The Boston Calling Music Festival in May 2013 had a great lineup: Fun., Dirty Projectors, and Of Monsters and Men, to name a few. The event also included ten cameras that recorded over 50 hours of video surveillance footage on the thousands of concert goers at Boston's City Hall Plaza. An investigative series by the Boston area free weekly DigBoston recently unearthed this surveillance, which was done on behalf of the city.
Michael Dortch was building video surveillance trailers for industrial parks in Colorado when his clients started asking for near-omniscient views of their properties. They wanted to see intruders in the dark from all angles, but such coverage required up to seven thermal infrared cameras and cost more than $100,000. So Dortch and a colleague spent four years developing a cheaper, more capable alternative. Their Thermal Radar system provides 360-degree infrared coverage that can spot people, fires, vehicles, and more.
