Hasta La Gadget!

Los Angeles flaunts its celebrity and pumps its cleavage and yogas its fitness and bikinis its summer and juices its vapidity and sells its dream better than any city in the world. We’ve seen beautiful time lapses and showcases of the nightlife of LA before, so here is a deliciously futuristic (and Big Brother-ish) view of Los Angeles from a drone’s perspective. It’ll show you angles of Los Angeles even the paparazzi don’t see.

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Watching GoPro footage makes it clear that there is basically nothing cooler than first-person action sport shots. And for those who are spending the day at the skate park, one Kickstarter project is hoping to take that genre of filming to the next level.

STABiLGO is a handheld, motorized GoPro stabilizer that keeps the camera level and steady as you turn down a half-pipe or mountain. Creators Michael Boczon and Christine Reilly have raised $33,885 of their $100K goal so far with 12 days left.

If you’re wondering how this product didn’t exist already — produced by someone like GoPro or one of its die-hard fans, for instance — don’t ask Boczon. He doesn’t know either. A technical producer and video editor at MTV, he said others had advanced directly to creating aerial rigs and somehow bypassed handheld stabilizers. But Boczon and Reilly have clearly caught a technology wave that others are riding, too. The day after they had been rewinding motors for the STABiLGO, a pre-made motor became available for purchase online.

After playing catch-up with the development of the individual components, STABiLGO seems to have broken ahead of the pack. After STABiLGO went up on Kickstarter, six different groups reached out to say that Boczon had beaten them to the punch by only a few weeks.

The aim is to move STABiLGO into retail production in China, which Boczon said he intends to do with or without the Kickstarter money. The prototype costs about $450 in parts to produce, and Boczon said they would likely set the retail price between $600-$700.

“In the end, our goal was to use it when we go snowboarding,” he said. “Come this season, I will have my unit.”

The term “bullet time” has been loosely applied to camera-based projects that take on what’s been made most famous back in the original Matrix movie and spread wide with film, television, and even advertisement spots before and since. What we’re seeing this week as a Hack-a-day project that takes the concept and makes it a do-it-yourself project. All you need to DIY is a fan, a dimmer switch, a GoPro camera, and some fireworks!

Of course the fireworks are optional, but what better way to demonstrate an oddity like this than with a controlled bit of demolition? The first video you’re seeing here shows how the fan and the GoPro camera were made friendly with a control switch. The dimmer here allows the fan to move at a speed that can keep the camera in business with its ability to capture video at high speed.

While this certainly isn’t the first time we’ve encountered this camera taking on an extreme mission, it’s certainly one of the strangest places we’ve seen it mounted. GoPro is a brand that prides itself on being able to roll through extreme conditions and capture video from the oddest of angles – but we’d bet its intended use-case list never included a ceiling fan.

Next you’ll see the camera on the fan with the dimmer capturing a lovely 4th of July preparation in firework form. Have a peek and see what you make of it.

And remember – as it is with all DIY projects, especially when they have “hack” in the title, use caution if you decide to make it a reality for yourself. This isn’t the work of amateurs, no matter how rudimentary it looks. You don’t want a GoPro flying at your head at break-neck speed, no matter how awesome the resulting video would be!

Bullet Time goes home-made with a ceiling fan and a rocket is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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If you were thinking about working with a GoPro camera in the near future for all your hardcore sports-filming action and were deciding on which smartphone you’d like to pair with it, Nokia may have just made the choice a bit easier. This week the developers on the GoPro app team have made a GoPro

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After watching this terrifying footage of a wing walker precariously climbing out of their seat and onto the top of a plane, you’ll never complain about your crappy job ever again. You’ll also probably wonder how this particular hobby ever came about. Even the Wright Brothers—the first people to fly—believed in seats and restraints. It’s a terrifying and ridiculous stunt, even if it makes for some awesome GoPro footage. More »