Tag Archives: cameras

Thoughts

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

Wired News picked up an interesting article from the Associated Press about the NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency), which describes the purpose and capabilities of this youngest of government intelligence agencies. Its director, Lt. Gen. James Clapper (Ret.) is stepping down next month, and he is proud of the work NGA is doing.

Their capabilities are rumored to far exceed those of commercial satellite imagery, and they’ve become very useful in the aftermath of last year’s hurricanes. That’s when they set up mobile stations in the backs of Humvees and provided displaced and worried people with satellite images showing the condition of their homes.

They also work together with security staff in public places, like hotels, to tap into lobby cameras and combine that footage with mapping and graphical data to help secure events or take action in case of a hostage situation or other catastrophe.

My reaction to this is mixed. On the one hand, it’s nice to see a government agency actually helping out when a natural disaster occurs, and on the other hand, I have to wonder about people’s privacy given their serious capabilities.

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Thoughts

Are energy vampires in your home?

In the April Issue of the UCS Green Tips, standby or phantom energy loss is detailed. From the issue:

“This wasted energy, known as standby or phantom energy loss, represents a relatively small but growing percentage of an individual home’s electricity use (about five percent), but taken across all U.S. households, adds up to an estimated 65 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. This extra electricity costs consumers more than $5.8 billion annually and sends more than 87 billion pounds of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.

Some of the biggest energy wasters in most homes are the adapters that come with rechargeable battery-powered cordless phones, cell phones, digital cameras and music players, power tools, and other electronic devices. Most draw power whenever they’re plugged into an outlet, regardless of whether the device battery is fully charged or even connected. Other culprits include appliances or electronic equipment with standby capability (such as televisions and computer monitors), a remote control, and/or a digital clock display (such as microwaves, DVD players, and stereo systems).”

Read the issue (it’s only a page long) to find out what to do to prevent phantom energy loss. Here is the link.

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Reviews

MonsterPod: the gooey tripod

This has got to be one of the coolest products I’ve seen so far. It’s made of a visco-elastic morphing polymer that will stick to virtually anything, and these two fellows, a father and son team, made it into a tripod for compact digital cameras. I hope they sell a whole bunch of them, it’s pretty cool stuff! Here’s their site.

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