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HP Experiments with 'Always On' Camera
An anonymous reader writes "Hewlett-Packard researchers in the U.K. are working on a camera that's always on, recording everything you see and letting you go back later and decide what's actually photo-worthy. Raises some serious privacy questions. But as an HP researcher notes, "If your wearable camera is always on ... you're not going to miss any moments, but you're also going to get a load of junk.""
"...but you're also going to get a load of junk"
If by "a load of junk" you mean "a lot of pictures of people pointing at your goofy-looking glasses and laughing," then you're absolutely right.
"you're not going to miss any moments, but you're also going to get a load of junk."
wow I guess they're right... most of my life is a load of junk.
But what if you gave this camera to those guys on the MountainDew or Surge commercials who only do exciting things constantly?
HP Revolutionizes the boring webcam technology by fusing it with reality TV. Story at 11.
Ride the snake
Looks like the dawn of times when one would have to decide what NOT to capture.
*sigh... life's tough
http://efil.blogspot.com/
Hmm...intesting idea... need some big batteries..
Sounds alot like the Microsoft Wearable camera. anyways i think its a cool idea. Sometimes i dont feel like taking pictures manually and maybe it will get more 'real life' photos instead of having everyone poised for them.
Sadly, all I would get are many many screenshots of slashdot.
I Love Alberta Beef
Now I'll have to sift through 1000s of google responses when I search for anything containing nothing more than someone unimportant opinion, with 10,000 pictures of their boring life scattered throughout. Oh wait, blogging already does this, it's just going to get worse with the pictures to document things no one really cares about.
On the serious side, this is, in my opinion, the resolution of a problem that doesn't exist. It's very cool, it just isn't a very needed product.
Jamon
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
Great. My GF is already pissed that I don't delete enough of the stupid pictures I take. I tell her "I keep everything, just in case." She would murder me in my sleep if I got one of these.
TW
I like to call them "eyes".
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Somewhere, sometime, somebody will catch something on par with the Zapruder film, or the Rodney King tape, and it will spark a cultural revolution, and then Microsoft will make you pay a DRM fee to decode your OWN LIFE!
Sure, it may create some privacy issues...if it's storing it at some central HP or public database. If it's just recording it to some internal storage drive, and then you move the footage to your hard drive or somewhere else, then what's the problem?? I'm not trying to troll, but why is this such a big deal?
Is it just me, or is the paranoia level going up these days...
And yes, you can pry my mechanical Yashica and my black and white films from my cold, dead fingers...
This comment does not exist.
just have the camera always on, but discarding anything over a minute or two. Then when something happens you want to keep press the button and the last two minutes are saved, plus what happens as you watch.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I wonder, at times it seems technology gets a pass, just because it is complicated.
Though the article mentions privacy concerns, it is stuff away between a half-dozen other headings. All technology is nothing more than tools. It is the context that gives the tool its meaning. And in this case, the social context of the tool should very much be weighed against the abilitity to "never miss an important moment." Who defines important? And who defines what *should* be recorded, and what should not be recorded? The social implications of all technology deserve more consideration than they currently recieve, I think.
Interestingly, in the same article, he predicted the CD Rom, the Internet, Wikipedia, Color Photography -- well before the first dry cameras or the first computers.
imagine everyone walks around with a little camera/mic clipped to their shirt as common as having a phone in your pocket, disputes would always be on video, ufos would never be missed and blackmail would be plentiful, its gonna get partially like that like it or not, camera phones keep getting more popular and their memory is getting larger and larger, even if you dont have them always on in a couple of years almost everyone will have a camera within reach 24/7. Privacy issues are gonna go mental super-hardcore!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Where's the privacy problem? Let only people you trust see things they're allowed to remember. That's why the difference between "public" and "private" places is so important, and why the right to control access to our private places is essential to privacy, and to our participation in society - rather than alienating us from it.
--
make install -not war
This connection makes it wonderfully poetic to see this invention coming from HP.
This is not a new idea. This DejaView Camera keeps a buffer of 30 seconds.
Deja View's Camwear Model 100 captures everything you see, records it in a buffer so you never miss that moment! Simply press the record button and the last 30 seconds of video with audio will write to a removable storage device.
The Deja View Camwear Model 100 easily clips to your glasses or hat is constantly buffering 30 seconds of what you experience while wearing our product. With one simple press of a button, the camera will record a 30 second video with audio in 320X240 CIF in the latest MPEG-4 technology! The file is saved to a SD Memory card (64MB provided) upgradeable to 512MB (optional). The file is easily stored and transferred to a computer or when played in Video out mode, can be recorded directly through a VCR or viewed right on your TV screen! USB connection for computer or remove SD memory card and view it in an SD reader (not included).
Actually, I think this shows up in David Brin's "Earth". He called them "Tru-Vue Goggles", or something similar.
Two tangential comments:
Perhaps the glasses could monitor the
wearer's brain activity and only store a
frame when it detects a strong reaction to
what's being viewed.
There was a public outcry when photography
was invented, when Goerge Eastman marketed
it to the public, when X-rays were discovered,
etc. The uproar over these is nothing new.
http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm
...although having a camera snapping away constantly isn't exactly "Photography" IMO.
Basically, if you're in a public area you can't stop someone from photographing you (though you could ask not to be) nor can anyone stop you from taking pictures in public areas. This includes buildings and "people/street watching"
$cat
If you record more than half of your life, well, there just isn't going to be time to sift through it all before it's over...
You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.
An episode of PBS's Scientific American Frontiers back in April of last year featured an MIT Media Lab student named Brian Clarkson who built this exact same thing himself. He wore it like a backpack with fisheye lens cameras on the front and back. One of the more interesting things he was able to capture and re-watch was the first time he met his then current girlfriend.
You can watch the episode online.
(The part featuring Clarkson is titled "Never Forget a Face")
I can see this device being extremely useful in certain situations:
If a police officer had a device like this when conducting an arrest or a stop the device would be beneficial for everyone involved:
1) If Officer does anything illegal the defendant has proof
2) If the defendant says something or does anything, the police now have proof.
In this context the only person with cause to worry is the individual doing something illegal (either police officer of member of public).
I remember attending a panel discussion at a Leica School of Photography seminar in 1973, photographer Robert Heinecken declared that in the future there would be always-on cameras, sort of like eyeglasses, with a massive memory storage (he suggested holographic memory because that was the cutting edge of research at the time). You'd be able to pick out any moment of time and pull up a stored photo of what you were seeing at that moment. The other panelists disagreed vehemently and said it was impossible, it would never happen.
...oh those should be fun with this on... Just try not to look down that much.