Hasta La Gadget!

The Oculus Rift will most likely lead to a new genre of first-person games, but it could also make drones a lot more fun to use. For his master’s thesis, Jonathan of Intuitive Aerial is working on Oculus FPV, a drone camera system that streams 3D video that can be viewed with the Rift.

The system uses a Black Armored Drone carrying a laptop and two cameras. The laptop compresses the feed from the two cameras and sends them to a second computer on the ground via Wi-Fi. It’s a crude setup, but it works. According to Intuitive Aerial the current rig has a range of about 160′ to 320′ when using Wi-Fi cards. The video latency is 120ms, good enough for the viewer to pilot the drone at the same time.

That shot of the pilot wearing the Rift reminds me of Ghost in the Shell. Intuitive Aerial said it will improve Oculus FPV if it receives enough interest from potential clients. They should incorporate the MYO armband to Oculus FPV make it more fun to use.

[via Intuitive Aerial via Walyou]

Have you ever wanted a home aquarium, but were afraid your fish would end up dead due to neglect (or the cat?) Well, now you can have a little robotic swimmer who never needs anything more than a change of batteries.

Made by the guys behind the creepy, crawly Hexbug robots, Aquabots are little robotic fish which wriggle realistically through the water. Just drop them in the water, and they’ll swim around on their own. They automatically turn on when they come in contact with water – though they’ll only swim for five minutes at a time to conserve battery.

While the video below shows several Aquabots swimming in harmony, it’s not advised because big fish eat little fish their electromagnetic propulsion systems can interfere with one another. Though what’s the worst that could happen?

They come in either a shark or clown fish designs, in a wide variety of translucent colors, so you can see into their robotic guts as they swim around. You can find Aquabots over at Red5 for £7.95 (~$12 USD) each.

There are lots of drum kit apps for mobile devices, but they’re not that easy to use. Many of them look and are arranged like real drum kits instead of being optimized for touchscreen use. Also if you’re a drummer you’re more used to using drum sticks instead of your fingers. Drummerz drum sticks might alleviate those two drawbacks.

Drummerz are made of plastic wrapped in conductive rubber. The company who makes them claims that the sticks are flexible enough that they won’t damage mobile devices, but obviously that largely depends on how hard you swing. They also come with large drum tips that supposedly enhance the sticks’ responsiveness.

You can order the drum sticks from Drummerz for $30 (USD) per pair. As you may have noticed in the video, Drummerz sticks are quite short. They’re 9.5″ long, while traditional drum sticks are typically about 15″ to 17″ long. It would’ve been nice if they could extend to a normal drum stick’s length to make the experience more realistic.

[via Fab]

You can’t always be there to read your child a story, especially if you work the night shift sometimes. But that’s no reason to miss story time with your kids.

Sparkup Reader can help you still be there to read the story aloud for your tots, even though you might not be physically there. How? By recording your voice.

You could use a conventional recorder, but you won’t be able to work out the timing of your child as he or she flips through the pages. The Sparkup Reader is smart in the sense that it has a built-in camera that snaps and saves an image of the book that it’s attached to. This allows it to recognize the book and play the clips that were recorded for it. Not only that, but it recognizes the page, too, so it doesn’t matter if your child skips a few pages or starts reading the book somewhere in the middle.

The Sparkup Reader has enough memory to store 250 minutes of audio – or about 50 typical storybooks. It retails for $50(USD).

[via Gizmag]

Everything’s bottled or canned these days. Even unusual stuff like air, unicorn meat, inflatable beach balls, and sand. Yep, you read that right: sand.

It seems pretty crazy at first, but it makes sense, if you think about it. I mean, the beach is usually so far away and it’s always no fun, with the huge crowds and all. So if you can’t go to the beach, then why not take a part of it with you?

Brookstone has come to the rescue with their version of sand. It looks and even feels like the real thing, but it behaves like Silly Putty. Just push, mold, and pat to form it into your desired shape. Making sandcastles and sand sculptures has never been easier. The best part? You can do so in the comfort of your own home or even in your office!

Sand is available for at Brookstone for $25(USD).

[via Werd via The Awesomer]