Sony patents PSP-controlled toy car
Can make Ferrari noises.
Sony has filed a patent to protect a PSP-operated remote-controlled car.
The car - controlled wirelessly - observes the nearby area using an onboard camera and then beams a live picture back to the operator. This, suggests the filing (spotted by Siliconera), can be used to spy on friends, or videos can be recorded and uploaded to a website.
Sony also plans to include either a speaker or a microphone, or both. This can be used to recreate Ferrari sounds. We are not making this up.
More cleverly, the car can create "augmented reality zones" or courses. Within these, the car can move freely, but outside, the car will freeze, preventing the machine from racing off ledges.
More impressively, those zones can virtually disguise household objects, so a chair might become a castle.
Of course, patent filings aren't the same as product announcements, and the PSP car may never come to anything. For once though, we hope it does.