Night Vision Camera Brings Color to the Night

AIST Night Vision Camera Brings Color to the Night

So security cameras aren’t all that sexy and night visions is old news, right? That’s not what some smart cookie at AIST thought. The company recently rolled out a full color night vision camera. It’s the first of it’s kind to be commercially available (and fairly cheap considering).
The camera uses a special proprietary algorithm to convert non-visible light into the visible color spectrum that we can see with our eyes. Normally night visions cameras turn everything green but this version converts those neon colors into near-true color.

The company demonstrated the camera with a rotating Bullwinkle toy (yeah, the moose) and though the image wasn’t exactly crystal clear you could clearly see the various colors on the bobble.
This could really open up a whole new realm in the security market, aide police in catching the bad guys, and give them military yet another leg up on enemy combatants. However, it could just as easily turn into a “toy” that you’d find in high-end children’s Christmas present a year or two from now.
Perhaps the coolest part about this camera is the compact size. Unlike previous generations of low-light technology, this piece of equipment relies on software not hardware for the quantum leap. Will the iPad 3 have a full color night vision camera attached? Probably not, but I would be surprised if you saw this gimmick in other consumer electronics in the near future.