Pictures don’t lie, but you aren’t really seeing real people flying around New York City. And while I was hoping they might be real people with jetpacks, they’re actually remote-controlled planes built in the shape of human beings. The R/C humans were made to fly around various landmarks in the Big Apple, including the Statue of Liberty.

They were thought up by the marketing people behind the upcoming movie, Chronicle. And even though I have never heard of the movie until now, this ploy makes me want to go see it. Just because.

[NY Observer via Gizmodo via Colossal]

Mounted on top of LanZilla is a custom case that houses, among other things, a Thermaltake Element Q mini ITX case, a Zotac H-67 ITX Wifi motherboard, a zotac 560TI graphics card, 8GB RAM and a 120 GB SSD. It also has a 9.6v rechargeable battery to power the car.

Check out the LanZilla zipping about on the video below. Its ability to withstand bumps and falls is quite impressive.

You can check out a second video of the LanZilla if you want. No pressure. Also Stephen, I’m pretty sure this isn’t the world’s first remote-controlled PC casemod. Doesn’t make it any less awesome though! Check out Stephen’s website for his other projects.

[via GizmoWatch]

As its name might tell you, the Steam Trike doesn’t run on electricity or gas. Nope, it runs on good, old-fashioned steam. It’s got a pair of large boilers, and rides along on a metal frame and large off-road wheels, and a spring suspension system. This 19 pound bad boy was made by a guy going by the name prallplatte (which translates to “full plate”), in his “Secret Ural Russian Laboratorys(sic),” whatever that means, especially since his name is German. Check it out in action in the video below:

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I just love the sound of the motor and watching all those pistons and mechanical components in action. I also love how the driver is a teddy bear – with goggles on. But don’t you go thinking he’s all cute and cuddly. He might just burn you with a scalding hot blast of steam.

And in case you’re wondering why it’s pink, the color scheme of prallplatte’s vehicles are inspired by the SAS Pink Panther, including this hammer-wielding beast:

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Measuring in over 35 inches long, and weighing about 28 pounds, the Baja 5SC R/C truck is 1/5th of the size of an actual off-road truck, and can achieve speeds of 40 mph or more.

Just like a real truck, it runs on a gasoline engine, and has a real metal transmission, clutch, suspension system,  and disc brakes. Heck, it’s really like owning a truck that’s been through the shrinker ray.

About the only difference between this thing and a real truck is that the Baja 5SC is a 2-wheel-drive vehicle, not a 4WD. Oh, and you can’t fit inside of it.

The Baja 5SC can run for as long as 45 minutes on a single fill-up of gas, and is available factory-assembled, or in kit form. You can find out more about it over at HPI Racing. The fully-assembled version will set you back around $1279, while the kit version sells for about $1159, including the engine. I found them over at A Main Hobbies, but HPI lists a number of retailers too.

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[Thanks for the tip, Dwayne!]

The Helo TC is a twin rotor helicopter with a little rotor on the back to help steer. The Flight Deck IR module plugs into the iPhone and then clips on the back so you can keep a hand on it easily. You get two modes of steering with virtual joysticks, or tilt steering if you prefer. The app can also store up to three flight plans.

That means you can record a flight and have the helicopter make the same flight again automatically. The battery inside the helicopter is rechargeable from the USB port of your computer or any other USB source. The flight Deck module uses four AAA batteries and connects to the headphone jack of the iPhone or iPod Touch. The Helo TC sells for $49.99(USD) and is available now.

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They look like a ton of fun and the detail is pretty amazing. The only drawback is that they come in Yoshi and Mario versions only, but maybe they will add other characters later if they sell a lot of cars. I for one would love to race Yoshi against Mario in real life.

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For the price of $119.99 (USD) over at ThinkGeek, you get the huge RC Mario or Yoshi car, remote control, an AC charging adapter, a 9.6V Ni-MH rechargeable battery, a 9V alkaline battery for the remote and the trusty old manual.

Sadly these don’t launch banana peels and turtle shells, but you can’t have everything.

It took Vanguard Defense about three years to come up with this, but it will sure surprise anyone who dismisses the Shadowhawk as a toy. It’s 7 feet long and weighs 49lbs. It can travel at speeds of up to 70mph. It’s got a bunch of sensors so that it can also serve as a drone, as well as laser pointers, range finders, and 37mm or 40mm grenade launchers.

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These video clips show just a little bit of the potential of the Shadowhawk in action.

