Light Start – Drone Grand Prix, touchscreen tables, Lambo Miura SV, and VR hands

Time to buy a drone – Drone pilot scores R3.8 million Grand Prix win

Drones are popular, sure, but we didn’t realise they were this popular. The World Drone Prix took place in Dubai recently and the entire event, which was competed in by 150 teams from around the world, was taken by a fifteen-year-old drone pilot – proving that Japanese anime was right about high-school kid’s piloting skills after all. Seriously though, pilot Luke Bannister from Britain — who beat everyone including local favourites Dubai Dronetek — walked off with $250,000 of the $1 million prize money pool. All for flying a drone on an outdoor track that looks an awful lot like a Wipeout recreation. So we can expect a drone Grand Prix tour soon, then, right?

Source: World Drone Prix (YouTube)

Sony are working on a projector that’ll turn a table into a touchscreen

Sony aren’t bringing their cameras into South Africa any more but we’re hoping that they pull finger and arrange us a test version of their so-called Interactive Tabletop, which was shown off at SxSW over the weekend. Using a projector and some clever programming Sony have turned a copy of Alice in Wonderland into an interactive experience, with images that can be manipulated around a tabletop. Users are able to move virtual items around on the table thanks to hand tracking, once you place a finger on the item. Quite cool. It’s just a concept and a prototype but it’s from Sony’s  Future Labs so expect further development later on.

Source: The Verge

Hopefully we look this good at 50 – Say hi to the Lamborghini Miura SV

Lamborghini have been pushing their anniversaries of late but this time, rather than releasing a new vehicle, they’ve spruced up an older one. The Miura SV, to be exact, and it’s the very same vehicle that was shown off at the Geneva Motor Show in 1971. We know that isn’t 50 years (more like 45 but we’ll take it) but the Miura was first launched in 1966. This is just the vehicle line’s anniversary present; a 45-year-old SV that has spent the last year being restored. And it looks good for a vehicle this age. We’ve seen five-year-old cars that look ready for retirement. Don’t expect to be able to buy this one though — it’s already privately owned. It was just on show last week at the Amelia Island concours event in the States last week. Lucky bugger…

Source: Lamborghini

Manus VR could be the controller of the future

Virtual reality is on track to arrive everywhere in the next six months (to a year – Get a move on, Sony!) but the elephant in the room is control. How are you going to control your way through these virtual realms without a) destroying your house, b) using standard controllers (which won’t work all that well here), or c) without coming across as a gimmick. Highly-accurate hand-tracking might be the answer and a company called Manus VR thinks that they might have that answer ready. Kinda. Their VR-capable hand-controllers are set to go up for pre-order later this year, for $250 (around R3,900). Which isn’t that bad, considering what you’ll pay for an HTC Vive, the supported headset, and a PC capable of running virtual reality applications.

Source: Manus VR