The European Space Agency and other organizations are testing a personal GPS-based navigation system that helps blind people get around better on their own.

The handheld device, dubbed "Tormes," was unveiled in Madrid in early June. It weighs less than one kilogram (about 2 pounds), comes with a Braille keyboard and a voice synthesizer, and taps the global positioning satellite system to provide verbal directions. Added software and a database of city maps give immediate feedback about the users' surroundings.

Eye Ball R1 – It’s a camera and recorder which is encased in a rubber and polyurethane ball about the size of a baseball and weighing less than a pound. You can throw it into a room that you need to keep an eye on. When it comes to a rest it will start recording the sights and sounds of the area within 25 meters of it, and it will send the images to a handheld unit up to 200 yards away.

I have this fantasy about playing catch with James Bond with one of these things outside of the bad guy’s headquarters. The ball goes over the fence ‘accidentally’, and we catch them in the act of trying to destroy the world. We foil their dastardly plot, of course.