Growing marijuana is a crime and that’s a damned shame. It’s no mystery that it’s a great pain reliever and can turn any award winning drama into a laugh-out-loud comedy. The war on drugs has always been a controversial topic in the realm of political agenda and the media. It’s only getting more controversial now that they’re busting growers with GPS turtles. Yes, GPS turtles.

After reports of several marijuana fields throughout Rock Creek Park south of the DC/Maryland line, the U.S. Park Police set up surveillance. Ordinarily that would mean they equipped the area with strategically placed cameras, but instead they exposed this grower with help from a box turtle fashioned with a GPS device. They eventually found the little guy crawling through a big pot field. What a terrible way to go down…busted by a turtle.

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BREAKING NEWS! Chinese manufacturer Penchan has figured out how to make a cute little blue camera have 5.5 Terapixel resolution which equals about 5,500,000 megapixels. That makes this little camera thousands of times more sensitive than even the most high-tech cameras.

How did they manage such a breakthrough? And why are there not more people talking about it? And we know it can’t be a lie. It’s on the internet. Everything on the internet is totally true. Always. — Andrew Dobrow

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Shopping malls can be pretty overwhelming. Most of them have adopted little “you are here”-type maps to help provide some prospective on where you are located within their twisting corridors. If that isn’t enough for your liquid mind, the Osaka-based Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute has unveiled a crowd-monitoring bot which can scope out lost souls and guide your way to consumerist heaven.

Robovie was recently tested at Universal Citywalk Osaka shopping center, where using its 16 cameras, 6 laser range finders and the 9 RFID tag readers installed in the vicinity, the little helper was able to pick out disoriented shoppers from the crowd, asking them “Are you lost?”. If they weren’t lost, he acted as a walking advertisement, recommending shops and restaurants to the shopper. I can see this getting old fast if you’re one of those people who always looks lost. — Andrew Dobrow

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Remember the days when certain colored people weren’t allowed in your local delicatessens and cameras still used film? Designer Sungwoo Park remembers. This conceptual USB Digital Camera pretends to be an analog camera, offering no viewfinder, no LCD display, and only one button, yet with the ability to transfer photos with a USB cable.

The purpose is to gain a new perspective on your photos. Not worrying so much about composition and that artsy-fartsy stuff, but just taking photos to enjoy life from a different prospective. — Andrew Dobrow

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If you manage an online business, whether it be on Ebay or some other merchant site, you know that having well-shot photos of your products is great for catching customers attention. The Photosimile 5000 provides an all-in-one studio for photographing your products.

The Photosimile, a 28-inch cube illuminated by 6,500K daylight bulbs, connects to your computer via USB, with the special bundled Photosimile Control software managing everything from your cameras location and settings to providing 360-degree shots of your products. Look for it available by March 2008, no pricing yet available. (more…)

The Wii was Nintendo’s reinvention of the gaming console as we know it, but what’s next for the super gaming company? Microchip manufacturer Intel seems to believe that the next generation of consoles won’t even have hand controls.

“You just set up the cameras around the room and wave your hand like you’re playing tennis,” says Intel chief technology officer, Justin Rattner. This leads us to believe that the next-gen of consoles might integrate a camera sensor system, much like the Sony Eye Toy.  Intel is known for supplying the chips that power these next-gen consoles, so this prediction might be one to keep an eye on. — Andrew Dobrow

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Cameras have come a long way in the last 5 years. It’s interesting to think of where we’ll be in another 5 years time. We might be seeing gadgets like this Canon Snap concept. Designed to fit around your finger, the high-quality camera would be perfect for taking those candid snapshots.

Aesthetically, the Canon Snap looks just as sexy as any other camera, if not sexier. Taking a picture is as easy as just pressing the one button interface, and easy enough to hide for thouse optimal upskirt surprise photo moments. You know what I’m saying, dawg? — Andrew Dobrow

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Don’t you hate that cellphone cameras always have a way of not capturing what you want them too? This WYSIWYG design concept phone might just be the key to ending camera phone woes. Sporting a totally translucent body, the WYSIWYG phone’s viewfinder is completely see-through, producing a no-hassle snapshot capability.

Whatever is in the frame of the viewfinder is what will show up on your screen. The phone is also ridiculously thin and would come in a variety of colors. If only companies would pick up on some of these user-made designs. — Andrew Dobrow

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Sony cameras have had quite strong reactions from techies everywhere. As with many other Sony products, the proprietary MemoryStick is Sony’s media card of choice. Sony has released a new line of low to mid range cameras that range in price of $150-$200, a 7 megapixel sensor is quite a nice feature for that price. Coupled with the large LCDs that Sony puts on the back of their cameras (2 inch), these cameras seem pretty tempting. Another little fact about these cameras is that they take AA batteries instead of a proprietary battery as many manufacturers are switching to now. So the full line of cameras includes the S650, S700, W35, and W55. The W series takes the proprietary lithium ion batteries. Also, for you kids (or for you), the cameras come in multi-colored body styles. So whether you are looking for a new camera or not, newer and cheaper cameras are always nice. — Nik Gomez

Sony: Four new Cyber-shot digicams [via CrunchGear]

Day in and day out, we sit here and drone on about the magnificence of cameras that take lower then 10 megapixel photos. And all this time, we could of been droning on and on about a 4 Gigapixel camera! Stupid us. The 2.5 Gigapixel photo in question was created using 600 seperate merged images taken with a 4 Gigapixel digital camera on top of a building in the Netherlands. In our opinion, they could of chosen a better landscape then the barren looking buildings they chose for the shot, but hey, to each his own. The complete photo was a staggering 7.5 GB with the amount of merging time topping out at almost an hour and a half. That’s one fat ass picture! Though zooming in and out of the photo on the site is an entertaining experience. — Andrew Dobrow

2.5 Gigapixel Picture Zoomer [via Gizmowatch]