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Parrot's hybrid drone looks ready to blast a Death Star
Remember when drones used to be fun toys, not a serious business regulated by the Feds? Parrot does, judging by its two latest models, the Mambo and Swing. The $139 Swing looks a lot like an X-Wing fighter, but the wings aren't just for show. After a regular vertical takeoff, you can make like a V22 Osprey and transition to horizontal flight, hitting speeds of up to 18 mph. It then does high-speed aerobatics including turns, U-turns, half-flips and loops, "all with amazing fluidity and stability," Parrot says.
Cannon Brawl devs release alpha build for free
Cannon Brawl is dropping off an alpha version, available to download and play for free on PC. The game is a 2D mix of multiplayer action and real-time strategy, in which you control a little zeppelin that can build structures and fire cannons. Unfortunately, this is an early version of the game, so it likely has plenty of bugs, performance issues, and other compatibility problems. But the devs want to get the game in your hands, so if you're in the forgiving mood you can download it starting now.Cannon Brawl has also appeared on Steam Greenlight, and is aiming for the Xbox sometime in the future.
Portal turret replica has real laser, insatiable bloodlust
You might not remember Ryan Palser by name, but you'll surely recall the good gent's homemade Fallout 3 plasma rifle. He has since stepped his game up to bigger and badder video game weapon replicas, and has just completed the construction of the first of his forthcoming army of Portal laser turrets. Thankfully, Ryan has been sporting enough to build the older version of these human eviscerators (not the upgraded Portal 2 turrets, phew!), giving us at least a small chance of survival -- provided we have the right gear, of course. See the laser-equipped, GLaDOS-approved, 38-inch tall turret next to its maker after the break, or hit up the source link for some gorgeous photos of its construction.
TUAW's Daily App: Land-a Panda
Land-a Panda has been tearing up the App Store charts lately, and for good reason. It's a fun mix of platformer and physics puzzler that has you catapulting a panda through a series of levels in order to try and get him to his beloved mate. There's even a little Cut the Rope influence here. Your panda gets launched from a seesaw to start the level, and from there, he is fired from cannon to cannon to the other side of the map. Sometimes you have to time your launch just right, other times you can rotate the cannons around to line up your shot, and there are lots of other obstacles and mechanics that pop up later in the game. Land-a Panda is a lot of fun, and there's a ton of content to go through as well. There are 80 levels across a few worlds in the game already, and more content is on the way. It works with the Retina Display on the iPhone, there's full integration with OpenFeint and Game Center, and the whole experience is well-polished and works great. The app's not universal, but at US$0.99 for the iPhone and just a buck more for the iPad (and lite versions for both devices with 16 levels unlocked), it's a great deal that's easily recommended.
China builds a jet-propelled water cannon, just because it can (video)
Just what does $456,000 buy you these days? Well, if you happen to run the fire department of China's Luoyang City, the answer is a jet-propelled water cannon capable of spraying four tons of water per minute. That pretty much qualifies it for a "terminal velocity" badge, as the water is said to move at such speed as to choke fires from the oxygen surrounding them. Maximum range for this blaze blaster is 120 meters (nearly 400 feet), though you'll need to only move a fraction of that distance to click past the break and watch the awesome video of it in action.
iPhone-controlled beer cannon is the robot friend of our dreams (video)
If your morning's been running low on a little thing called awesomeness, hurry past the break and gorge yourself on the stuff in the embedded videos. For the more patient among you, we'll set the scene. A young chap by the name of Ryan has repurposed an old mini-fridge from his college days into a beer-firing drone, which can accept instructions on beer brand, temperature, and destination, before launching it at the target with a force of 50psi. An embedded webcam assists the iPhone user in aiming the throws, while it's also said to record every toss and tweet it out for posterity as well. If this thing could slice bread, we'd probably offer to marry it.
Beer cannon fires beer out at your iPhone's demand
We've seen an iOS device used to control a soda machine before, but here's a setup with a more, ahem, practical application for New Year's Eve: a beer cannon controlled by an iPhone. You can see a video of it in action after the break, and the creator even has it set up to post videos of fired beer cans straight to Twitter. The whole thing is controlled using what looks like a web app on the iPhone (or it might just be a normal app fitted with some web views), and it allows you to select what kind of beer you'd like, as well as look through the cannon's web cam, and then shoot your beer across the room to you. The app can also control and monitor the temperature inside the mini-fridge, so this is quite a setup. Unfortunately, we don't have much information on how it was all made (though we're told that's coming soon), but it's all connected up using an IO-204, and the cannon itself is air-based. Pretty wild. I wouldn't advocate using this on New Year's Eve with a room full of people, though -- someone's going to end up with a concussion. Thanks, Hans!
Father-son team build Samus Aran arm cannon for Halloween
Looking for a little inspiration for your Halloween costume? Then you might not want to read any further, as you'll likely only find yourself struggling to match the Samus Aran costume that 11-year old Joseph DeRose and his father are building. That costume apparently only consists of an arm cannon at the moment, but it's certainly an impressive arm cannon -- it packs an array of LED lights with various settings (controlled by an Arduino, naturally), not to mention an assortment of sound effects from the Metroid games. Those not concerned about being upstaged can check out a video of the build process after the break.
Windows Phone 7 Series T-shirt cannon gets detailed, redefines 'mobile warfare'
Microsoft's MIX 10 Windows Phone app demos were highlighted by a robotic t-shirt cannon entirely controlled by a WP7S app, and the code monkeys behind the project are now back with a full breakdown of how things were achieved -- the bot was built on a standard battle-bot chassis, which was then modded with the cannons and an HP Envy laptop for control purposes. Just to drill in the point about how familiar development for the new mobile OS will be, the MS guys point out that outsider assistance on the project was recruited under the pretext that what was being built were "out of the browser" Silverlight apps for the desktop. Very crafty. We've got video of the cannon in action waiting after the break, along with an image of the Phone controls.
