Instead of worrying about buying an assortment of custom lenses for your video camera, why not just add your own SLR lenses on to the one you already own. The problem with adding multiple lenses is that your display winds up upside down because of all of the mirrored images.
Joshua Reich fixes this problem with a few harmless tweaks and makes one sick looking video camera with SLR lenses included. — Andrew Dobrow
Robots have been so widely used in Afghanistan and Iraq that there have surely been thousands of lives saved by the mechanical wonder dogs. Boeing and iRobot have joined hands in tech harmony to create the SUVG Early, a next-gen reconnaissance robot capable of even more than previous models. The SUGV will be faster, lighter, and smarter than its older brother, the Packbot.
Featuring a video camera, commercial electro-optics, an infrared sensor mounted on its manipulative mechanical arm, and track-driven chassis, the SUGV Early is all around more advanced that any recon robot currently in use. The Early is expected to have a large and diverse customer base and is expected to be ready for delivery by 2008. — Andrew Dobrow
Talk about getting a heads up at work. The Giraffe Telepresence Robot lets you put your “head there” along with your coworkers or client. The Giraffe works with a video display and a camera attached to a robotic base. The base height can be lowered or extended depending if your coworker is sitting or standing, or a midget.
The 2 MP video camera allows you to see the person you are talking to from your remote location, so you can keep an eye on your employees even when you are living it up on vacation. A two way speaker allows for normal conversation. Software is included which allows for operation of the robot and configuration of the speaker system. In addition to height management, you can also tilt the screen if you have to look at a downwards slant to read papers.
Depending on popularity, the Giraffe is expected to cost somewhere between $1,800 and $3,000, supply and demand taken into account. A great feature of telepresence technology is the ability to use the robot from anywhere. If you own 10 businesses, you could hypothetically place a Giraffe in each one of them to keep an eye on the work efficiency. — Andrew Dobrow
Just as the car industry went from monster SUVs with horrible gas mileage to small hybrids with excellent gas mileage, the video camera industry is going from big (think Canon XL2) to pocket-sized with the RCA Small Wonder. This tiny camcorder can store up to 60 minutes of MPEG-4 audio and video, or 30 minutes for high resolution, probably a better choice for a cheap camera. Connect to both Macs and PCs with the retractable USB arm and load up the software which allows you to view, save, email, or delete videos. The camcorder runs on 2 AA batteries, which can be better than a rechargeable battery if you’re on vacation or something where you can’t access an outlet. Hopefully you’re not half-blind, otherwise the 1.5 LCD screen might be a little hard for you to see; however, if you are, you can watch you videos on a TV through the Small Wonder’s AV outlet. You can probably go without editing software with the Small Wonder because if you’re only paying $130 for a video camera, you’re most likely not the type to be editing (you can always use Windows Movie Maker if you so desire). — Nick Rice
RCA Small Wonder [via Gadgetell]
