The job for law enforcement personnel and soldiers is getting more complex by the day with no guarantee on what’s waiting for them in the next corner. For this very reason unmanned robots and other methods are being developed to ensure that problem is resolved without any loss of life. Adding to the already existing force of law enforcement equipment, Bounce Imaging (US based startup company) has made prototype device, the size of a tennis ball and embedded with six cameras to shoot 360 degree images and send them back to a smartphone or tablet. The application of this method of taking real time images are countless right from rescue missions in disaster struck areas to intense battle in sub-urban cities. There have been earlier attempts too for making such kind of ball-shaped cameras but got stuck at the conceptual stage owing to high costs involved. This one is however different as Bounce Imaging’s founder Francisco Aguilar explained how it would be made at just under $500.
With the ability to take 2 photos per second this small ball sends back clicked images as soon as it is thrown and activated. In addition to sending 360 degree panoramic images, the ball-sized device also sends back environmental data like temperature and presence of harmful gases which could come handy in rescuing victims in fire struck areas.
# According to Aguilar:
When you’re a police officer under fire working with your tactical gloves on, it is very difficult to operate a complex, often briefcase-sized, remote terminal or viewing unit. It’s much easier to just look on a smartphone strapped to your wrist. The unit has slots for other types of sensors – for example, smoke and temperature sensors in a fire-fighting model, methane or coal dust detectors in mine inspection units, and so on – so the ball can send back additional data along with the images. You can throw it anywhere, into someone’s garden for instance, and you’ll be able to see everything that’s going on – it’s not much different from the use of a drone except that it’s much more immediate. So if you throw it over someone’s private property, it could be used, for instance, by the paparazzi or by criminals who could just throw it over the roof and get lots of images in between.
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