Crapgadget: 'Gee... thanks?' edition
If you need a flash drive or USB hub there are many useful and, more to the point, tasteful options out there. But if you want to saddle a hapless co-worker or relative with a silly, embarrassing, or just plain crapulant gag gift suitable for the current technological moment? Look no further than the following assortment of crapgadgets. Your illustrious Engadget eds have hand-picked a wonderful assortment of devices tailor-made to evoke awkward responses at office birthday parties and the like. So, without further ado...Read - No Green Thumb Required: USB Fever 4-Port Flower Pot HubRead - USB Airplane Hub with built-in fan Read - Robot USB Drives would make a cute gift Read - USB Artillery HubRead - USB Octopus Hub%Poll-31510%
Phat Loot Phriday: Cannonball Runner
I sure thought that we'd covered this before, but all my searching tells me that we haven't. So, since the past few weeks have been late endgame epics, here's a bit of awesomely husky loot -- if you haven't ever gotten this one, you definitely should.Name: Cannonball Runner (Wowhead, Thottbot, Fishing)Type: Rare TrinketDamage/Speed: N/A (see below)Abilities: Summons a cannon that will fire at enemies in front of you. Lasts for 10 seconds, with a 5 minute cooldown. Will reportedly attack enemies that aren't aggroed, so be careful dropping it in a crowded area. Fires about seven shots with an average of 50 damage each (though can also crit), so about 350 damage, depending on whatever you're shooting at. And of course, the name itself hearkens back to the famous Burt Reynolds epic, Cannonball Run. And the icon (a smiley-face adorned bomb) is great, though Blizzard has since reused it as a number of different bombs and grenades. And finally, it's one of the best trinkets in World of Warcraft. How to Get It: You've got to drop Cannon Master Willey, hiding in the Scarlet Crusade's armory in the live side of Stratholme. He's down at the end of a hallway, and as you fight him, other people will show up, so one of your group has to sit on cannon duty and fire cannons at the bad guys that show up while the rest of you fight Willey. Down him, and the trinket will drop at about a 17% rate. At level 70, the whole instance is pretty much soloable (depending on your class skill and gear), so odds are that as long as you keep on top of things, you can probably make your way to him by yourself.We'll have to see if Willey shows up in some form in the upcoming Caverns of Time version of Stratholme -- considering that Old Hillsbrad (with all of its familiar faces) is the most popular CoT instance, it's not hard to guess that he will.Getting Rid of It: Sells for 1g 8s 50c, disenchants into a Large Brilliant Shard. Boom!
Group conquest missions in Pirates of the Burning Sea
Pirates of the Burning Sea is built around taking and defending ports from pirates and hostile nations. Until now, building the unrest was a fairly deadly and expensive occupation -- since in PotBS, win or lose, you expend a lot of valuable resources in cannon shot, hull patches and sail repair kits for a victory, and much more than that if defeated. Flying Lab developer GavinIrby explains the new group conquest missions coming in patch 1.3. These are repeatable missions meant for three or more players where they can either aid in an attack against an NPC enemy fort, or defend a fort from NPC enemies.Attack missions will feature gunboats sent out from the fort to take on the players. Gunboats are small ships with a single, fixed cannon mounted on their bow. They are easy to sink, but will stalk the players without ever giving them an easy broadside. The defense missions add in cannons aimed at the beach; a player there can help the NPC defenders by firing the cannon to reduce the number of enemy swarming toward them. More options to help your nation take or defend ports is a good thing, and should go a fair amount toward making the PvP rewarding.
Software glitch "unlikely" to blame for deadly cannon incident, expert says
While some have speculated that a software glitch may been the cause of the deadly anti-aircraft cannon incident in South Africa last week, a defense expert is now casting doubt on that notion, saying that it is more likely the result of a "simple mechanical failure." According to Jim O'Halloran of Jane's Land-Based Air Defence (speaking to NewScientist), "if a shell was jammed in the breech and the cordite then fired, it could set off the ammunition in the canisters," which would in turn send the turret spinning. O'Halloran went on to say that it's "a very tragic accident, but it is not a robot gone out of control." As reported earlier, both the police and a Board of Inquiry are now investigating the matter, although there's been no firm conclusions from either as of yet.
Software glitch investigated as possible cause of deadly robot cannon incident
According to ITWeb, the South African National Defense Force is now investigating the possibility that a software glitch may have been the cause of deadly anti-aircraft cannon "malfunction" that left nine soldiers dead and 14 seriously wounding during an exercise last Friday. The robot cannon in question is an Oerlikon GDF-005 which, as ITWeb points out, was apparently "not designed for fully automatic control," yet that is just how it was operating in this case, although Oerlikon itself reportedly played no role in the upgrades. While Defense Force spokesman Kwena Mangope apparently isn't going any further than to describe the incident as a "mechanical problem," both the police and a Board of Inquiry are now looking to get to the bottom of the matter, although there's no word as to when they expect to report their findings.[Via Danger Room, thanks David D]
RC Pirate ship with working cannon lets you rule the pool
Lifeguards beware: the stakes have been raised. This RC pirate ship would be way cooler if the cannon actually fired something, but those landlubbers in the shallow end don't know that you're unarmed. A switch on the waterproof transmitter triggers what is sure to be a terrifying light and sound display from speakers hidden in the 18-inch hull, and when you're done looting whatever booty you can find, the twin screws all but guarantee a swift retreat from that bruiser middle schooler trying to wreck your summer.
