A traditional 200x microscope is a clunky affair, what with all that metal and glass and mechanisms and whatnot. The USB fairy has sprinkled her magic transistors over the obsolescent rubbish used by real scientists, however, and turned it into a digital copy of questionable durability and utility. Welcome to the future.
Able to magnify up to 200x and channel the images to any PC via USB 1.1 (Yes, 1.1), the USB Digital Microscope offers a close view at a meager resolution—640x480—but makes up for it with image capture and movie-making functions. It can capture at 30fps frame rate and do time-lapsed shooting, and has three levels of magnification, starting at 20x.
One cool hack that might be possibile with this would be to make your own high-end conterfeit detector. Would 200x be enough to algorithmically detect a fake note? A fake diamond, even?
The software works on Windows and Mac. The USB Digital Microscope is $200.
Product Page [ThinkGeek]
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