Anki Drive, the race-car gaming technology that briefly took center stage during Apple's keynote presentation at its World Wide Developer's Conference back in June is finally making its debut at retail stores.
Anki is a robotics company that developed the technology to allow users to race intelligent cars around a track that can be printed out and controlled via a mobile application. As users circle the track, the cars can recognize obstacles and users can even launch special effects that give them virtual ammunition to attack opponent's cars and shield their own, very similar to how many racing video games work, the only difference is that this one is live right in front of you.
The game will hit shelves in Apple stores on Oct. 23 and will also be available via Anki.com. The base kit will run people about $199 and comes with a race track and two cars for competitive play. Each car comes with a distinct character. For example, the first yellow car is Kurai and the second silver car is Boson. As Mashable reports the set also comes with chargers for each car, a tire cleaner and houseing cases for the vehicles. Additional cars will run people $69 each.
All people need to do is download the free iOS Anki Drive app and connect the character cars to the rollable racing track via Bluetooth. From there you simply place the vehicles on the mat and set up a battle from your iOS device.
"We wanted to program video games on top of physical characters in the real world," Anki co-founder Boris Sofman told Mashable. "They understand where they are when you place them on the mat, and it's not just that we can control the characters, but you can feel the interaction between them. There are virtual elements you wouldn't be able to have in the physical world and now you can."
If you are worried that your friend's wont be as into the concept as you, don't worry. The cars are built to be intelligent enough to drive and operate the special effects on their own. Meaning that single player is available.
