#2: Petcam

Where does your cat or dog go when out of the house? Strap a wireless webcam around their neck and your immediate vicinity (within range of your router) starts to accommodate a wildlife safari. Pipe the pictures to a big screen and get close-ups of midnight mousehunting, roadcrossing roulette etc. An inbuilt microphone adds extra excitement.

Now it seems that this has actually been implemented.

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#1: Ballcam

Here’s a typically crazy one to start. Create the ball’s view of a game of soccer by inserting some webcams in a subset of the 32 faces. Given enough bandwidth, and fast switching between camera outputs, the forward facing view could always be broadcast, even for a rapidly spinning ball.

You’d need to provide the switching mechanism with some reference by which to judge the forward direction (perhaps a simple layout of coloured lights around the ground would work). Otherwise, fitting accelerometers might be necessary, thus greatly adding to the complexity.

Making the whole thing robust enough to withstand the impacts involved in eg corner kicking would be a challenge. If players can stand heading an inswinger, after all, without obvious brain damage…ok, you’re probably right, damn silly idea.