Intel recently ran a competition to find the best new ideas for wearable tech and the winner was a bizarre device called Nixie, a drone that straps to your wrist and can be flung into the air to take selfies.
The user just pulls the device from their wrist and then throws it out in the direction he or she wants the selfie to be taken from. Nixie will then detect it has been detached and unfurl its straps to become the arms for the rotors, then level itself, sense which direction it was thrown – and thus which direction to face, position itself a couple of metres away and take a photo of you before flying back to you. All within a couple of seconds.
The device was demonstrated by Intel at its keynote at CES 2015, with
the crowd noticeably being impressed by the slickness with which Nixie
did its thing.
Related: The most awesome drones and quadcopter we’ve seen at CES 2015
Nixie’s selfie of the Intel keynote presenters
Along with the gyroscopes and accelerometers typical of a drone it uses Intel’s RealSense depth-sensing camera technology to aim the camera.
Nixie won $500,000 for winning the Intel Make It Wearable award back in November and it is still putting this money to use perfected the technology. As such there’s no release date or price for Nixie yet.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
