The Eufy S4 Max NVR is a serious system for users who want smart features without giving up privacy or flexibility. Most home security systems force you to choose between smart features and local control. As its name indicates, this is a PoE (Power over Ethernet), NVR (Network Video Recorder) system with a built-in AI agent that runs on its own local hardware--there's no cloud storage and no subscription fees required to unlock key features. The bundle includes four of Eufy's PoE Cam S4 triple-lens cameras. Each of these has a fixed-position camera with a single wide-angle lens (122-degree field of view) that's fused to the dual-lens, pan/tilt/zoom camera beneath it.

Wide-angle cameras are uniquely positioned for mobile robots, by virtue of the rich information they provide in a small, light, and cost-effective form factor. An accurate calibration of the intrinsics and extrinsics is a critical pre-requisite for using the edge of a wide-angle lens for depth perception and odometry. Calibrating wide-angle lenses with current state-of-the-art techniques yields poor results due to extreme distortion at the edge, as most algorithms assume a lens with low to medium distortion closer to a pinhole projection. In this work we present our methodology for accurate wide-angle calibration. Our pipeline generates an intermediate model, and leverages it to iteratively improve feature detection and eventually the camera parameters. We test three key methods to utilize intermediate camera models: (1) undistorting the image into virtual pinhole cameras, (2) reprojecting the target into the image frame, and (3) adaptive subpixel refinement. Combining adaptive subpixel refinement and feature reprojection significantly improves reprojection errors by up to 26.59 %, helps us detect up to 42.01 % more features, and improves performance in the downstream task of dense depth mapping. Finally, TartanCalib is open-source and implemented into an easy-to-use calibration toolbox. We also provide a translation layer with other state-of-the-art works, which allows for regressing generic models with thousands of parameters or using a more robust solver. To this end, TartanCalib is the tool of choice for wide-angle calibration. Project website and code: http://tartancalib.com.

Panasonic is working on a floor lamp which incorporates a security camera with a floor lamp. The device is designed to allow homeowners to monitor their properties without having to install obvious, wall-mounted cameras. But it has raised privacy concerns with the potential use by landlords or AirBnB owners to spy, record and exploit unknowing tenants. The lamp has been dubbed'HomeHawk Floor' and its svelte design may raise issues for renters. Airbnb's terms and conditions, for example, state hosts are required to inform inhabitants of any cameras or other recording devices.

With a few solid surveillance cameras in its stable, SpotCam's latest offerings look to expand the idea of home monitoring by not only monitoring the security of your house when you're away, but also its comfort levels when you're home. The indoor SpotCam Sense ($150) and indoor/outdoor SpotCam Sense Pro ($190) are outfitted with all the surveillance features of a DIY home security camera along with a range of environmental sensors for tracking things like temperature and lighting. Updated October 22, 2018 to add our take on the new SpotCam Cloud Video AI service, which--for a hefty subscription fee--brings advanced AI video analytics to the SpotCam Sense Pro and other SpotCam cameras. The service detects and alerts you to six types of events, each of which must be purchased separately (free 7-day trials are available for each if you own a SpotCam and want to evaluate the service). Missing Object enables you to cover an object within the camera's field of view with an adjustable bounding box.

The Pixel 2 had arguably the best smartphone camera on the market, and Google wants to make sure it stays that way. During its Pixel unveiling today, it introduced a raft of new camera features for the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3XL smartphones, including an improved zoom, wider-angle camera, smile and blink detection, bokeh control and more -- all with just a single lens on the back. The quality is apparently good enough for Terrence Malick, who shot a video that was featured at the event, so it might be good enough for the rest of us, too. Some of the features are enabled with the fresh hardware, to be sure. There's a brand new 12.2-megapixel sensor on the back, with a sharper wide-angle lens to allow for zooming.

I had somebody ask me questions this week about underwater photography and videography with robots (well, now it is a few weeks ago…). I am not an expert at underwater robotics, however as a SCUBA diver I have some experience that can be applicable towards robotics. There are some challenges that exist with underwater photography and videography, that are less challenging above the water. This causes certain colors to not be visible at certain depths. If you need to see those colors you often need to bring strong lights to restore the visibility of those wavelengths that were absorbed.

Wi-Fi security cameras are becoming more of a fixture in smart homes thanks to integrations with Amazon Alexa, SmartThings, and even IFTTT. But D-Link's Omna 180 Cam HD ($150) is the first camera certified to work with Apple's HomeKit platform. That makes this camera a slam-dunk purchase for some users, but a more difficult sell for others. Given its alliance with Apple, it's not surprising the Omna is long on looks. Its silver body recalls the anodized aluminum finish of many Apple products, and its sleek, cylindrical form evokes that company's attention to design.

After the disappointing sales of the G5, South Korean tech giant LG is back with a radically redesigned G6. In the history of consumer electronics, there's been one constant: as technology advances, gadgets always get smaller and more compact. The last three years, when smartphones actually became increasingly bigger, was an anomaly. The biggest phonemakers in the world will spend 2017 fixing that problem. Later this year, both Samsung and Apple will release phones with drastically smaller bodies (while keeping the same screen size, or even expanding it) than last year's models, and mainstream consumers will go gaga.