ASYLUM

* Hovering

So, for her birthday, I got Scary a few things, including a toy helicopter. And, er, one for myself :) These things are amazing: They weigh just 10 grammes and are really stable — any foo can make one hover. More to the point, they're also pretty robust — these things can and do drop out of the sky from ceiling height, and I've yet to see one damaged in any way.

I've seen a number of flying toys over the years, and they've all been more fragile, less stable, more expensive and less fun than these PicooZ choppers.

They've faddishly swept the office, and it was pure hell not excitedly spilling the beans before b-day. :)

They're cool on three levels:

• they're fun to fly

• they're surreal to watch because there's a really natural, biological feel to their movement — they're like dragonflies

• the tech is pretty cool. the motors are tiny — cylinders thinner than a pencil and about a centimetre long.

I can't wait to see where things go next. They're controlled over IR, so 'Laser Tag'-style combat is almost certainly next. I'm curious as to whether one could control the chopper from a laptop or palmtop's IRDA port.