Build Your Own Camera, Launch It Like a Grenade

angry tapir writes "Meet the Firefly. Israeli defense contractor Rafael Armament Development Authority calls it a 'revolutionary concept in tactical intelligence,' but really it's a wireless camera that's shot 500 feet in the air by a grenade launcher. And if a couple of hackers at the Defcon hacking convention get their way, soon anyone will be able to buy this type of military grade technology for only US$500."

Comments

Re:Am I the only one...

[hcs_$reboot]

You probably spend too much time on Angry Birds...

Re:What good is this for?

[davester666]

This is a great business model. Sell a product where your clients will just launch it away and immediately have to buy another one.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

You should just buy one of these

[SecurityTheatre]

You should just buy one of these bad boys.

http://www.draganfly.com/uav-helicopter/draganflyer-x6/

Military grade and can stay aloft more than 7.2 seconds, while capturing realtime HD video that can be transmitted to a cool pair of goggles on the ground.

Plus, you can whip it out of a backpack in 10 seconds. :-D Cool!

http://www.draganfly.com/video/gallery/show-single-video.php?video_number=2&product_id=DF-X6&r=837

Re:You should just buy one of these

[Zibodiz]

One simple reason why this new camera is so awesome: speed. Try shooting something out of the sky when it's moving at 2 - 4 mph. Not that hard (heck, a skeet it moving a lot faster than that). Besides, try getting it 500 feet into enemy territory in 8 seconds. Something shooting at the speed of a grenade launcher has such obvious superiorities. Granted, the whole 'one time use' thing kinda sucks, but they're the military; they're used to using it once and replacing it.

Although I do have to say... you're totally right when it comes to civilian uses. I really can't think of a time when civilians would benefit more from the firefly than from the UAV you linked to.

Re:You should just buy one of these

[iamhassi]

Wait until the military figures out you can do the same thing with a $11 keychain camera and a toys 'r us r/c helicopter.

I have a few of those 808 keychain cameras and they shoot remarkably good video considering their size and disposable price.

Re:What good is this for?

[shmlco]

"This is a great business model. Sell a product where your clients will just launch it away and immediately have to buy another one. "

Yawn. Arms merchants have been doing it for years. "Notice you just fired your last RPG. Want to buy another one?"

everything for war

[roman_mir]

more stuff created for war. These cameras instruments are not going to be sold to civilians, here is the purpose:

Soldiers shoot it off and for eight glorious seconds it gives them a bird's eye view of the terrain around them, tipping them off to enemy positions. Then it crashes back to earth.

Private citizens can't buy these flying cameras, much less the 40mm grenade launchers used to shoot them. But Vlad Gostom and Joshua Marpet think they'd be great tools for a search and rescue operation, or maybe a boon to some local police force's SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team. So they're building their own version and showing off what they've learned at Defcon this week.

of-course outside of a war or a 'rescue operation' there may be not much use for these things, but it just adds to resources that are mis-allocated for wars instead of going towards normal consumer market. The only use for consumer market I can think of is war games unfortunately, like paintball.

Re:What good is this for?

[jpapon]

From TFA:

The powder didn't fully ignite, the miniature camera flew about 30 feet into the air -- apparently too fast to transmit images back to the 5.8Ghz wireless receiver they were using -- and their parachute partially incinerated.

So clearly it has a parachute. Why don't you read before you complain about how you think it should work?