NEC of Japan has stumbled upon a new development – it has successfully rolled out a wireless camera which can be powered by a fluorescent light – and act that is done by simply attaching a ring-shaped component for power acquisition to the bulb. This surely beats the inconvenience of solar energy, where only power can be stored whenever there is sufficient sunlight available. The implementation of this fluorescent-powered wireless camera means the camera can practically be used round the clock without running out of juice – as long as the office lights are turned on. Having said that, it is a tad inconvenient to have all the lights on at night when there’s nobody at the office, so I guess this is good enough a solution for the time in between evening and night when folks are wrapping up their duties in their respective cubicles.

There is no need for a power supply installation with this wireless camera since all it needs is fluorescent lighting equipment with a straight bulb to provide a video system. NEC hopes that this new wireless camera will be utilized as a video system to monitor the attendance of employees or to check if there is a meeting room available in the office buildings (sounds like a pretty dubious excuse to me as there are several key people in the office who ought to know when the meeting room’s booked or not) in addition to analyzing customer behavior in supermarkets and convenience stores (sounds pretty creepy – I know I’d hate being watched like a hawk all the time).

The camera uses electromagnetic induction in order to obtain power by using the magnetic field generated by the AC source (45-100kHz) in the fluorescent light. This spanking new wireless camera will be operable at 120mW and is capable of automatically adjusting the frequency of shooting video in response to the power supply from the fluorescent light. The camera shoots images every 10 seconds and supports VGA (640 x 480), QVGA (320 x 240) and QQVGA (160 x 120) resolutions. Image transmission is made possible via IEEE802.11b-compliant wireless LAN. There is no word on pricing or availability as at press time, but it will be on exhibition at iExpo2007 in Tokyo Big Sight from Dec 5-7, 2007.

Source: Tech On