Small, rugged, go-anywhere action cams have become increasingly popular. Both BBC news and Forbes magazine have taken a look at the booming action camera business over the last week. The BBC's Ian Hardy covered the overall market and the varied applications of action cams, while Forbes posted an interesting story about GoPro's Founder and CEO Nick Woodman with details on the company's success.

In a blog post, BBC's Ian Hardy examines the popularity of these action cams writes about the various kinds of cameras available and the wide number of applications for which they are being used. He covers Pivothead sunglasses for traffic police in Texas, 360 degree panorama cams for real estate agents, and unique microscopic cameras in science classrooms.

 A low-cost underwater film camera

Forbes examines how GoPro sales have more than doubled every year since the first camera hit the market in 2004. 'In 2012 the company sold 2.3 million cameras and grossed $521 million, [...] with $100 million in sales in January alone, that annual figure should again double this year. For the month of December GoPro was the highest-grossing digital imaging brand at Best Buy, knocking out Sony for the first time in the chain’s history.'

GoPro's Founder and CEO Nicholas Woodman.

At the age of 37 he is worth $1.3 billion. He started GoPro in 2002. 'Just ten years old, GoPro was responsible for 21.5% of digital camcorder shipments nationwide in the first half of 2012, according to IDC data.'

Photo by Eric Millette.
GoPro's 4k-capable Hero 3 action camera was released in Oct 2012. It can shoot at up to 3840 x 2160 pixels at 15 frames per second.

Click here to read Ian Hardy's blog post on BBC

Click here to read more about Nick Woodman in Forbe's article 'The Mad Billionaire Behind GoPro: The World's Hottest Camera Company'