14 DAY TRIAL // Boston inventor Steve Hollinger has been granted a patent for a camera that, only by being tossed through the air, can shoot photos of ground-based targets.
The description of the patent gives the following definition: “a ball that provides normalized images of a ground-based target subject captured over the course of the arc of its airborne trajectory.”
The way it works is something that older hardware and software wasn't fast and sophisticated enough for.
When thrown, the ball relies on position sensors and high-speed cameras to determine the relationship to a “subject of interest.”
The photos taken with the camera are then “stitched together” into a video, based on its positioning, orientation and trajectory.
Hollinger thinks that reconnaissance, search and rescue and outdoor recreating could benefit from his idea.
For our part, though, we think that sports who use balls (tennis, golf, pool, basketball even) now offer a whole new avenue for capturing security footage, and we don't just mean that it could be possible to make sure there is no way to miss a foul. What we're saying is that all sphere-like objects could become spy tools in the near future.
Fortunately, there are much more convenient ways to spy on people, so no one will have to resort to weighing and scanning their new sports balls with metal detectors, or do other, unorthodox things (like localized EMPs) to satisfy their paranoia (or lack thereof, since it's not really paranoia if your fears are true).
That said, technology companies will, hopefully, focus on the potentially life-saving uses of the ball camera, not the other ones.
As for Hollinger, his patent may prove more than a bit lucrative in the long term, since it could be adapted to apply to floating balls as well, whenever they finally get invented. It probably won't be in his lifetime, or any of ours (unless tech buffs go for propellers again), but we can still hope.