LightCam combines an LED flashlight with a flash-based camcorder, and it also illuminates the area with infrared so you can practically shoot footage in the dark. Made of anodized aluminum, this appliance might be popular with night watchmen who don't want to tote a Taser-shooting shotgun but wouldn't mind gathering a bit of video evidence of a crime in progress. But as a camera, it's not going to win any prizes for speed or resolution, laying down 320x240 video at 15 frames per second, probably not quick enough to catch the sordid details of a tire iron zipping toward the side of your head.

To add insult to injury, when you get back to your night watchman's lair of TV monitors and doughnuts, this contraption is going to make you sit there and wait for its video to transfer to your PC using old-timey USB 1.1 technology. But maybe that low-rez is a blessing in this case, speeding up that transfer time and making its meager 512MB flash memory seem bigger at the same time. It might be entertaining to see the resulting videos, where LightCam also picks up audio which will usually consist of people yelling choice phrases such as "I'm going to kill you." That right there might be worth its $500 purchase price. — Charlie White

Via Aving