Remote Control

For a good 2,000 years or so, many people have sworn by acupuncture as a means of relieving aches and pains, and treating various other disorders. In order to receive treatment, however, they have had to go to clinics and get jabbed with needles. Now, New York College of Health Professions chairman Donald Spector has created a wirelessly-controlled wearable skin patch, that he claims is able to deliver acupuncture-like treatment on demand.  Read More

If you’ve ever found yourself bemoaning the relative dearth of viable personal UAV (or "drone") options but still find the idea of an eye in the sky alluring, then you may well be in luck, because UK-based gadget purveyor RED5 has unveiled the Spy Hawk: a remote-controlled plane which runs from a rechargeable battery and features a video camera to facilitate easy snooping from up above.  Read More

Don’t you wish you could be skipping stones across a mountain pond right now? Well, if you’re willing to wait in an online queue for a while, you could be doing it ... sort of. Idaho’s Sun Valley resort area is currently running a promotion, in which people can use their internet browser to control Skippy – a robot that skips real stones across a real pond.  Read More

After a decade on the market, the Roomba has become the most well-recognized brand in robotic vacuum cleaners and a staple of many households. But while iRobot has improved the Roomba's filtering, suctioning, and collision detection over the years, actually controlling the vacuum has been left to its automated systems. Now iRobot has released the Roomba 790, which gives you direct control of the robo-vac's movement and settings remotely with a new Wireless Command Center.  Read More

Do you like the idea of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, but find them just a bit too primitive for a techy person like yourself? Well, then you may like the new BattroBorg 20 fighting robots from Takara Tomy. They’re actual, physical toy robots, that are operated via Wii-like nunchaku-style controllers.  Read More

With the introduction of smartphone apps like Triggertrap and ioShutter, which allow you to control your DSLR from your phone, you might wonder why anyone would still buy a dedicated remote unit ... until that is, you miss a once-in-a-lifetime shot because you needed the phone for something else at the crucial moment. Sometimes simple is better. The Satechi WTR-A is a budget wireless timer remote for Canon DSLRs.  Read More

AGA’s new electric iTotal Control Cooker incorporates three separate independently-operating ovens, assigned to the roasting, baking and simmering of foods. It also has a snazzy touchscreen panel, which can be used to control those ovens. Additionally, there’s a boiling plate and a simmering plate on top. What really makes it special, however, is the fact that it can be controlled from anywhere in the world.  Read More

Underwater remote-operated vehicles, or ROVs, are almost impossibly fascinating. They’re controlled by a surface-based operator, who watches their real-time video feed and pilots them via a long umbilical cable. Although the big-league multi-million-dollar ROVs are used for things such as exploring the wreck of the Titanic or studying hydrothermal vents, hobbyists have quite a bit of fun using their own home-built versions just to see what’s under the surface of the local lake. Unfortunately, even to build one yourself, you need to be pretty technically skilled. That could change, however, as the OpenROV project is developing “easy to assemble” kits – it may even provide li’l ROVs that are ready to go, right out of the box.  Read More

You can take that GoPro HERO actioncam of yours, and stick it someplace inaccessible ... after which, you’ll be able to remotely start and stop recording, if you’ve got GoPro’s new Wi-Fi BacPac + Wi-Fi Remote Combo Kit. The company officially released the system today.  Read More