Friday, July 24, 2009

A nifty gadget - which makes me uneasy


A friend has just bought a pen that's also a video and audio recorder, from a company in (I think) Hong Kong. He showed it to me today.

It's a fascinating toy. Externally, it looks (and writes) like a normal pen:




but if you separate the top and bottom, a USB port is revealed, to download its recordings onto a computer.




The operating components are artfully hidden in and above the clip mechanism.




It makes me rather uneasy to think that anyone can walk about with one of these, or a similar device, and record anything and everything, or leave it lying casually on a table during a confidential meeting to record what's said by all present. I suppose that's the way of things now. In sheer self-defense, we're all going to have to record everything, so that if someone claims we said something, we can at least prove (hopefully) that we didn't!

If you'd like to know more, the vendor's Web site is here (which is where I obtained the pictures also). No, I don't get paid commission on them, and I'm not involved with or linked to the vendor in any way. This is posted purely out of personal interest.

Peter

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with you. At least with cellphones it is reasonably obvious if someone is trying to take photos.

Jim

Wayne Conrad said...

Tools like this make it easier for us to have our own personal "dash cams" when dealing with law enforcement.