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Advent Calendar day 12: Insane computer and accessories giveaway

Posted: 12 Dec 2010 01:00 AM PST

Since it’s Sunday, the day of rest, we thought we’d open today’s Electricpig Advent Calendar nice and early, giving you the rest of the morning to chill out and take a break from hitting refresh. Click the headline or Read More button, drop a comment at the bottom of the post, and you could score yourself a new laptop, Android tablet, gaming PC, digital photo frame or PC accessories!

Today we’re asking for Christmas traditions. All you have to do is log in using your Facebook ID (that’s really important, without it we can’t reliably contact you, or check you’re based in the UK) and tell us one in the comments section will win! Once we have a winner, we’ll reveal the prize they’ve scooped.

Each day we’ve got a mystery prize up for grabs thanks to the generous people at PC World. It could be a speaker system, a digital photo frame, a keyboard and mouse set, an Advent Amico tablet, Advent laptop or computer, or even a newly-released Advent Vega tablet.

What’re you waiting for? Scroll down, log in using your Facebook account and get commenting!

We have a winner!

Congratulations Vincent ‘Mazzi’ Maston. A few swift Sunday morning keyboard taps, and he’s bagged a brand new pair of Logik PC speakers! Check back tomorrow, between 9am and midday, for another chance to win!

Check out more Advent products at www.pcworld.co.uk, and remember to come back tomorrow for another chance to win: we’ll offer up a fresh prize each day between 9am and 12 noon! Our usual terms and conditions apply.

Video of the week: Those magnificent men and their Kinect flying machines

Posted: 12 Dec 2010 01:00 AM PST

We’ve seen the Microsoft Kinect robot, but what if it could fly? It would look something like this Microsoft Kinect hacked to transform it into an autonomous flying machine. It’s the stuff of video game science fiction. Read on to see it in high-flying action in our video of the week.

The flying Kinect-equipped autonomous robot, concocted by The Hybrid Systems Lab at UC Berkeley features a 3D sensor that generates its own view of the world and uses an algorithm to mark out the floor and surrounding objects to determine a flight path and altitude.

It’s clever stuff. Using Kinect’s camera as its eyes to avoid colliding into objects that suddenly appear in its flight path and field of vision. Check out how it just stops when an object blocks its way…