The Quadricopter

This is the AR.Drone Quadricopter. It was demonstrated at the recent February Main Meeting and everyone wanted one:

It weighs less than 500 grams and can run for about 12 minutes before recharging (1 hr 30 mins). [ Buy several batteries ]

The controller can be an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. However, manufacturers French Company Parrot have released the computer source code so that enterprising people can change the program and control it from other devices as well.

It runs on an ARM 9 RISC 32 BITS CPU 468 MHZ, DDR RAM 128 MB — 200 MHZ, using a Linux OS.

More details can be found at their website.

Annual General Meeting 2011

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF MEMBERS

Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of members of the

SYDNEY PC USER GROUP INCORPORATED

ABN 63 176 530 563

will be held on: Tuesday 22^nd March 2011, commencing at 6.00 p.m.

at the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts,

Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney.

BUSINESS

1. To receive and adopt the Financial Report and the Executive Committee’s Report of the Sydney PC User Group Incorporated for the year ending 31^st January 2011.

2. To elect Executive Committee Members.

3. To transact any other business which may be legally brought forward.

Dated at Sydney

12^th February, 2011

By order of the Executive Committee,

John Symonds, Secretary.

Tuesday 22 February – MAIN Meeting – 5:30pm – 8:30pm

Alex Zaharov-Reutt

It’s February already, with March nearly here, and one third of the year almost, but not quite, over!

As they say, time flies, but whether time is using wings or supersonic jets is hard to know at times… 🙂

Our main meeting presenter for February is Parrot, which makes the quadricopter known as “AR.Drone”, the ultimate 21st century digital flying toy.  It links to iPhones and iPads in a most remarkable way, and was the hit of the 2010 CES Show in Las Vegas.

Parrot also makes Bluetooth devices and other gizmos and gadgets, but they are coming to show us an amazing flying toy that you have to see to believe. It makes remote control cars look extremely old fashioned… and truly is the digital toy, thus far, of the decade.

We will also be looking at the latest websites, other cool new technologies. I have some new phones and tablets to show you plus that almost waterproof phone to show you from last month. We will be doing Q&A and more, so – come along and we’ll see you at the main meeting!

Cheers
Alex