Instead of harpooning a whale for samples, wouldn’t it be easier to just collect their snot using an R/C helicopter? More

The Wave UFO appears to be the first gesture-controlled…err…R/C vehicle. DVICE explains how you steer its flight: Wave UFO Controlled By Gestures, Not Convenient, Well-Vetted Remotes …start the motor and hold your hand underneath as it begins to hover. As you move your hand laterally to the ground, the UFO moves with you. Make an upward toss gesture, and up the UFO goes. The more violent the motion, the higher it flies. Make a diagonal toss gesture, and you can push it toward a buddy, who can “catch it” over his hand and toss it back (or not).

Boys love three things: sports, spies, and cryptozoology. At least that’s what Fisher-Price is banking on with their new remote control Big Foot, an expressive monster that can sleep, somersault, and stomp with the best of ‘em. Big Foot comes with a foot shaped remote that controls its movement as well as its emotions, including buttons that make him happy, angry, or sleepy. Each button has several routines, so Big Foot won’t always be the same kind of angry when you mash on the big, kid-friendly angry button. His different states of contentment are displayed with grunts, shrugs, and movable facial features including his nose, eyes, and eyebrows.

Apps are here to to stay, so we might as well get our kids on board early. That’s the thinking behind Wild Planet’s Spy Video TRAKR, a video-enabled RC car that can be loaded up with free, kid-created programs. Making its debut at this weekend’s Toy Fair, the TRAKR sports a camera that beams video back to a small color LCD screen on the controller. That video, or still shots from it, can be saved to an SD card for later perusal. But the real twenty-first century touch here is the TRAKR’s ability to run kid- (or kid at heart-) programmed routines that will be available as free downloads from the Wild Planet website. Out of the box, the kit will include an app for using the TRAKR as a motion-sensing alarm system, sounding a warning to intruders with its built-in speaker, as well as one for recording night vision video

Last week Japanese toymaker Takara Tomy claimed that they had a soda-powered RC car in the works , and they have delivered on that promise with the ” Ene Pocket .” The car runs on Sony’s Bio Battery which, in turn, gets its energy from breaking down sugars like those found in soda and fruit drinks. Therefore, the efficiency of the car depends on the liquid used (apparently, grape juice is the best). Obviously, a toy like this is intended as an eco-friendly alternative to electricity, but unless you are sifting through dumpsters for the residue in Red Bull cans, all you are really doing is wasting food. At any rate, the car is still in the prototype phase, so there is no word yet on when it might actually be available for sale.

If simply flying your RC plane isn’t quite giving you the thrill it used to, it could be time to upgrade your firepower. The plug and play Quanum bomb system might be just the bad idea you were looking for. Looking disturbingly realistic and being dangerously easy to install, the Quanum RC bomb system could spell trouble if found in the hands of the wrong remote control pilots. Though RC bombs aren’t exactly a new idea, Quanum’s $17 kit seems simple and effective. The system sticks onto the underside of any RC aircraft, size .25 or larger, and can be triggered by an extra servo channel in your receiver

Glucose-powered bio-batteries aren’t a brand new idea , but Japanese toymaker Takara may be among the first to attempt to use them in their products. They’ve made some prototype remote controlled toy cars which run on our favorite sweet drinks. Apparently those cars are powered by energy “generated by using enzymes to break down glucose found in sugary drinks” such as sodas, energy drinks, or fruit juice. One 8cc dose of such a liquid will keep a toy car running for 60 minutes and the higher the sugar content, the faster the cars will run. This leaves two questions: When can I play with one of these and which soda will make it go the fastest

If you’re bored over the weekend, you could while the hours away playing video games. Or you could build yourself a badass Arduino quadrocopter. You know, either way. [ Quaduino via Make ]

For many X-Wings in the Star Wars universe, the end came as a spectacular explosion on the field of battle. Not so much for this RCX-4 helicopter. For it, the end will no doubt arrive as a boring ol’ lawsuit. First spied at CES, hovering in the air and openly thumbing its nose at George Lucas and Lucasfilm, the RCX-4 is a four screw beast of an RC helicopter that bears more than just a passing resemblance to the workhorse of the Rebellion. And like Dak, Luke’s enthusiastic but doomed gunner in The Empire Strikes Back , it too feels as though it could take on the whole Empire by itself, if not for that pesky IP issue that will surely bring it down very, very soon. So its days are numberd, but even so this knockoff sounds decidedly un -knockoff in the quality department.

I’ve been let down by my fair share of remote control flying toys in the past, but the four-propellered, iPhone-controlled, Linux-based, Avatar-chic, WiFi-ready, augmented reality-enhanced, dual video camera-wielding Parrot…well, you get the picture. The Parrot is just about the coolest remote control gadget I’ve ever seen. Tilting your iPhone ever so slightly, you control the mechanical bird in an augmented reality based game of airborne warfare. The Parrot has an on-board Linux computer that manages delicate accelerometers to keep your game flying. Two video cameras—one on the nose and one on the bottom—transmit video back to your iPhone controller which is then overlaid with the targets you’re meant to destroy. The Parrot is WiFi ready, so you can play in a networked game with friends, and a removable bumper makes sure your drone stays safe if the game gets a little too real