Is there a way to activate it without putting the car in reverse?

 

Nope.

 

That would be nice, at times.

 

Heck yeah! If I could activate it to stay on always I would remove my rear view mirrors...LOL!!!

 

I'm sure it can be rewired to turn on via a remote switch

 

It could be pretty complicated. I would say it mostly depends on whether it's a physical hardware alteration or would work as a software mod. There may be some physical switch which senses when you're in reverse which you could modify to make the camera stay on, but it could also screw up other things, and I doubt it's that simple. It probably receives the signal over the CAN which I think would make it near impossible to alter. I could be wrong though.

On a similar, but slightly off topic, is everybody's rear view camera in color? Mine is perfectly clear, but has a distinct lack of green in the image for some reason. So grass and bushes show up yellow/brown. The sky is still blue though, and I can see reds. I'm just curious, because I don't know if this is an issue or not.