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Before you start saving up, remember that the most lethal version is unavailable for civilians (you need to be a military or law enforcement customer), but you can get the Mark II without the weapons for an undisclosed amount over at Vanguard Defense.

[via Gizmodo via Ubergizmo]

The flail is composed of tungsten hammers that pound 10″ into the ground. For harder soils, there’s also a mechanical tiller which can plow through and rip out the mines as well. If the mines explode, the tank is supposed to be easily repairable. All the while, it’s operated remotely, with the operator a safe distance away from the exploding mines.

This tank was created by a Swiss non-profit organization, to help dig out the mines in minefields without risking the lives of servicemen and women. It’s been in Senegal, Sudan, Chad, and other places where minefields are commonplace.

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The video shows the older Digger D-2 in action, but you get the idea on how it works. It can clear about 10,000 square feet per hour, which is pretty cool.

[via PopSci via DVice]

From the looks of it when the Kyosho copter lands in the States, it may be branded as a Griffin Technology offering. The toy is dubbed the Helo TC and it still looks awesome. The white rectangle with the copter is the Griffin unit and the larger image is the Kyosho copter, and they sure look similar to me. The copter is controlled using an app that is included for your iPhone. You can fly the toy all around your home with the smartphone.

This one also has LED lights on it so you can see the copter as you fly around in dim rooms. I have played with toy helicopters that look like this before with a normal remote control and they fly surprisingly well and are generally robust.  The Helo TC will sell for about $56 (USD) when it lands, and should arrive in time for Christmas.

[via SlashGear]

Shown at the Tokyo Toy Show in prototype form, the pint-sized helicopter will be controlled with a custom iOS app. The app will provide coaxial command of the chopper, but it’s not clear if it will achieve this over WiFi, Bluetooth, or require some sort of RF dongle for controlling vehicles. While you can already control the Parrot’s AR.Drone with an iPhone app, it’ll be nice to see some other R/C vehicles that can do the same.

Kyosho plans on releasing the iOS-compatible helicopter around October 2011, but didn’t reveal pricing as of yet. Hopefully, they’ll start offering other vehicles you can control with your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch too. I’m looking forward to the day when all R/C vehicles can accept WiFi signals, so you could build custom control apps on pretty much any mobile device on the market today.

[via Hobby Media(IT)]

Case spent six months and over $4,000 (USD) building the Schumacher Mi3. It has a carbon fiber chassis, an 11hp motor and a 12-cell battery pack. Here’s the Schumacher Mi3′s record-setting run at the Rockingham Dragway:

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Wow. I wonder if the guy driving it can actually steer that thing it or even see it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the remote only had two buttons, one to stop and one to go. As you’d expect from someone as driven as he is, Case is already looking forward. He’s been working on the Streamliner, a toy car that he wants to have a top speed of 200mph.

[via TopSpeed & Gencept]

Inside WALL-E, you’ll find an Arduino and some servos as well. The case is pretty awesome, thanks to the details and the paint. The actual build process looks painfully complex, but the result was definitely worth the effort.

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Thechoozen admits that his build isn’t complete yet, but all signs point to an incredible mod already. The fact that this WALL-E case can actually move around (and pack garbage into cubes?) is pretty cool as well, though Thechoozen probably won’t be able to surf the web while he moves about.

[Bit Tech via Make:]

Skip’s army tank PC is a beast, measuring 32″ (l) x 12″ (w) x 11″ (h), and it’s doing a perfect job camouflaging as a tank. By heavily modding a jumbo R/C tank model, he was able to cram the guts of a fully-functional PC under the hood.

He had to cut a hole in the side for the motherboard’s ports to stick out, but otherwise, you wouldn’t know this tank was a computer from the outside (until you open the DVD drawer).

Unlike most casemods that transform one thing into another, Skip preserved the driving and pellet-firing capabilities of this R/C vehicle, allowing him to unplug it from the wall and drive it around, shooting projectiles from its movable turret.

I think the green cold-cathode underbelly lighting is a nice touch too. Sure, a Panzer tank doesn’t have the sleek industrial design, of say, an iMac or MacMini, the idea of a tank computer is so much cooler in my opinion. The only thing better would be if the computer could keep running while its driving around, and then beamed its screen back to the remote control.

Check out more pics and details on the build over on Skip Station’s website.

[via Case Mod Blog]

Currently, the FirstLook is a prototype, but it will be available for purchase next year. It’s waterproof (up to 3 feet), shockproof (up to 15 feet), can even climb steps and obstacles. The cool thing about this design is that it can even flip itself without too much effort. This ‘bot weighs less than 5 lbs and measures only 10 inches in length.

