Hasta La Gadget!

Drone surveillance isn’t just for the government any more. The Spy Hawk RC glider, with a camera that streams live footage to the 3.5″ LCD on its controller, lets you be the eye in the sky. More »

Drones are a hot piece of tech these days, whether you’re a kid or an armed force. Rich kids and rich armed forces, that is: for instance, the popular Parrot AR.Drones sell for $250 to $300 (USD). Lucky for us, Brando stopped being weird for a second and got a hold of a cheap alternative.

Brando describes the UDIRC remote control multicopter as follows: “The Perfect Flying Object with this New Design Technology, The Most Stable (like the real?) Floating in the AIR. The Special Design of the One Press Button, which can make the UFO to Somersault in the Air. This RC UFO is powered by a Small piece Battery that is fueled with the USB External Dual Charging Box; therefore, UFO can Fly Never Stop with this Unlimited Power Supply!” Yeah. Still weird.

Because it doesn’t have a camera, fancy smartphone controls or good looks, the multicopter’s price is the good kind of weird: Brando is selling it for just $50(USD). That’s a steal for a quadcopter, but for a quadcopter with unlimited power supply? It’s the heist of the century.

[via Boing Boing]

Although all of the talk surrounding Cupertino currently centers on Apple’s iPhone, I can’t get the company’s television out of my head. I own an iPhone and have an iPad. And although I’ll likely buy Apple’s next handset, it’s the company’s television that has me drooling.

Based on the reports surrounding Apple’s television at the moment, I can all but guarantee that I’ll be buying one. I love the idea of iCloud integration and I firmly believe that it’ll come with an App Store. Better yet, it’ll deliver high-quality visuals that should make its competition reevaluate their future decisions.

The only thing I don’t like hearing, though, is talk of Apple requiring iPhone and iPad owners use their mobile devices to control the television. Yes, it’s a forward-thinking idea, but it’s a bad one.

The fact is, we can use the iPhone and iPad as a remote right now. On my Apple TV, for example, I can control everything the device does with Apple’s nifty Remote app. But that Remote app is designed for a simple box and even simpler functionality. The remote’s featureset just won’t translate to a sophisticated television.

Like it or not, today’s remotes, as ugly and big, and old school as they might be, are a necessary evil. Physical buttons that light up at night make it easy for us to choose a channel, increase the volume, and perform other activities. And with some help from a physical keyboard built into some of those remotes, we can quickly type out just about anything.

“Using the iPhone as a remote will take us back in time”

A touchscreen-based remote, however, tends to fall short. For one thing, we’ll always need to be looking down just to find out what buttons we need to press. And our current practice of sliding our finger over to a button based on muscle memory alone will be gone. Using the iPhone or iPad as a remote in some ways will take us back in time.

That said, I can see some value in using an iDevice to control my new Apple television. I like the idea of using it to type in credentials into an application or even making it a secondary screen that delivers more information than what’s on the television. For example, if I’m watching a baseball game, it would be great if that broadcast shipped over to my iPhone – likely through an additional application running on the handset – some information on the batter, who’s up next, and other key data.

But as a remote, I don’t see much value in the iPhone and iPad. Apple can certainly create some nifty applications and I won’t deny that the company has come up with features that have blown us away. But controlling a television is very basic and needs some physical buttons. A mobile device featuring only a touchscreen just won’t get it done.

Ditch plans for the iDevices controlling your televisions, Apple. The future is still in the past with physical remotes.

Dear Apple: Don’t Use the iPhone As the Remote for Your TV is written by Don Reisinger & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Combat is a grizzly business, and despite the best efforts of medical evacuation crews, it’s not always feasible to send rescue teams into the fray. The US Army is seeking to address this with “autonomous vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)” (read: drones) for dropping off medical supplies and picking up injured troops. In its latest request for research and development proposals, the Army calls not for new tools, but for the repurposing of current aircraft to do the job. Preferred candidates in the already unmanned class include the A160 Hummingbird and the K-MAX, while one of the suggestions for remote-control modification is the infamous Black Hawk. Makes the AR.Drone seem a little wimpy, doesn’t it?

Filed under: Robots, Transportation

Army seeking proposals for casualty-carrying UAVs originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Aug 2012 14:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Advances in oven technology are more the province of Jack Donaghy’s former GE overlords, but over in South Korea, LG’s taking a real-world stab at making the fictional CEO proud. An update to its Lightwave line, this new, next-gen kitchen appliance employs halogen heaters to cut down on traditional cooking time, a range of menu pre-sets to accommodate your meal-making and, most worrisome of all, a wireless connection for smartphone control. With that last tidbit of information, you should be either horrified by the opportunities for absent-minded, accidental pants pocket activation or pleased and at ease with the convenience it affords (which means you likely have children and can now tend to that bottle of red undisturbed from the couch). So, what exactly can you do from the comfort of your own phone? For starters, you can set the timer while you’re away, adjust the temperature and even activate the steam cleaning feature. It’s not clear if all of this remote action’s restricted to the company’s own devices, but if you’re living in the company’s home territory and have a fancy for haute-tech cuisining, this one’s for you.

Filed under: Cellphones, Household

The Joy of remote-controlled Cooking: LG’s Lightwave oven makes mealtime mobile-operated originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Jul 2012 17:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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