Category: Imaging

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Imaging Wearables

Tribble is a wearable wunderkind for your place, person or plane

editors-choiceAll the devices required for a connected daily life make things
better. Unfortunately, many of them need to be constantly monitored as well. Notifications can add up, making things much harder later on when addressing 400 emails or 1,200 group text messages. So, it’s important to stay on top of it all; a little help couldn’t hurt.

The Tribble is a connected, wearable companion aiming to be an all-in-one intermediary between a user and their smartphone or other devices. Its small, round body is made of stainless steel for durability and houses a 2.0GHz Quad-Core AR Cortex A9 processor along with 1GB of RAM. This powers a combination of LED touchscreen, 1080p video camera, and motion sensors for the Tribble wide array of functionality.

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Automotive Imaging

Drive Guardian guards against falling asleep at the wheel

editors-choiceDistracted driving continues to pose a major safety hazard to the public and few types of distracted driving are as dangerous as falling asleep at the wheel.

Drive Guardian is a safety alert system with a driver-facing camera that detects drowsiness. After setting it up and turning on a vehicle’s engine, the camera monitors drivers’ eyes and pupils in real-time and, using sophisticated algorithms, the device alerts driver by displaying LED indicator lights and sounding audio warnings whenever they are drowsy or distracted.

Drive Guardian ships in July at $249. But early bird Indiegogo backers can get one for a pledge starting at $169. Its makers hope to raise $50,000 by April 21.

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Fitness Imaging Wearables

R2D3 records your workout in data and video, but not at the same time

Sorry, Star Wars fans. The R2D3 combination fitness band and sports camera won’t bleep and bloop its way into a user’s heart, but it will edit the most intense moments of their workout routines or adventures into social media-ready chunks based on algorithmically-backed presets. In a crowded field of increasingly uninspiring smart bands, the R2D3 succeeds in at least offering something different.

This hybrid sports all the expected features of a useful fitness band: step, distance, and calories counters along with a heart rate monitor. These sensors join a 1080p HD camera that shoots 30fps and an 8MP camera sensor with 120° field of view to do its best GoPro impression. And like the GoPro, the R2D3 can be attached to many parts of the body or equipment like the wrist, ankle, a book bag, or even a drone. It boasts a 72-hour battery life, with just 1.5 of those hours capable of taking video.

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Cell Phone Accessories Imaging

Smart Shoot shows your smartphone around a scene for picture-perfect control

Smartphones have become the go-to device for many people to take photos and shoot video with. But they tend to lack several of the high-end features that are typically featured in standalone digital cameras and camcorders, including facial recognition.

Smart Shoot is a pan and tilt, motorized mount for smartphones that provides face recognition, intelligent tracking and free-hand shooting. It uses Bluetooth and works in conjunction with Android and iOS smartphones The product starts shipping in June. Future pricing isn’t provided via its Kickstarter campaign. But early bird backers can get one for a pledge starting at $88. Its maker hopes to raise $80,000 by April 3.

The device has some things in common with Galileo and Swivl, two earlier Kickstarter-funded projects. However, Galileo is designed to work with iOS mobile devices and GoPro cameras, while Swivl can be used with Android and iOS devices, as well as DSLR cameras. The largest potential obstacle for Smart Shoot is that –- from its campaign video, anyway — it doesn’t seem to move as smoothly as the earlier devices.

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Connected Objects Imaging Maker/Development Sensors/IoT

Sweep eyes an opportunity for affordable LIDAR sensors

LIDAR sensor technology is being used in a growing number of products. For example, these sensors serve as the eyes of self-driving car, enabling them to detect other objects on the road. LIDAR scanners are sold on their own, but they tend to be too pricey for the average consumer, sometimes coming in at more than $1,000.

Sweep is an inexpensive scanning LIDAR sensor for consumer applications including high school robotics projects. digital art and drones. It can also be used to get the dimensions of a room much faster than it would take when using a tape measure. It can also be used to detect when somebody walks through a doorway or tries to touch something they shouldn’t. Sweep uses sensing technology that differs from most other LIDAR sensors on the market –- a technique that enables it to use lower power components to perform long-range measurements.

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Imaging Virtual Reality

WebEye VR webcam adds depth to your shallow Skype conversations

With the constant hype surrounding the idea of virtual reality, it was only inevitable before a company thought up the idea of creating a virtual reality webcam. Now, Slovenia-based VRFavs went ahead and did just that, recently unveiling its Kickstarter campaign for the WebEye VR.

The WebEye VR is a small, compact webcam that would look like any other webcam were it not for its two lenses. It uses these two lenses to produce a stereoscopic, 160° image that another person can receive through a VR headset, like the upcoming Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. The WebEye VR is capable of producing full HD quality video at 30 frames per second to ensure that the other person’s immersion isn’t compromised.

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Connected Objects Imaging

SnapCam360 captures immersive images while lying down on the job

The ability to shoot still photos and video in 360 degrees is a feature that’s become increasingly popular with people beyond professionals. That only increased after Facebook and YouTube started supporting 360-degree video at their websites last year.

SnapCam360 is a 360-degree camera resembling the HTC Re that can shoot in a circle and dome style just while resting with its back on any table or other surface. It can also be used to take panoramic stills and video with a single click and without any need for stitching software to combine images.

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Connected Objects Imaging

Panoporter camera lets you see the whole room when video calling

Video calling is convenient because it allows people to easily see their kids and other loved ones while they are at work or traveling. It also makes work conference calls more productive because those doing it can not only hear their co-workers speak, but also see important charts and documents. But it’s hard to see the entire room with most cameras used for such calls.

patent-claimedPanoporter is a 360-degree 1080p HD camera for video calls that allows users to get a 360- or 180-degree view of the room it’s placed in, whether the device is on a table or mounted on a wall. It is controlled via an Android and iOS app. Unlike many 360-degree cameras, like CENTR,  that require multiple image sensors to stitch together a panoramic image, the patent-pending Panoporter uses just a single lens and there’s no trade-off in resolution.

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Automotive Connected Objects Imaging

RecSmart social dash cam streams the good times as they roll

Dashboard cameras provide a pretty good way to capture what happens while driving a car –- especially if there is an accident and evidence is needed to provide proof of what happened.

RecSmart is a connected, social dash cam with built-in Wi-Fi and GPS that connects to the user’s smartphone and continuously records whatever happens during a drive and saves it onto the included 8-GB microSD card. It collects data including the vehicle’s position, speed and time –- all while shooting HD video and making it easy to share video and photos from the road with the user’s social networks.

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Imaging

ProView S3 steadies your video when shooting on smartphones

One of the major obstacles to shooting quality video is keeping the camera steady so that viewers don’t end up becoming dizzy and unable to watch the finished product. That’s especially the case with inexperienced videographers using smartphones or other cameras without good stabilization functionality.

ProView S3 is a 3-axis gimbal for smartphones designed to record video stable enough to look like it was shot by a professional. Its makers are positioning ProView S3 as an especially good stabilization option for large 4K smartphones including the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus and the Samsung Galaxy S6. ProView S3’s adjustable mount can handle any smartphone with a screen 4.7-5.7 inches. The device ships in July. Future pricing isn’t available, but early bird Indiegogo backers can get one for pledges starting at $125. ProView S3’s makers hope to raise $300,000 by March 3.

ProView S3 seems to be a good option for smartphone users to shoot better video -– at least for those whose devices will fit its mount. One standout feature is that it’s designed so that the user can easily release the phone grip with one hand, while using the other hand to insert or remove the phone.