Parrot AR.Drone turns your living room into a virtual battlefield [AR]

Last time we checked in with Parrot's AR.Drone quadricopter, we were told that game developers would be putting together some games to play with the drone. Parrot recently showed off what those games look like.


You've got three major flavors to choose from when it comes to playing with the AR.Drone: single player, dual mode and against a robot. The single player mode sees the drone hovering in the middle of the room while you dogfight with virtual opponents. With an attachment atop the AR.Drone, you can compete against other players using virtual rockets and guns. Finally, the robot mode has you going up against a simulated robotic foe, which in real life just looks like a board with circles printed on it.

Most of the augmented reality games play out in such a way that you're trying to keep your drone aimed at a target long enough to fire, while dodging incoming fire and avoiding lock-ons. It's all visible in the video that's streamed to your iPhone-turned-controller.

The Parrot AR.Drone doesn't have a release date or price, yet, but you can check it out in the video down below.


[DVICE via Joystiq]

Welcome Again to The 21st Century: Electroencephalography for At Home Entertainment

Emotiv Systems is finally releasing the much awaited Epoc headset brainwave controller. The available games and applications that the device can interface with are still scarce, so it seems to be geared toward developers and researchers that are thinking up new ways to utilize EEG. With a $300 starting price tag, this bodes well for a future where we'll be able to chow down on cheeseburgers while blowing up virtual goblins in Halo 12.

EEG display

FFT display 

Gyro display 

Data Packet display 

Data Recording and Playback

Product page: EPOC Headset...

[Medgadget]

PS3 May Get Cross-Game Chat With Next Firmware Update [Rumor]

Bedlam in the official Playstation forums: Someone slipped up and accidentally confirmed that cross-game chat may be coming in the next Playstation 3 firmware update. The post was quickly deleted, which forumgoers are taking as evidence of the slip's truth.
Cross-game text chat has been around since April, but voice chat has so far been a no-show. Kotaku writes that they tried to contact Sony for a truly official response, but only received a curt reply:

As you know, we haven't made any announcements on upcoming firmware and don't comment on rumor or speculation.

It's quite possible that the next firmware update will in fact bring cross-game chat, but I think we're getting a bit too excited over a forum post.
[Gizmodo via Playstation Forums via Kotaku]

Google Maps' Giant Game of Monopoly Begins Tomorrow [Google]

No, that's not a snarky business headline. Google and Hasbro are launching a worldwide game of Monopoly using Google Maps as the board. It's called Monopoly City Streets.
Each player starts with $3 million. They can buy any street in the world to erect houses, stadiums and even skyscapers allowing them to collect more and more daily rent (ranging from $50,000 to $100 million per property). The goal? 'Play to beat your friends and the world to become the richest property magnate in existence.'
Streets will vary in cost, of course, with the White House's Pennsylvania Ave. listed at $2 million, while
Downing Street (London's home to the senior British cabinet) goes for just $231,000. (America, fuck yeah.)
If anyone sees a spot to register, please say so in the comments. So far we've only tracked down the game's official site and blog. And if we don't start playing right when this game starts, we'll lose out on another rare opportunity to be financially humbled by the real estate market. [Monopoly City Streets via Daily Mail via DVICE]