The Parrot AR Drone has been out for a while, and new version (sans the 'ducted' fans) was shown at CES. An acquaintance of mine across from my hangar also steered me to rcexplorer.se, a website dedicated to RC craft, yet recently focused on tricopters.
While the Parrot is geared toward the 'just for kids',(who own wifi capable cellphones) the Tricopter and its more serious $600 price tag and collapsible frame got me thinking about some use cases.
An frequent traveler could unpack their UAV, let it loose at their new hotel, and get a birds eye view of the surrounding area. With some sort of direct control (say, a viewport pumped right into your sunglasses), intimate views of nearby shops and parks and other interesting (or dangerous) places could be discovered more easily, helping one plan out a day.
A savvy bike messenger could deliver a letter up 40 flights of stairs. Heck, why have a bike messenger, just send a UAV instead.
Stuck in traffic (or showing signs of slowing traffic), a motorist (or rather, a passenger) could deploy a UAV to check the road conditions ahead. While we get those 'red lanes' marked on our mobile phones traffic maps, they rarely tell us what lanes are blocked, and what the real situation is. This could even be a feature of the car.
While WiFi wouldn't work for most of this (unless you wanted a 100 foot high periscope, which could still be useful), one of the lower frequency open access bands would work well.
With the amount of CPU and sensors available today at a low cost (and tomorrows suite even cheaper), a
drone could follow waypoints (without realtime control) instead that visits GPS coordinates, takes panoramic pictures at the desired locations, and returns to the origin point, where photos are then blasted over wifi (or transferjet, etc)
The future is now, in the sci-fi RPG "Deus Ex" , one of the 'augmentations' was a drone that could be launched for snooping around corners, and it could even deliver a shock to enemies who got too close. Another use of a personal UAV in video games; the power suits from the Looking Glass game "Terra Nova" featured recon drones that could be sent out to find enemies.
Granted a $600 tri-copter is probably not the next stocking stuffer, though a smaller floating disc or 'beer can' design could have merit in the near future.
