Putting the “Shoot” in Camera Shoot - The Firefly Wireless Ballistic Camera   - 2,008 Views,

It seems that “Firefly” is a popular name for small, portable devices this month. First we had the Firefly cell phone for children, and now we have the Firefly “145 g unguided projectile” ballistic camera.

Yep, you load this little baby into a grenade launcher, point and shoot, and out pops the Firefly - a miniaturized disposable video camera, which beams its images back by wireless communication to the launcher’s PDA or other device, until it crash lands.

Developed by the Rafael Armament Development Authority of Israel, the Firefly ballistic camera uses “state-of-the-art technologies, including the miniaturisation of imaging components. The result is an extremely compact image-gathering subcalibre projectile, 38 mm in diameter and 155 mm in length.”

“In the near future, a soldier who needs a quick look over the next hill will be able to aim his rifle skyward, fire a grenade-sized reconnaissance device and instantly receive imagery on his pocket computer,” said Barbara Opall-Rome of Defense News.

The time lapse is only 8 seconds, and the ballistic camera has a range of 600 meters. Once the images are received from the camera, they can also be beamed to other soliders in the area,

Says a Rafael handout, “Equipped with two charge coupled device cameras, the projectile transmits real-time imagery of an area underlying its trajectory projectile throughout a maximum eight-second flight.”

That seems nifty cool. Although how long will it take for signal-jamming devices to follow?