Japanese company offers flashlight with integrated video camera for use at crime scenes

Japanese accessory maker Carrot Systems began to sell a flashlight [JP] last month, which is able to record video and sound via an integrated mini CMOS camera and microphone. The AD-1500 stores recordings in MP4 format on miniSD cards. 2GB can hold up to 180 minutes of video material.

The flashlight is ready for infra-red video recording (within a distance of 4 meters). Carrot Systems wants to enable police, security personnel and firefighters to record evidence at crime and accident scenes using just one device in dark areas.

The camera features 300,000 pixels and records video with 640×480 VGA resolution. Photos are saved in JPEG format.

The flashlight comes with a USB port (USB 1.1), 128 MB of internal memory and a small LCD display. It costs $800.