I know. I'm late. I'm not going to mention why. It isn't important and you shouldn't care.

Now, I'm not one to get all sucked into the whole holiday thang that's going on right now. I don't have a Christmas Tree in my house. I have a Christmas ladder. Same lights, same tinsel, Buddah head on top. There's one present underneath it. To me. From me. I say this to absolve the Props this week of any responsibility for you thinking "OOOOOOO! I think my honey bunny needs one of THOSE! Thanks, Friday Props!" This is the same Friday Props you've come to know and love. Speaking of love, give a little here in the comments portion.

Right out the gate, Friday props goes from zero to sixty. Like a dragonfly. A very fast dragonfly. This is actually a double-SIDED prop! A two-fer! The first part is that this IS a dragonfly. A robo-dragonfly! Now, I'm not a security nut. I don't have a dog. I don't have a moat. I don't have cameras or razor wire or fences. I do, however have a great bunch of neighbors who keep an eye on the place. This here dragonfly is the brainchild of some very smart fellows down in Georgia and can do all sorts of stuff including tracking a GPS device and transmitting video while you control it from your Smarty-Pants Phone or tablet. Really. This is very, very, cool.

The second part of this prop goes to the way these fellers are FUNDING their project: crowd source fundraising. These guys are innovators and job creators. Indiegogo and Kickstarter are both websites that facilitate the process because there are a lot of creative minds out there with creative ideas...but no money. Even if you don't have any money yourself, you should browse through both of these websites. And besides, you might see something about a project we're going to launch. Stay tuned. More tuned.

Sticking with this dragonfly theme, imagine that dragonfly. Now think specifically about the eyes. Those eyes are amazing. They have all these little lenses that can see the world in such a variety of dimensions that I find it difficult for my big ol' human brain to comprehend. Back in 1908 (the same year he won the Nobel prize for Physics), a smarter man than I named Gabriel Lippman DID think about it. He also just happened to develop color photography. He was a smart guy. Mr. Lippman also thought about a camera for that dragonfly eye. It took a long while until someone turned that camera into a reality, but here's some examples of what these cameras can do. Whereas most cameras are like the human eye with one lens, these cameras have MANY lenses that focus at different depths. After taking the photo, you can completely refocus the shot to accentuate any aspect of it. Simply put, that one camera is taking in a whole mess of information. In 2004, a lab in at Stanford developed a 16 megapixle light field camera that shot photos with a final resolution of 90 kilopixels. Yeah. Nuts.

 Those are our props for the week! Happy Holidays to everyone!