Experimental surveillance camera boasts super zoom

DARPA is funding a Duke University project to create an extremely powerful surveillance camera.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding a project at Duke University that has resulted in the development of an experimental camera that allows the user to zoom in on portions of the image in minute detail after the photo is taken, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The super camera, known as Aware-2, can gather more than 30 times as much picture data as today's best consumer digital devices, the story said. Aware-2 produces a still or video image with a billion pixels — five times as much detail as can be seen by a person with 20/20 vision, according to the story.

The camera's development could fundamentally alter the way images are captured and viewed for aerial reconnaissance, the story said.