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eyeBlog
cottonbuds writes "Researchers at Human Media Lab, Queen's University in Canada presented the ECSGlasses: eye contact sensing glasses that report when people look at their wearer. When eye contact is detected, the glasses stream this information to appliances to inform these about the wearer's engagement. According to HML.Blog the ECSGlasses uses a wearable, wireless Eye-Contact Sensor (1.3MB .jpg) to gauge when the user receives eye-contact from an onlooker. eyeBlog uses this information to record and publish face-2-face conversations without dividing the user's attention between the event being recorded, and the device being used to record it. Moreover, because eyeBlog uses eye-contact to start and stop recording, users do not need to sift through hours of footage to find interesting segments. If you are the academic type you can read the paper (2.2MB .pdf), otherwise the video in .mpg (1:49min, 320x240, 7.5MB), or mp4 (1:49min, 320x240, 4.9MB) should explain everything. Video Mirror: .mp4 .mpg."
... can be found in this month's issue of WIRED magazine. There was quite an interesting blogging device that looked like a can. It had a video recorder, audio recorder, and a fold-out screen.
Can we expect this device to be on the market anytime soon?
This could be very handy for computer control. For instance your computer might only accept voice commands from you while you are looking straight at it (as opposed to saying something stupid to your friend like "What is the FORM MATerial of the SEA DRIVE?")
And depending on how large the return IR area is, it could also be used to determin where someone is looking at on the screen (with say 3 or 4 IR sensors to triagulate position based on return signal strength).
Then again, the down side is now we geeks NEED to make eyecontact.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
Hmmm ... what's next: eye-contact fooling glasses
Here in Holland you can't just take someone's picture and publish it. This toy seems to just that. Maybe i don't want my face on the internet at all.
I wonder what the latency is between when someone hears something interesting, and when they look up at the person who is speaking.
It seems to me that this sort of thing (great as the idea is) should be recording full-time, and then discarding anything that hasn't prompted the wearer's interest with "N" seconds.
There are probably also ways to detect the wearer's interest outside of trying to figure if they are looking at a person. Eyeball behaviour. Head behaviour. Mental activity. Probably the sorts of cluster of patterns that some sort or neural net would do well with once it was trained to recognise them.
It's all a great idea though, and naturally enough one that has seen more mature versions appearing in SF books for decades. Good to see reality moving in this direction too.
Actually, I think this is great for people who suffer a physical handicap (eg. paralysed).
Nowadays there are similar systems. A paralysed friend of mine uses a small LED beamer attached to his glasses to use the computer. By moving his head, he moves the red dot on the screen which functions as the cursor. A sensor of some kind interpretes the signal and moves the cursor.
Pretty expensive piece of equipment, though.
Well, instead they could use some of those sensors to track eye movement and position in relation to the computer screen.
Being given the proper use, I think these gizmo's will eventualy find their way on the right market.
Animal instinct, I think. Spot the tiger that's just spotted you.
IIRC research has shown that if a predator is eyeing up a herd of prey (e.g. cheetah lounging near grazing antelopes), typically one of the herd will start getting skittish while the others graze on obliviously, and sure enough the nervous one is the one that gets eaten.
Of course, this instinct weakens if people are used to getting stared at, which is why it's always easier to get served by the ugly waitress than the pretty one, 'cos the pretty one doesn't register being looked at as out of the ordinary. :)
In a recent episode of Alias, Sloan wore less conspicuous glasses and had to get eye contact with 5 people so as to collect their retina patterns which they used to access a retina scan security entrance.
A little offtopic, but enough people whinge about badly submitted posts that I thought it would be worth thanking the submitter for clearly outlining the links to large files and videos as well as providing mirrors.
Incidentally, I'm not normally the paranoid type, but video-(b)logging all face to face conversations? Seems a little risky/extreme. For the general public that is, as opposed to whacky cyborg professors.
Does it have software to filter out small mammals with the uncanny ability to stare down a mirror? Have they tried it the presence of cats?
My first thought, by the way, was for it to detect when people were averting their gaze. "He's lying", the eyePhone whispered into my ear, "he's only making eye contact for 20% of his statements".
Have it measure pupil dilation and a few other things and you'll have a heck of a Date Meter. Things were looking up, until my eyePhone's warning buzzer went off. "Pupil dilation reduces 5% every time he makes eye contact, and increases 30% when he looks over your left shoulder." I glanced back to see who my competition was...
I love that pic of the eye syensor glasses. In the early 1980s(and the blondie video "rapture"), I had a pair of sunglasses with blinking LEDs in the lenses. This must be the high tech revival.
The thing is, men make eye contact to initiate a conversation, but usually do NOT maintain eye contact throughout the conversation. It's a well known ethological fact that men look away often during conversations, sometime conducting entire face to face conversations without almost no eye contact. It's a primal aggression thing: looking away signals submission, trust, or goodwill, while holding gaze is a challenge. The same does not generally hold true for women, or men talking to women. Eye contact is held much more consistently.
Notice next time you're talking to a male colleague. Feel the discomfort if you try to prolong eye contact. Then compare when talking to a woman.
Oh, wait. This is Slashdot....
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