Along with anything related to smart speakers and voice assistant integration, one of the biggest gold rushes in tech is the rapidly expanding smarthome market. And with companies both new and old trying to find a way in, thereâs a lot of a confusion among consumer about which brands are legit.
Amazon has just been shoveling out smart devices this year, launching a buttload of new Alexa-powered devices including an all-new Echo, the Echo Spot, and the premium Echo Plus. But one category where Amazonâs portfolio feels a bit thin is home security, where its $120 indoor-only Cloud Cam is the companyâs soleâŚ
Because they use wide-angle lenses, home security cameras are able to capture much more of the scene than a conventional camera can. This is the kind of info you might wanna know before you try to secretly turn off one your dad has set up in the living room, as one YouTube userâs son recently triedâand utterlyâŚ
The internet has made it supremely easy to install connected security cameras wherever you want. Unfortunately for Nest, that easy connectivity makes it simple for hackers to disable its cameras with just a few keystrokes. And thatâs a very bad feature for a security camera.
Any parent thatâs squinted at a live feed from a baby camera, trying to spot the subtle movements that indicate their child is still breathing, will wish they had First Alertâs new Onelink Envirocam that can monitor an infantâs respiration rate from afar.
Do you need eyes on your front door at all times, lest a burglar creep up to your doorstep? (Or at least to make sure that your dog doesnât run away?) Netatmoâs got a new outdoor nanny camera to keep watch.
If you're committed to avoiding the gaze of the ever-growing number of cameras recording our every move, Google Glass hardly seems like a sensible purchase. That is, unless your face-computer can steer you around each camera's field of view. Enter Sander Veenhof's new Glass app, Watch Your Privacy. Now, you and yourâŚ
The skeletal recognition tech behind Kinect is useful for way more than just gaming. It's good for sign language, cheating at pool, and (duh) porn. But it could help stop violence, too. Thanks to Kinect, security cams could automatically know if they're witnessing a beat-down.
There are security cameras all over the place, and as we creep ever forward into a technological utopia distopia future, there are going to be even more, gazing at you from the street corners, in stores, and who knows where else. But all that footage doesn't have to be pure surveillance; you can turn it into art.
Australia's biggest casino was taken for $33 million, when its own security cameras were used against it by a high-roller who managed to hijack the surveillance systems.
Apparently security cameras are even less secure than we thought. Eighteen popular brands of cameras have been found to have serious flaws in their own security, leaving at least 58,000 unsecured, open-to-basically-anyone security cams out there.
As if the prospect of being watched by security cameras wasn't unsettling enough, they may not only be watching you. Computerized surveillance software currently under development will also let them predict what you're about to do.
The traditional approach to video surveillance is to blanket a property with low-res VGA cameras to catch suspicious activities from any angle. But with Avigilon's 29 megapixel JPEG2000 HD Pro, you can slap a wide angle Canon lens on the end and cover an entire parking lot in one fell swoop.
If you're looking into becoming an enterprising criminal, don't be like these guys. Why? Because these two super slick robbers stole security cameras... without bothering to steal the security cam's footage. Meaning they were recorded stealing by the items they stole.
This is hilariously pitiful. An armed robber stormed a bar and demanded everyone give him their money. Usually, everyone freaks out and hands over everything they have. Not in this case. At this bar in Rotterdam, everyone ignored the robber and kept drinking.
500,000 cameras have been purchased by the Chinese government for installation in the Chongqing city over the coming three years, to keep an eye out for crime, but more importantly political activists. Or so human-rights warriors fret.
Ohio cop Joshua Campbell stopped at a Walgreens to pick up surveillance footage of a robbery that had taken place just hours earlierâonly to stumble upon a new robbery, at the same Walgreens. Which he foiled. On tape!
The Logitech Alert digital video security system comes with a host of goodies: motion-triggered built-in DVR, 130-degree wide-angle lens, 720p video. But what's got me most excited is the ability to watch the feed from pretty much anywhere.
Click to viewWhen Faisal Shahzad left his bomb-loaded car parked in Times Square, every step of his escape route through Manhattan was caught by both police and private spycams. If they're the NYPD's eyes, this room is its central nervous system.
Click to viewI'm not saying you should try to steal anything from a trade show. That's just wrong. But if you absolutely have to, maybe you shouldn't start with the company that's there selling security cameras, hrrmmmm?
