iPhone’s Web browser Used To Control Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

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Following on from our post concerning Steve Moore’s AirRemote iPhone application that serves to allow your iPhone to control everything from AV equipment to being the central control unit of a complete home automation setup, UC Berkeley has just announced a new iPhone application that will allow Apple’s device to take control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) courtesy of the Mobile Safari web browser.

Developed specifically by The Center for Collaborative Control of Unmanned Vehicles (C3UV), the application works by allowing ground based operators to enter co-ordinates via the iPhone’s Mobile Safari web browser which are subsequently relayed to the UAV via a web site so, in truth, this is not only control by proxy, so to speak, but at least this method serves to get around the iPhones terms of service that stipulates that using the iPhone to control remote vehicles of any type is prohibited. (Incidentally, the new iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) license – specifically iPhone SDK, Section 3.3.7 – also prohibits the device being used for emergency or life-saving purposes).

Quite why the iPone in particular has been singled out as a control device, however, is open to speculation – as surely any device with web connectivity could be used – though we suspect that the application would not have proven quite as newsworthy if they had used one of Nokia’s recent, highly affordable handsets.

[via TUAW]