Throwable WiFi Camera

Dotnaught writes "The Eye Ball is a spherical, throwable WiFi camera designed to precede police into areas where there's no direct line of sight. It's manufactured by O.D.F. Optronics, Ltd, an Israeli maker of vision-based systems for the defense, security and consumer electronics markets. Remington Arms Co. has won approval from the Federal Communications Commission to sell the Eye Ball domestically, with law enforcement being likely buyers. The cost is about $4,800 for two EyeBalls (who would want just one?), which apparently also includes video monitoring gear."

Comments

not like back in the day

[joe 155]

back in my day when we wanted to see round corners we held up a little mirror and looked, these cameras would be very difficult to get somewhere completely useful, and even if you could the person who was going to shoot at you could just move. It seems you would need the ability to move the viewable image to follow them like with.... a mirror?

Law Enforcement

[Anonymous Coward]

with law enforcement being likely buyers

Because when one of these comes crashing through the window, the bad guys are just going to say: "Huh, I wonder what that was. Oh well." And then leave it alone. Right.

I think a system like this one has a much better chance at successfully spying on the "bad guys."

Posting anonymously because I work at a place that manufactures these, and even though it's patented, they still like to think it's a secret. Also, clearly not everything in the patent is in the actual system. "Interpreter Software" and "Intoxication Meter" in particular are amusing bits of the patent that aren't even possible to implement as described.

Re:$4800??

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Yes, this is a concept that appears throughout the world known as 'capitalism'.

Trouble is, the force that drives the new booming field of security/military/anti-terrorism devices isn't free market, but rather how much it's possible to milk public money from law enforcement agencies before they start to complain. Since they never complain, primarily because they *want* to be seen as spending a lot to "protect" the people, all these companies keep jacking the prices up. And none of them would dare giving the game away by trying to be cheaper than the others, there's just too much money to be made for everybody without having to being normal business competition into play.

In short, the anti-bad-guys market isn't driven by capitalism, and hasn't been since 9/11. Rather, the state and the private sector work together to spend your tax money as fast as they can, making themselves richer and you poorer under the pretext of protecting you.