"I"LL BE WATCHING YOU"
This item from Lost Remote's Cory Bergman changed my plans for today on this holiday weekend, even though I'm not an Indy 500 fan:
Get a load of ABC's setup for Sunday's Indianapolis 500: 36 wireless cameras on board 12 different cars; 15 robotic cameras on the track; 7 robotic "pan cams" mounted on top of selected cars and 2 "visor cams." Good grief.
Good grief indeed...the referenced story in the Hollywood Reporter, elaborates further:
ABC Sports will deploy more than 70 broadcast cameras around the 2.5-mile track, including a camera on the same type of 87-foot Strada crane used to film 1997's "Titanic," 15 robotic cameras to cover the action on the track and in the pits and up to 36 wireless cameras on board 12 different cars.
OK, you say...what's new about that...they've been doing that sort of thing for a while now...it's just more cameras this time...wait...
But that's not all. Danika Patrick and six other drivers will carry Pan Cams, newly developed on-board cameras mounted on the top of their cars with the ability pan 180 degrees to show side-by-side racing in traffic.
And finally, the piece re resistance:
There is even a plan to attach an ultralight camera, developed exclusively by On-Board Video, to a helium-filled balloon that will provide a "balloon's-eye view" as it ascends with thousands of multicolored balloons traditionally released at the start of the race.
You've got to think the folks at Google, Microsoft, Amazon, AOL and Yahoo! are 
watching these camera experiments given the on-going "space race" in satellite/mapping/local services segment of the portal business.
The adjacent picture from the Wall Street Journal depicts Microsoft's Virtual Earth showing San Francisco at a 45-degree article. In a post dated titled "Google taking to the Skies" last month, I noted that company's experiments in New York City on sky-based images.
They may all learn a thing or two from the high-speed, high-definition, and wireless infrastructure developed and deployed by the folks at ABC sports...
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