Apple is promoting Anki Drive, an iPhone-controlled racing game, which is only available in the App Store and Apple retail stores.
Five years ago, while studying robotics at Carnegie-Mellon University, Boris Sofman and his colleagues started creating their product. Operating in stealth mode, Anki was able to raise a total funding of $50 million and in February 2012, VC firm Andreessen Horowitz expressed support for Anki.
During the Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, Apple's CEO Tim Cook called Anki's CEO Boris Sofman on stage to show its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered racing game. During the demo, classic slot cars were brought to life and are being controlled by iOS devices and communicate through Bluetooth technology.
Anki Drive has three parts: the cars, the mats, and the Anki Drive app. The cars, which is about the size of a Matchbox or Hot Wheels car, has a power switch, a small camera pointing down, a Bluetooth 4.0 LE radio, a status LED, a 50MHz microprocessor, a rechargeable battery, rubber-coated rear wheels and two motors (one for each rear wheel). The mat is where the positional information or the racetrack is visually programmed. Lastly, gamers can control the cars through the free downloadable app, Anki Drive App, which is compatible with the iPhone (model 4s or later), iPad, and iPod touch (both third generation or later) -- thus the Apple connection.
Each car, with the use of its camera, interprets the positional information on the mat. Through the use of Bluetooth, the cars report their location and speed to the Anki Drive app, and then the AI calculates and sends new trajectories to each car many times per second depending on the game's rules and the gamer's input.
Apple's endorsement continues as Anki Drive goes on sale October 23. However, as of the moment, it will just be available nationwide in Apple retail stores and at Apple.com.
Anki may not have immediate plans to support other platforms but it is not closing its doors to exploring alternatives.
