October 27, 2003
Information Assimilation with Blimp Drones
The Military, an entity with ernormous ammounts of resources in the business of high tech information gathering, has some interesting technology being deployed. From slashdot today, the Army is simplifying their new Land Warrior technomad suits to use linux among other things. Also along this vain, the Air Force is releasing blimp drones for plotting land through digital cameras, lasers, acoustic sensors and electromagnetic technologies.
Defense Tech reports:
"New Defense Department spending "would include $38.3 million for tethered blimps equipped with digital cameras to spy on guerrillas' movements, more than $30 million for electronic jammers to disrupt their remote-controlled bombs, and $70 million to develop and buy what the letter called other 'rapid-reaction/new solution' technologies."
In addition, the NewScientist reports that:
"The laser system would be used to scan a region thought to harbour an enemy sniper. It would locate the gunman by quickly homing in on tiny particles caught in the ballistic shockwave generated by a shot. "It uses the angles of that shockwave to work backwards to determine the location," [said a DARPA spokesperson]...
Now's the time for land warrior technomads within the wearable and geo community, the technology is here, it's just a matter of putting it to use.
October 26, 2003
DejaView Details
Found an article about the DejaView written by ABCNews, which has some interesting tidbits about the Point of View Camera company, DejaView. DejaView has launched their website, and talked a bit about their product, but have yet to sell it to the public.
They don't intend for their camera to be covert. This is probably a PR move to rebuke critics of new camera technology, but abc revealed unintentionally that they don't aim at empowering individuals as much as empowering law enforcement, as evident in the following paragraph:
'Bajarin, meanwhile, sees a better market among special "vertical" segments — such as the law enforcement community.'
The article also says that DejaView has attained '...$500,000 in private funding to develop prototypes of the cameras. But, it's also in the process of raising the estimated $5 million needed to ramp up production and hopefully begin distribution to mass market retail chains before the end of the year.'
Not surprising. I'm wondering how long it will take for them to get anything out on the market though. Maybe Sony or Phillips will beat them to it.
The ABC article is available here, but don't bother reading it unless you're looking for information about why a Point of View camera is a good or bad idea for society. Good or bad, this technology is about to hit big time.
October 25, 2003
Wearable Cameras
Well it looks like the industry is starting to explore the idea of wearable cameras. Two cameras are actually out on the market, the Minox (german company, pictured at left), and the Philips Wearable Digital Camera (pictured on right). Both are USB cameras, but the Minox seems to be a much higher quality cam. 
On the other hand, the Phillips cam is definitely a good buy for approximately $100USD, which is much less pricey than the Minox which is € 229 (approximately $250USD).
I haven't seen photos of either of these cameras being worn, but they do seem like they're getting closer to things like the DejaView Point of View camera which we previously reported on. My hope is that more wearable cameras will enter the market, paving the way for the mass market POV cams for that TekGear would sell, like their recent camera/HMD concept prototype (pictured below).
