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Comment by larkeith | Hacker News Reader

This seems like it could be combined with battery-free "no-power" WiFi tags [1] to provide functionally indefinite surveillance at a minimal price tag.

While 1 kb/s bandwidth and a range of only 2 m limit the current applications of such a combination, the potential once both technologies become more mature is staggering (and rather terrifying).

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140804134215.h...

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There has been some recent work[1] towards backscatter video (actually from the same lab you linked to). The basic idea is the same as the "great seal bug"[2] except for photodiodes. I say "towards" because much of the work they present is in the form of simulation.

[1] https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~gshyam/Papers/videobackscat... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

Doubtful. Several companies have already come and gone with solar-powered security cameras that never really worked as desired. If we can't power a simple low-res (720p) wifi camera reliably with a large (as compared to an image sensor) dedicated solar panel today, this technology is unlikely to change that in the next decade.

You still need to process or transmit the images, which might be costlier than recording the images.

For transmitting data on an energy harvesting budget there is stuff like LoRa, but Image is out of the question here because of the size.

Much more likely is that such devices will be used for tracking, in situations where GPS is using to much power. Especially, as the calculations for that are done at the receivers instead of the transmitter.

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