles per hour before returning to Earth. Check out the video to see the first flight.

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I know what you’re thinking. This is going after much the same market as the Parrot AR Drone and that’s probably true, except these aren’t quadrocopters; they just have the two stacked rotors. There’s apparently three different versions of the RC helis, two of which come with onboard cameras for recording both stills and videos.

Sure it’ll work with the boxed IR remote, but the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch app seems well, more interesting. You’ll need the appropriate adapter though. There is also an app for Android that does the same. You can expect about eight minutes of airtime per charge. The i-FlyHeli is currently on sale for $45.99 from Sonic Electronix, down from the list price of $99.99. That includes free ground shipping to the lower 48 states.

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Toy helicopters have been around for a while, but it seems that they have really surged in popularity these last couple of years. Even so, the control scheme has remained largely the same. Force Flyers changes that, because you fly these ‘copters with a wave of your hand.

On display at the 2012 Toy Fair in New York City, the Force Flyer helicopter doesn’t look like anything special until you see the control scheme. You get fitted with a glove-like sleeve where you have a thumb control for throttle and you tilt your hand to make it turn. We’ve all had the experience of “flying” toy airplanes by running around the room; this is a more technologically advanced version of that old pastime.

Realistically, since the remote control is really only using an accelerometer, it probably wouldn’t be all that difficult to devise a smartphone app to do the same. In any case, this little flying machine gets about 10 minutes of flight time on a 20 minute charge. For $50 in May, it will make a nice toy you can smash into the wall and collect the pieces up afterwards.  The larger outdoor version will sell for $100. But for serious flyers, the E-flite blade mCPx heli is the way you want to go (video far down below).

[ source, Photo: engadget ]

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Developed by the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Lab (GRASP), these nano quadrocopters (or quadrotors, if you prefer) are able to fly in various complex formations, navigating through the environment with complex “autonomous swarm behavior.” The very sound of the swarm in the video below gives me chills.

I’m instantly reminded of Michael Crichton’s Prey. The thing with a swarm is that they have a “collective intelligence” of sorts, so it doesn’t matter if you take out one or two units from the group. They operate as a collective, making them virtually unstoppable. Where’s John Connor when you need him?

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If the eye3 gets the $25,000 of funding that it needs, it can ship out to average Joes like you and me for all of our awesome imaging needs. It ships as a kit, so you will need to put it together, but all the hard work with testing and design has been done for you. Pledge $999 or more and you get an eye3 hexacopter kit of your own!  Check out the Kickstarter page for more information and to back the project.

The post An Affordable Flying Robot Drone For Amateur Photogs appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

It makes sense that the military wants to have eyes in the sky for surveillance, but when you’re that far away from your target, it can be pretty tough to really see what you want to see. You need more pixels, gigapixels perhaps, and in the case of the US Army, they’ve opted for 1.8 of them.

The A160 Hummingbird was recently unveiled with a new imaging system. Remember that 1.8 gigapixels is 100x more detail than what you’d get with your 18MP digital camera, and it’s usually only with multiple shots that we regular folk can stitch together a gigapixel photo. The kicker is that this hovering aircraft can send back real-time video streams at 10 frames a second too.

When hovering at an altitude of 20,000 feet, the camera has a field of view of almost 65 square miles. The army can then simultaneously track up to 65 targets within this field of view without having to decide which target is the priority. “If you have a bunch of people leaving a place at the same time, they no longer have to say, ‘Do I follow vehicle one, two, three or four,’” said program manager Brian Leninger. “They can say: ‘I will follow all of them, simultaneously and automatically.’”

The drones use the Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System (ARGUS-IS) first deployed last year. The first generation drones were manufactured by Boeing, but the military is holding a “full and open” competition for the second generation contract.

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I really like R/C helicopters from a hobbyist’s perspective, but you can see how useful they’d be for more practical purposes too. Drones are used all the time in a military context and now one sheriff’s office in Texas is getting its own drone copter, complete with the ability to get weaponized.

The Shadowhawk helicopter has been acquired by the Sheriff’s office in Montgomery County in Texas. They say that it is being used as a safety asset, equipped with a remote video camera, infrared heat-seeking, and onboard GPS. It can be used to monitor situations where a human presence might not be the best idea.

The 50-pound UAV is built by Vanguard Defense Industries and while it is capable of carrying weapons, the Sheriff says that they have no plans to equip it with pellet guns, bean bags, or frickin’ laser beams tasers. Instead, the application is more toward tracking down criminals or assisting SWAT teams. What do you think of the concerns in relation to Big Brother-esque ramifications?

Check out the local news coverage for a video.

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I thought flying around in a helicopter at all was already pretty highfalutin, short of you being involved in some sort of military mission, but the guys and gals at Eurocopter have taken it to another level. That’s because their EC145 chopper comes with Mercedes Benz style luxury.

Interestingly, that’s not just Benz in name. The interior design of the helicopter was actually created in the Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design Studio in Como, Italy. They were inspired by the luxury-class vehicles of Benz, taking that same level of comfort of high class to the flying saloon.

This means you get ambient cabin lighting, with multiple colors and brightness settings. They’ve also put the plush leather seats on rails, so they can be easily moved, removed, and reconfigred to suit the needs of the particular set of passengers. You can have anywhere from four to eight people inside, getting more or less room for luggage and so forth.

The Eurocopter EC145 was shown off at last year’s European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE) as a concept and now, at this year’s show, it’s ready to take orders and hit the corporate retail channels. And if you have to ask how much it costs, well, it’s probably more than you can afford.

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