Sony Patents PSP Remote Control Car

In another case of bizarre patents that may never actually come to fruition, Sony has copyrighted an idea for a RC car that would be controlled by the PSP.

This might make me sound like an old fogey, but do kids still play with RC cars? Back in the day I had a few Radio Shack bargain bin models that I got as throwaway Christmas presents, but I figured that kids nowadays have their Club Penguin and Hannah Montana to keep them entertained. Guess I'm wrong or Sony hasn't gotten the memo, because the company's Europe branch has filed a patent for a RC car controlled by the PSP.

It's definitely a far cry from the toys of my childhood. Sony's idea is for a car with a camera attached on top that transmits real-time footage to your PSP. From there, you watch the screen and steer your car accordingly. The video can then be recorded and stored on your PSP, making the toy a great tool, as Sony thinks, for kids "to spy on their friends... then upload the stored video images to a website." I can think of some less innocent uses for this thing, which would basically be like those mobile spy cameras you always see in movies.

The other cool thing the device could potentially do is generate sort of virtual race tracks out of real world environments - you'd program a "course" by setting virtual markers and paths in real life. So, you can set a path around your dog, and if the car detects that you're not within that path, it'll freeze up and not let you drive. At the same time, you can also have the camera display CG images in place of the real-world footage.

These kids don't know how good they have it. Back in my day, you played with Hot Wheels cars, and you only got those from Happy Meals at McDonald's, and you had to walk eight miles to the nearest one, and you could only pay for your food with nickels, which had bumblebees on them at the time - gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say.

[Via Siliconera]