

Bounce ball camera to help first responders - dsego
http://bounceimaging.com

======
makmanalp
This is pretty cool tech, but I think you need a bit of work with your video.
When you start with examples, after the 1st one I'm thinking "I get it
already, jesus" and already clicking through the video to find the product
demo.

You torture me with 30 seconds of slow slide transitions and irrelevant videos
(I know what a firefighter is, no need to show me), start talking about what
you're making 30 seconds in, and finally show it to me 45 seconds in, with the
end result 55 seconds in.

I know this sounds harsh, but you have _got_ to tailor your value proposition
to short attention spans. If I like it, I'll stay longer and watch more. If
not, you don't want me anyway.

I'd flip most of the video around: a) condense the first 30 seconds into 1
slide with pictures of first responders, soldiers, firemen etc b) show them
the end result and then how you toss the camera (or backwards). When this is
done, you should be 10 seconds in. c) then build upon my excitement and talk
about what you want

This is all assuming I even click the video, so just having a one-sentence
summary above the video also helps. (I get that there is text below, but your
header is huge and so it falls below the fold and I didn't even think to
scroll down until now).

~~~
venus
I know _this_ sounds harsh, but you're obviously not their customer. Who cares
if you "like" it, or if you stay longer and watch more?

I happen to agree that the video is annoyingly slow to start but maybe their
target audience isn't hyperactive Reddit distraction addicts. Maybe their
research suggests buyers for emergency services like to be buttered up a bit
before being pitched to. Without knowing that you're just speculating.

~~~
makmanalp
You know what, you're right in that I happen to fall way out of the bounds of
their target, and that's not harsh at all. But I think my point still stands.
Even people who like to sit through 2 hour long bullet-point presentations /
butter-up sessions with synergistic turnkey solutions know, briefly, what they
are being pitched before they sit down and watch.

In any case, I doubt any such research happened :)

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JshWright
I could see this being useful for LEOs and guys clearing caves and bunkers...
In situations like those, being able to look around a corner without exposing
yourself to hostile fire is a great advantage.

In the case of firefighting, it would be a lot less useful. We're not worried
about poking our head around a corner. No one is shooting at us. How is this
better than looking around the corner myself with a thermal imaging camera?

In many ways it's worse... Modern TICs have lots of useful features like
giving you the temperature at a certain point on the screen. Using a TIC is
also more complicated than simply looking at the picture. A single static
image doesn't do me much good. I want to see how the heat is moving through
the room, looking for signs of impending flashover, etc. The heat signature of
a victim lying on the floor can be surprisingly difficult to distinguish from
something like a smoldering blanket if you don't have a dynamic image to look
at for a couple seconds.

The one use I do see for this is hinted at in the video (where it warns the
operator of the carbon monoxide level). This _could_ be useful in HazMat
situations (pack the thing with sensors for various hazardous materials).
However... if you're close enough to throw the thing into a suspect HazMat
condition, you're close enough that you need to be wearing the appropriate
personal protective equipment... so why not use the handheld sensor you
already have, instead of buying this (presumably) expensive remote sensor?

~~~
woodchuck64
> How is this better than looking around the corner myself with a thermal
> imaging camera?

A rapidly moving camera should get a lot more pictures, a lot more angles and
room coverage than a handheld one in a static location. Would be fascinating
to hear a founder on this, how to combine all those images-- under desks,
behind cabinets, under bed, etc.-- into something rapidly grasped by the
viewer.

~~~
JshWright
You can't be certain a single toss is going to capture all the angles you need
(inside a closet, under the covers of a bed, etc). It also still gives you a
static 'snapshot' of the space. You really need a dynamic view to get an idea
of what the fire is doing, distinguish victims from other blobby heat
signatures, etc.

The UI would be tricky as well... Consider the conditions the user is
operating in... Extremely poor visibility (no hi-res display (potentially
solved by project on the facepiece directly)), bulky gloves (no touch
interface), heavy gear (every extra pound matters), significantly restricted
movement (tough to throw the thing in the first place).

I think there's a lot of progress to be made in this field in the near future,
but I'm not sure this is it... Things like helment mounted TICs, and HUDs
projected directly on the SCBA facepiece seem like they would be far more
useable, and easy to implement..

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moreati
If you ever need to go down market/pivot: replace the cameras with a
microphone, add padding to the ball, add line out to the receiver, sell it to
presenters who want to take questions from an audience.

~~~
mattstreet
Or if you kept a camera and added a mic there could be closeup video of the
presenter.

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colanderman
Suggestion: put all of the text in the video on the web page as text.

Right now I have no way of figuring out what it is beside (a) inferring from
the name, and (b) starting another browser that's more stable when playing
videos. Also, none of what the product does is indexable by search engines.

~~~
Poiesis
Not to mention corporate proxies that block YouTube. For many products we see
on HN this may not be a big deal, but this kind of product is trying to get
interest from the wry people who often have restrictive proxy settings:
government and government contractors. (The video is blocked for me.)

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Cowen
It's a great idea.

I'm most interested in how they'll bring the price down though, since
development of this product doesn't look cheap.

It looks like this would need to be priced similar to a disposable item. It's
safe to assume that these ball cameras won't be retrieved even remotely as
often as they're thrown -- imagine firefighters stopping on their way out of a
burning building to retrieve their ball camera -- so the best way to convince
potential customers to buy en masse would of course be to price them low
enough that losing a bunch of the cameras won't be considered throwing money
away.

