Ninja Blogging

I just read a post on Wired.com about these nifty gadgets and how the German government is getting away with using these cameras in public places. The short story is that the Austrian government passed a law in which police can monitor public places with out having a court order. They are using stand-alone networked cameras manufactured by Axis Communications. This pissed off local civil liberties groups who brought up the famous question ‘who will watch the watchers’. Any way I found these cameras to be ‘pretty darn nifty’ and decided to look into the cost of having one. The cheapest one I found on ebay is the indoor fixed camera model ‘Axis 206’ is $250. If you want to go with a cheap outdoor Axis camera then you may want the ‘Axis 211’ which typically goes for about $700. You can also go with the ‘Axis 211A’ which is an outdoor camera with audio but this model is about +$150 more than the base 211 model. The neat thing about these cameras is the ability to access them through out a network and not have them hooked up to a computer. I guess you could go with a webcam but you will need a computer to manage the images. I would so love to have one of these to play around with at home. Look up some of these cameras on Google to check them out.