At CES this year, toymaker WowWee continues it€™s tradition of taking what had once been military- or millionaire-grade tech and selling it for less than the price of dinner for two at The Olive Garden.

Our favorite new creation is the FlyTech Bladestar a $50 autonomous flying robot. Essentially a helicopter blade with a set of perpendicular rotors to give it stability, the Bladestar uses infrared sensors to detect its proximity to obstacles walls, ceilings, pets and parents €”and avoid collisions. At least sometimes. The models we saw did a fair amount of crashing.

WowWee techs blamed that on the bright lights in the ballroom that messed with the infrared sensors.

In any case, it'€™s just as much fun to watch whether it flying or crashing.—Sean Captain


Want more? Check out our entire CES 2008 coverage here.

0 Comments



Download Our iPhone App

Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone with full articles, images and offline viewing



Follow Us On Twitter

Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed



Become a Fan On Facebook

Share links with friends, comment on stories and more


December 2009: Best of What's New

In our December issue, Popular Science names the 100 best innovations of the year: bombproof wallpaper, self-parking cars, the fastest helicopter, and 97 more. Plus inventor profiles and videos.

Check out the best of what's new here.

Popular Science Photo Pool


Share your photos in the Pop Sci pool at www.flickr.com!
tags_sprite.png
POP_embeddedForm_cover_May09.jpg