I'm really curious what that price point would be in order to still turn a
profit.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Well compared to the cost to train a new firefighter or cop the could cost
$1000 each, all be thrown away, and make a profit if the person using the used
less than say 200 in a 10 year span.

The calculus is if you Know that there are no one in a room in a fire you
don't go in there and risk injury or death. One, one week stay in the hospital
is about $105,000 ($15,000 a day) so they can be "expensive" and cheap at the
same time. The parts will set them back maybe $35 per ball. And since they
aren't mil spec they don't have to be enemy jamming resistant or able to
withstand being shot.

~~~
JshWright
There's no way I'm going to trust a single ball thrown into a room to give me
a complete picture of where any victims might be...

In a residential setting (where the _vast_ majority of fire related injury and
deaths occur, both civilian and firefighter), rooms are small enough that
searching them isn't likely to be any slower than tossing the ball in and
evaluating the image. Additionally, victims (especially children) like to hide
(under beds, in closets, etc). I suspect this camera would have a tough time
spotting them

A single static image of a room isn't going to terribly useful. Assuming
you're using infrared sensors (if you're not, it's entirely useless), it can
be surprisingly difficult to distinguish the heat signature of a victim from
other objects in the room if you don't have a dynamic image you can look at
for a few seconds.

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thedangler
It would be neat to add a little ball motor so that you can control where the
ball goes after it has been thrown.

~~~
jobu
A company called Sphero already does this (without the cameras), and it's
controllable with an iPhone: <http://www.gosphero.com/>

A combination of the two technologies would be very cool.

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ctdonath
Suggestion: Use "photosynth" techniques to fuse the video frames from the
moving cameras into a 3D model of the room.

~~~
alecdibble
That is exactly what the video shows.

EDIT: When I read photosynth, I was thinking of Microsoft Photosynth[1], which
sketches pictures into panoramas. I should have read the parent comment a
little more closely.

1: <http://photosynth.net/>

~~~
teraflop
It shows multiple angles from one viewpoint being assembled into a panorama.
That's very different from taking images from multiple viewpoints and
generating a 3D model.

~~~
vitalique
If these balls are reusable and/or cheap enough, throwing or shooting several
of them in and making them and head unit communicate to produce 3D panoramas
seems like next logical step. But I'm not sure 3D panoramas are worth it. What
is the benefit of having one 3D image instead of just several 2D images of the
rapidly changing scene? This technology is not meant to be used in museums.

~~~
dbaupp
To get a feeling for the layout and relative positioning of things. Sure it's
possible to do by examining several 2D pictures, but interpreting 3D
environments is far more natural, and it would allow the operator to rotate
and so on to get the best angle available.

Also, since the camera is moving, one doesn't need to use multiple.

------
robszumski
Do you have an example of a raw video or image taken with the device. I
scoured the website for this but can't find one. This proves to me that it
works.

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Jabbles
What advantage does this have over a remote control helicopter + light +
camera + wifi? I bet you could package that for $50. Ok, so you need to
practise a bit to learn how to control it, and if it's out of sight that'll be
a bit more difficult than it is usually.

I'm skeptical that a stationary ball lying on the floor (or rolling into a
hole) would provide better information. Of course, it's better than not having
that.

~~~
alecdibble
Cost, durability, ease of use, and battery of life are some things that come
to mind when comparing with your solution. Furthermore, I feel that to be as
useful, the helicopter would have to implement autonomous or semi-autonomous
control which is not trivial.

How do you make the helicopter rotors so that they don't break the first time
they hit something and also don't cut people's faces up. In many situations,
have a flying helicopter in a small space can be much more dangerous than a
ball on the floor.

~~~
Jabbles
Sure, anything RC will be more complicated to use than a ball. But it's being
marketed to professionals who will have been trained to use many tools.

The cost of RC helicopters is quite staggeringly low, and they are usually
possible to repair. The blades can be painful if you fly into people, but I
doubt people appreciate having balls land on them either. At least with an RC
you could potentially see where you were heading and stop. If the use scenario
is to send these in to places too dangerous to send people, I don't see much
issue.

I don't think autonomous flying is necessary, but there has been research done
to show it's possible (but as you say, not trivial).

I'm still unsure if a ball is going to work well, or whether it's just going
to roll under a desk.

~~~
brk
In most of their typical police/fire/first responder scenarios the users
already have enough other things to do and track that they don't want to be
trying to control an RC device as well.

It's also not advisable to assume that the users would be highly trained
beforehand. A major benefit of a device like this is the fact that it is a
very simple unit that is easy to deploy to get a quick and easy view of the
environment around a corner or at the end of a tunnel.

Additionally in fires you have a lot of air drafts from the heat, making
controlling an RC device even more challenging.

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emmelaich
This reminds me of the tiny (4mm) cameras in Vernor Vinge's The Peace War.
Excerpt: "The picture jerked every few seconds, as if the camera were held by
a drunkard" ...

[http://www.epubbud.com/read.php?g=QYQF26PH&p=7](http://www.epubbud.com/read.php?g=QYQF26PH&p=7)

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sitkack
[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8237787.PN.&OS=PN/8237787&RS=PN/8237787)

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mahesh_rm
This. Is. Cool. Technology. I wish the best to these guys.

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noonespecial
Almost. There.

<http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Kino>

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wangarific
This reminds me of that throwable sensor from one of the Call of Duty games

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vicapow
relevant: <http://i.imgur.com/EurpF.png>

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NoSalt
Well, that's just cool as hell.

