As unlikely an idea as it sounds, mechanized insects seem to be the next wave of military technology. According to the current research conducted by DARPA, the Hybrid Insect MEMS project aims to transform "insects into unmanned air-vehicles" for various purposes. In other words, they're developing something that you could call pseudo-cyborg insects. Find out the rest of the details of this interesting study by reading our full article.

Honda has recently announced their newest gadget exclusive to their vehicle brand: the Drive Recorder. This versatile car surveillance system detects impacts and saves information 12 seconds before and 8 seconds after a collision.

For more information, check out the full article!

 

Tired of guessing who's been sneaking into your room and getting your hidden stash of magazines, games, or clothes? Then you might wanna consider this gadget to be your new clock radio.

What makes this unique is that it just doesn't tell the time, it also spies for you while you're away. With a surveillance system hidden inside the body of the clock, all you have to do is plug it and then play. There's also a color mini camera with a built-in transmitter, as well as a receiver, for all your spied goods.

The Hidden Camera Spy Clock from China Vision is your for US$ 64. We suggest you take a good hard look at the picture of the Spy Clock, too, so you'll know if the room you're in has got an eye peering at you.

The Crusher, a robot developed by the National Robotics Engineering Center and Carnegie Mellon University, is an off-road military vehicle that can travel over extreme terrain (including 4-foot vertical walls) and can carry up to 8,000 pounds of supplies. While Crusher's specs have not been released, the bot is reported to be able to operate without human interaction, and move about using its cameras, GPS receiver, and sensors for motion, balance and monitoring the environment.

The military bot is also capable of learning ."In time actually the vehicle will learn things, like it will learn when it's spinning wheels, it will learn when it's losing stability, and can slowly adapt to try to do better as it moves," says its head creator John Bares.

Although not the first of its kind, Crusher's high mobility is innovative. Its six-wheel drive, large tires, very high travel suspension and adaptive ground clearances allow it to travel over a tremendous variety of terrain obstacles. Its silent hybrid-electric engine and the ability to lower its suspension makes the Crusher suitable for surveillance operations.

The Crusher, while a military unit, is not designed to attack enemy forces. Its ultimate role is to provide surveillance and supplies and even function as an automated ambulance."Medevac is a great one because that's a very dangerous application and we tend to lose many more troops going in to pull out a fallen soldier," says Bares. "So to be able to take in a vehicle and scoop up and pull out a wounded soldier is great ... and that's also a good application for autonomy, it can be a somewhat slow and deliberate operation."

But don't fool around with the Crusher.  The developers say they might equip it with weapons for self-protection.

If you're looking to secure your home, then Panasonic's VL-W811K wireless security camera with LED lighting should be right up your street. Despite the unattractive name and the unorthodox styling, the VL-W811K is the perfect compliment to your home security arsenal with 6 LEDs to light the area under surveillance at night as well as a wireless remote control. For those of you interested in statistics the camera has an image pickup range of approximately 50° horizontally and 37° vertically.

The camera is due to go on sale November 1st for 67,200 Yen which translates into approximately $578. For a home security system which has LED lighting, a great image pickup range and a wireless remote control, the price is relatively cheap. However, don't bargain on this camera being a deterrent to burglars as they probably wouldn't know what the thing is. At first glance it just looks like an ordinary spotlight! Still, we think it's one effective way to make your home more secure.

The SecuriCam DCS-2120 is the new D-Link Internet camera that allows users to broadcast videos onto the web. Well, you might think it's like any other webcam, but as the name suggests, it's actually more of a surveillance/monitoring camera.

Aside from video and audio recording (through an MPEG-4 codec), it also supports 3GPP, 4X Digital Zoom, and motion alert functions. It has built-in WiFi (D-link is known for incorporating WiFi into their products), with speeds up to 54mbps IEEE 802.11g.

What's cool about this is that it has a motion detection function. You could set the camera to send an email to you directly, notifying that that it has detected something. You could install a bunch of these in a museum, and when it closes down for the night, leave them on so they can alert guards of any strange activity.

Of course, if we had our druthers, we wouldn't set it to simply alert us with an email, but with the whole bells-whistles-trumpets gig. Well, maybe the next-gen ones will.

HelliHobby's Eyetop is the first and probably the only fashion eyewear to integrate a high resolution screen. It's easy to use - it works with any type of device equipped with a standard video output. You can enjoy watching videos, images, and other visual info without having to press any buttons. All you have to do is look away or look back. With what it can do, the Eyetop can easily replace your small mobile devices that can only give you images as big as the device can display. With Eyetop, you get a full size monitor in front of you.

If you're into R/C helicopters, you can enjoy a complete first- and third-person simultaneous view with HeliHobby's TrueView system. Eyetop can be used in various applications, from basic training to more complex (and exciting) surveillance work. The basic Eyetop High Resolution Color LCD EyeWare System is available for $399.

Cellophane is a thin, transparent sheet made of processed cellulose originally invented to prevent wine spills from staining table cloths. Although that didn't work out, cellophane did find its calling in the food packaging business. Now, looks like its destined to have a second career as flying robots!

Jaehwan Kim and his team at Inha University in South Korea discovered that ordinary cellulose is a piezoelectric and can flap when exposed to an electric field. To make a cellophane simulate the wing's flapping action, they placed a very thin layer of gold on each side. The layers were connected to a voltage and acted as electrodes, with one side of the paper positive and the other negative.

When electricity was applied on the gold on each side, the cellophane curves toward the positive side. Switching the voltage fast enough makes the cellophane simulate wing movements. Theoretically, this action is ideal to send lightweight robots with cameras, microphones or other surveillance sensors flying through the air.

Amerika, Amerika...once a land where we were proud to be mindin' our own business - where we didn't go around snoopin' on our neighbors like buncha nosy old women...

And now, a country where almost everyone feels the need to be - or be watched by - Orwell's "Big Brother."

Since we are also a nation in which the highest value is to make a buck, there has been no shortage of  merchants offering the latest gadgets to make constant monitoring of our every move easier.

Take SpyGadgets' latest offering: the Peephole Reverse Viewer Tactical Door Viewer. This handy-dandy pocket-sized device allows folks to look into other people's homes by placing it over the door peephole - without anyone inside knowing. Not only does it fit over most common peepholes in the U.S., it can also be used in almost any country where peepholes are used. The housing is manufactured (probably in Indonesia or Bangladesh) from a strong, lightweight composite material, and the lenses are precision ground from the highest quality glass especially for this application.

Best of all, it retails for only $88.00!

According to the prospectus, the Peephole Reverse Viewer Tactical Door Viewer was "developed with the help of the law enforcement industry to help them assess potential hazards behind dwelling doors."

Indeed, but 10,000 years of human history - and the the last five years in particular - shows us that what can be used will invariably be mis-used and ab-used. Sadly, between these unending advances in surveillance technology and the steady dismantling of the Fourth Amendment by the current Administration, it's safe to say that we'll soon be abandoning Francis Scott Key's The Star Spangled Banner for Sting's I'll Be Watchin' You...