Flying camera that takes grenade launchers for a click

Imagine you're in a battlefield and fear moving ahead because you have no idea about the territory that lies in front of you. Suddenly, someone fires a camera in the sky. It goes up, take images that you see on a computing device and crashes after hitting the ground. Of course, the camera is destroyed but you get some fair inputs to plan as you decide to take on your enemies. This is all possible now with a flying spy camera and could become publicly available for purchase for as less as $500.

W.A.S.P

Named as Firefly, this wireless spy camera has been hailed as a revolutionary concept in tactical intelligence that could significantly impact the outcomes from battlegrounds. As such, it has been seen as a military-only technology. However, a team of hackers, Vlad Gostom and Joshua Marpet, displayed their version of this technology during the recently held Defcon hacking convention. They believe that flying cameras could also be used for civilian purposes like search and rescue operations during natural calamities, or used by special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams of the police.

The flying camera has to be launched by a grenade launcher and flies upto a height of 500 meters to take aerial images of non-visible territories. The images so taken are received by a wireless receiver placed on the ground before the camera crashes down. During the first test of their technology, Gostom and Marpet used a 37mm flare gun for launching a miniature camera. But the results were not too impressive. As the camera could only go upto 30 meters, that gave it very less time to send back images. However, the hackers took the failure as a learning experience and expect to develop a workable type of this special spy camera that can go upto 250 meters very soon.

Apart from the flying cameras, hackers have also displayed some other 'revolutionary' military technologies such as a wireless flying surveillance station that can be used to watch over not only wireless networks, but mobile conversations as well. A software that can change mobile phones in an area into spontaneous wireless network through which people can send messages, even when the internet and mobile networks have stopped working, was also displayed. This software could prove to be very useful during natural or any man-made disasters and provide relief to thousands of anxious victims.

Via: PCWorld