When I was a kid, Polaroid cameras were the height of technology: take a photo, it pops out of the camera, and then a minute or two later—with some optional shaking—you've got your picture in your hand. These days, all photos are essentially instantaneous, but one crowdfunded project wants to bring back the era of physical prints in your hand.
Surveillance cameras permeate modern life. Mounted in convenience stores, retail outlets, bars, clubs, ATMs and elsewhere, silent observers record everything from the mundane to the criminal. The cameras serve a dual function as both deterrent and instant legal record. In light of the police shooting of unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, national attention has focused on wearable cameras for police officers. For the (less lethal) weapon manufacturer Taser, there is opportunity in this civic need.
This smooth and shiny camera captured the video that folks at home watched live on TV during Neil Armstrong's moonwalk. It's called the Apollo Lunar TV Camera, and the U.S. engineering firm Westinghouse designed it. It withstood vibrations between 10 and 2,000 cycles per second, shocks of more than 8G during launch and landing, extreme pressure changes, and temperatures ranging from -300 degrees Fahrenheit to 250 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a summary Westinghouse published in 1968.
One of the more delightful YouTube video genres involves sending a camera into space beneath a weather balloon. The first one I ever saw featured a father and his young son in Brookyln. Other have used it for everything from college admission letters to Hello Kitty to Natty Light, to even a LEGO version Felix Baumgartner's jump. Okay, that last one didn't actually make it to space, but it fits the genre: slow launch, frantic first person footage as it plummets, and then a triumphant recovery. Most of these drops rely on a tough camera casing that can survive the fall back to Earth.
Memo to Salt Lake City Police Department: Lifeblogging was never cool. Neither, come to think of it, are the glasses you see above. But the chief of police of Salt Lake City is hoping to make the above accessory mandatory for his on-duty officers, as well as for every other officer in the state. Much like dashboard cameras currently log what's happening in front of a police officers car during a shift, this tiny glasses-mounted camera will record everything an officer sees - and does - while on patrol.
