One of the cool things about NAB is the exhibits of emerging technologies from around the world. There is special pavilion section each for Korea, France, China, and Germany. The German pavilion had two cool things in it this year. The first is The EagleCam, which is pictured above. This tiny camera is about 1 cm square, has a 1/3" sensor, and weighs 70g. There is a separate recording unit that is about the size of a Sharpie marker. So these crazy dudes at the Fraunhofer Institute made a camera specifically for a client to capture a Golden Eagle flying. (You cannot buy this camera - they only make custom cameras for clients). They built a special harness for the eagle to house the camera and recording unit on it. Packed into this tiny package is a Dual Core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, a h.264 compression unit, WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI, and it runs Android. And there are sensors for Gyro, Magnetic Compass and Air Pressure - just because you know, there was so much extra room.
Needless to say, the images are spectacular. And what a feat of engineering.
This is a little dolly named Polly, and while it appears small, it is heavy. This is no ordinary dolly - it has a steel flywheel inside. The flywheel generates its own power, so if you push it, it can just keep going - like forever, until it hits something like a wall. And due to its weight, it is very stable.
They make a kit with dolly track and a flexible arm, but be forewarned, it's not cheap. The Polly is US$2600, the Arm US$1200, and the Track US$800. Beautifully made, quite small, and rock steady. The only drawback will be lifting that beast out of its case.
