Delighting Star Wars fans everywhere, Disney unveils Millennium Falcon and X-Wing drones

By Rick Stella Published September 22, 2015

With a little more than just three and a half months until the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits literally every theater on Earth, Disney is hard at work marketing the absolute hell out of the upcoming flick. While promoting something as astronomically large as a J.J. Abrams-directed Star Wars movie seems illogical — seriously, who on the planet isn’t going to see this movie? — Disney continues to pull out all the stops to make sure the words “Star Wars” get uttered about every 2.5 seconds. To Disney’s credit, its latest endeavor may just make Star Wars junkies lose it completely.

During an epically long 18-hour unboxing event, Disney unveiled (among many, many things) an X-Wing and Millennium Falcon remote-controlled drone. Go ahead, it’s okay to absolutely lose it for a second. Though the prices for said drones are currently unknown, Disney did say the drones would be available for public purchase starting September 4 (tomorrow).

x wing toy — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Built by the remote-controlled vehicle company Air Hogs, both drone aircrafts require a minimal amount of initial assembly before owners can take them to the skies. Regardless of which craft strikes your fancy most, users have the ability to control the crafts from up to 200 feet away meaning these are perfect for bugging your next door neighbors even if they aren’t quite “next door.” Each craft is also constructed using what Air Hogs calls high-density foam, so it seems likely both should stand up to even the roughest of planetary crashes.

Spec-wise, both crafts differ just slightly in terms of propeller placement and, of course, shape. Concerning the Millennium Falcon, Air Hogs essentially created a quad-copter and built the iconic body of the ship around the propellers. The X-Wing also appears to make use of four propellers, though instead of facing up and down, they face in front and behind the craft. Fans of this specific Starfighter will be especially delighted to hear Air Hogs even included a mini replica R2-D2 for it to tote around however, it’s unclear if it has the ability to beep and boop while flying.

Recommended Videos

Though Disney unveiled an entire slew of Star Wars-related gadgets, gizmos, and otherwise during its event, the Millennium Falcon and X-Wing drones are no doubt two of the most fascinating products it debuted. We’d recommend heading out to your nearest electronics store now, these won’t stay on shelves for long.

Former Associate Editor, Outdoor

Rick became enamored with technology the moment his parents got him an original NES for Christmas in 1991. And as they say…

Topics

Emerging Tech

An AI company paid humans to climax with a bot. It now claims big stress and focus wins.

The Masturbation Lab Report claims that 37% of adults are open to AI-guided masturbation and that the method actually yields big wins.

Back, Body Part, Person

I recently had a chat with a couple of college-going students, and during my interaction, I discovered some fascinating ways students are using AI these days. From helping with research to deploying it as a last-minute cheating tool, the spectrum is wide, but what really piqued my interest was when one of them admitted to occasionally asking ChatGPT to roleplay as her boyfriend. Now, the trend is not exactly brand new or shocking.

There is a whole community out there that finds a sense of companionship or relief in virtual characters that act as a companion, partner, wife, friend, mentor, or whatever it is that they are seeking. The idea is pretty controversial, but it's here to stay. Joi AI, a company that offers AI companions as a service, recently conducted an experiment to find out if erotic sessions guided by an AI bot can be as rewarding as the usual act of self-pleasuring using conventional means such as pornography or fantasy thoughts.

Emerging Tech

Google Sheets can now turn your boring spreadsheets into mini-apps

I spend enough time inside spreadsheets to know how quickly they can get out of hand. What starts as a neat table can eventually turn into hundreds of rows, endless columns, and a whole lot of scrolling to find the one thing you actually need. Google thinks Gemini can make that experience a lot less painful.

The company is introducing Sheets canvas, a new Gemini-powered feature that can take the data sitting inside a Google Sheets spreadsheet and turn it into something closer to a custom mini-app. Instead of manually building charts, formatting cells, or figuring out complicated formulas, you can tell Gemini what you want to create. For example, you could ask it to turn a spreadsheet full of assignments into a visual study tracker. Gemini will then use the information already sitting in your sheet to build an interactive interface around it.

Emerging Tech

Heart X1 soars for the first time as the world’s largest electric aircraft, and the flight cost just $5 in electricity

Aircraft, Airplane, Transportation

Electric cars have become a pretty normal sight on the road, but replacing jet fuel with batteries gets considerably more complicated when you’re trying to lift thousands of pounds into the sky. Heart Aerospace has just shown that it can be done at a surprisingly large scale.

The company’s X1 demonstrator has completed its maiden flight, becoming what Heart says is the largest battery-electric aircraft ever flown. The X1 has a 106-foot wingspan, stretches 76 feet from nose to tail, and weighs more than 25,000 pounds at takeoff. The piloted flight took place on August 12 at Plattsburgh International Airport in New York and lasted 27 minutes. During that time, the X1 climbed to 1,100 feet above ground level, while its battery-powered propulsion system delivered more than one megawatt of power.