This Incredible Selfie-Taking Wrist Drone Just Won $500,000
Thought it's still being developed, Christoph Kohstall, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University, hopes that Nixie will be the next big thing in selfies. And the $500,000 it just won from Intel may help it along.
The Nixie is a tiny, wearable drone with built-in camera and foldable bands that attach it to your wrist. The plan: With a simple gesture, Nixie flies off your arm, snaps your photo from the air, and returns - boomerang style - to your wrist.
The design impressed judges at Intel's Make It Wearable contest - a competition among developers of innovative, wearable technology - and they awarded Nixie the grand prize of half a million dollars, enough to work out some of the product's kinks and start turning it into a commercial reality.
Nixie's capabilities will be most useful in settings where third-party photographers are unavailable or impractical, whether that's getting a bird's-eye view of an extreme rock-climbing adventure, or just taking a simple selfie.
Some of the other finalists in the Make It Wearable contest included a robotic prosthetic hand, a device that monitors skiers' kinetics and physiology, and a broadcast system that shows players' perspectives during sports matches.
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