The robot has got 4 cameras with full audio, and it’s controlled via a wrist-mounted touchscreen remote. I imagine that controlling it via an iPhone app may also be possible. It will last up to 6 hours with a charge.

Here’s a quick video overview of the 110 FirstLook in action:

[via Ubergizmo]

The little RC vehicle is also a pretty cool telepresence device as well. I can see a geek tormenting his dog or cat from work with this thing or checking up on the kids after school from the office. Pierric says that the range is kilometers and it uses a netbook running Skype to feed video to the driver.

The finished product is pretty cool looking, and other than the netbook it’s not that expensive to make from the looks of it. I wonder if you have an extra smartphone on your mobile plan lying around you might be able to pull this off with something smaller than a netbook.

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[via Engadget]

The dude put the fireworks on the bottom of the copter, and used a match head on a resistor to light the fuse when he was in range of the enemy balloons (filled with highly-explosive hydrogen) in a snowfield. He also rigged up a camera tripod with some roman candle sentry guns for effect.

He then piloted the DIY copter into the fray and shot the balloons down. It’s cool even though I know beyond a doubt that if I tried this, I would have crashed into a tree two seconds after takeoff.

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You can read more about the copter and its construction at RCExplorer.

[via Geek.com]

DeskPets is the company behind those cool Skitterbots I talked about before. The new iPhone-controlled toy is a tank called the TankBot. You can steer the bot by tilting your iPhone. TankBot also has sensors that allow him to navigate obstacles on his own and it can respond to hand movements too.

Selling for about $20 (USD), this toy isn’t crazy expensive like the AR.Drone either. DeskPets will show the new toy off for the first time at the New York Toy Fair in February. It will come in black, blue, green, and orange colors and in multiple frequencies to allow several to play at once. The TankBot lands this Summer in stores around the country.

This bad-ass flying machine isn’t one of those cheap little plastic helicopters you can buy at your local hobby shop. This beast can fly up to 1 mile away and 2000 feet into the air. It’s even got metal CNC rotor blades, so you don’t want to stick your finger in there unless you want to risk amputation. Flight time is as high as 15 minutes per charge, too.

The thing was designed by IgarashiDesign, and is based on an awesome flying machine concept they did a couple of years back. The big blue beast looks like no helicopter I’ve ever seen. Never mind the fact that the gyro-stabilized copter is strong enough to lift a 7 oz. payload, the gyro-stabilized chopper also has a wireless video camera on board, so you can use it for not-so-secret spy missions. (It’s not the most inconspicuous thing you’ve ever seen). Check out the video I grabbed below to see it in action:

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The guys are RotorConcept are taking CES orders for just $299 (USD), but they list the regular price for the SWAT copter as $499. Hopefully, that’s just to make the CES price sound good, and the price will drop on their website at some point. Either way, head on over to RotorConcept’s website for more details and more video footage.

Kyosho’s R/C J-Kart (Jumping Kart) just needs a little bit of runway when it first starts up, then quickly lifts off. The idea behind the car is that you can drive it along the ground, then flip the “Power Boost” button to lift off to avoid on-ground obstacles. Here’s a video clip of the car in action to ahow you how it works.

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Nifty, eh? The guys over at Japan Trend Shop call the R/C Jumping Kart a “3-in-1 copter car”, referring to car, UFO and helicopter – but I have to say that UFO and helicopter are basically the same thing in this case. Still, a car that can fly is pretty cool.

The only thing not to like about this thing is the price if you want to import one from Japan. Selling for $124 (USD), it’s quite steep for what really amounts to a toy. If you happen to live in Japan, you can probably score one for about half that price, or if you do some searches, you might get lucky.

The DraganFlyer X8 has 7 configurations, including the base model, which already has the carbon-fiber blades, brushless motor, landing gear, OLED video remote controller, GPS, batteries, case and such. The other configurations are Photography/HD Video, HD Video, IP Video, Low light video w/onboard DVR, Infrared video w/ onboard DVR, and Emergency Services. Check this page for the full list of specs and options.

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Note that the pre-configured models are not fixed; you can add (but not subtract) features as long as you have the funds. So how much funds are we talking about? The base model of the DraganFlyer X8 can be yours for $32,165 (USD). I’m guessing you just thought, “Oh. So it won’t be mine then.”

[DraganFly]