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What Are You Looking At?
Ensign Stinky writes "The NYTimes has a story, with some spooky-cool pictures, about software to extract exactly what image a person is seeing with their eyes, just from the reflection on their cornea. You can see even a wider image than the subject and tell what they're specifically focusing on. It's too bad the coolest tech is immediately subverted for evil. The possible applications listed include 'surveillance cameras that spot suspicious behavior.' Remind anyone of that scene in the movie 'Wild Wild West' where they extract the last thing the dead guy saw?"
It's too bad the coolest tech is immediately subverted for evil. The possible applications listed include 'surveillance cameras that spot suspicious behavior.'
Hey guys, like much of the popular sci-fi literature will illustrate, its not what you might be looking at or visually or cognitvely attending to or even thinking.......its what you actively do with those thoughts or attentions. Prosecuting folks for visual attention to things that stand out (like items folks covet such as that rather nice looking Porsche below and outside my window) will be fruitless. Same goes for prosecuting "thoughtcrimes". However, cheating on exams.......could be more easily documented I suppose.....
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Why is surveillance cameras that spot suspicious behavior bad? It seems like it would be good, because the cameras will not be watching the vast majority of people walking by. Just the ones that are darting from person to person, or back and forth looking for cops.
Also, why didn't the poster mention "use in interfaces for quadriplegics who use their gaze to operate a computer". Sounds like that is a lot more interesting to the Slashdot crowd than surveillance cameras.
Sounds kinda nifty to me. As far as the surveillance part, they won't learn that much from me. Guys look at breasts a LOT. Wow. Newsflash.
Dr. Nishino and Dr. Nayar plan to try their corneal imaging system with archival photographs. "It will be fascinating to go back and look at photographs of important people like John Kennedy," Dr. Nayar said. "From a single image of the eye, we may be able to figure out what was around him and what he was looking at."
After scanning archives for minutes after I saw this posted to the Mysterious Future I was able to reconstruct what JFK was looking at in large crowds of people. Using highly technical applications and front-ends I was able to produce a 640x480 image of his favorite target. My results are published here.
"My hunch is that the best applications of this work will be with human-computer interactions," like using one's gaze to start a computer, Dr. Malik said. "The advantage of the technique is that it's passive," and does not direct additional energy at the eye, he added. (With some common eye-tracking methods, infrared light is projected into the user's eyes.)
It doesn't exactly say how precise this will be for computer usage. The comment "start a computer" makes me wonder if it won't be able to decipher individual icons (because of their size no doubt). Would it really be useful for picking a single individual out of a crowd? We may be focusing on one single entity out of a group but our mind is still focused further to eliminate the rest of the noise. I hope that it won't be precise enough to extract the data out to protect us from all those potential terrorists walking the streets.
Hmmm.
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So I need to wear my tinfoil hat AND dark sunglasses!
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
This is really going to get me in shit with the wife.
this kind of reminds me of the photograph analyzer in blade runner. i wonder if the scene in the movie would be considered prior art if a similiar machine or process were developed today.
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
(bit about 'Wild Wild West')
Hmm.. No, I think I can safely say that I blocked it out of my memory.
As long as I don't watch it before I die, no one will ever know that I saw it!
...don't get any real-time version of this, i'm in the clear.
No I am not...well...ok. Yes. Fine. Yes I am looking at your chest. Happy?
Now, we can finally answer the age old question.
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU STARING AT?!
Looked pretty bad.
Did see a movie called "Lookers" a REALLY long time ago, where a test subject would sit in a chair and look at ads. They used something similar to this to determine what the subject was focusing on in the ad.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The camera was wrong I was looking into your eyes the whole time you were talking to me! I didn't even notice you were topless till now!
Remind anyone of that scene in the movie 'Wild Wild West' ...
No. I have absolutely no memory of that movie. It had something to do with jabbing my eyes and ears repeatedly.
If your caught it, just say they have a defective device.
BEEP!
Female worker: Stop looking at my breasts!
Male worker: I wasn't!
BEEP!
Female worker: Argh! You did it again!
BEEP!
At least they dont have to pull your eyeballs out and shine a light through them to make it work.
Old trick, new tech. When I was a kid, I discovered that sitting in the right light allowed me to see my opponents board in their eyes while playing battleship. I never let out the secret and I always won.
I think the subject says it all.
Perhaps you could use that spray that is supposed to obscure your license plate from red light cameras and spray it all over your eyes.
Women have been able to detect what men are looking at for centuries.
(.)(.) ---> Hey you, read the comment above first
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
ok so they can see what a person is seeing, but will they be able to correctly pinpoint what connection the viewer's mind has made?
Or *exactly* what is he/she thinking?
Or what that sight/object in line of vision, has triggered?
http://efil.blogspot.com/
Very cool! Seems like this might be used to help spot Photoshop modifications -- for example, in a group picture, just compare the reflections in each person's eyes.
I'm betting that glasses (sunglasses or regular prescription) will throw this off. Without knowing the prescription of the lenses, it's hard to compute the refraction angle to get an accurate look at what the cornea is seeing. If it's anything like the "face recognition" software, this will pose no threat. Nothing to see here, move along.
I'm going to get this and become I-Spy Champion of the world! Mu ha ha ha ha (etc).
----
Maybe extrapolating the image from the reflection is new, but the eye tracking business has been around for decades. http://www.a-s-l.com/ creates such devices that are used in research for such things as automotive applications, sports research, and web page design (see what on the page attracts the viewer first)
Hmm after short search I found no antiglare contact lenses in USPTO database... time to go and fill up my 3000 patent quota
I can imagine it now...
Spy1: What is he looking at?
Spy2: Hang on...it's still processing...
Spy1: Well?
Spy2: He's looking at two guys wearing shades and dark coats operating a massive camera and computer!
Spy1: Doh!
John
GF: "So, why were you staring at her? And her? And her? You didn't even *look* at her face! And that one? Another? How many women *do* you stare at walking to work???"
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
We could use this on the legislature to determine when they haven't read the shit laws they pass.
...FINALY, wearing eyeglasses finally has an up side...
I strongly doubt any archival photo negatives or digital replicas have the quality or the resolution to be able to do work like this.
In the realm of digital photos, I seriously doubt the 3 pixels representing the eye of a world leader from a 640x480 image would be enough to reconstruct a reflection from.
In soviet russia, You ask not what country do for you, but what you do for country!
Oh wait...
There is a lot of good research out there on how to use the data gathered form eye tracking. You can test web site designs and expose weaknesses in design, for example. You can also use eye tracking as an input device (PDF). I like that it can tell you what people read on the internet.
Just remember, what matters is how the technology is applied, not the technology itself. Without users, you just have slabs of technology sitting there. People make this stuff interesting.
How to Download YouTube Videos
As opposed to seeing with their noses/legs/stomachs?
quote only half of the sentence (and spread FUD by doind so) at least use the *whole sentence*. "Because the algorithms can track exactly where a person is looking, the system may one day find use in surveillance cameras that spot suspicious behavior or in interfaces for quadriplegics who use their gaze to operate a computer."
You actually saw Wild Wild West and are willing to admit it? We were just ridiculing Will Smith the other day here and decided that WWW might be his worst film ever.
Who did what now?
Well, mostly it's breasts.
- NY Times
Friday, 7/30/04
....was a military targeting device. If you could calibrate a device to fire a computer-controlled gun at whatever the operator was looking directly at... well, that's kind of scary.
"Remind anyone of that scene in the movie 'Wild Wild West' where they extract the last thing the dead guy saw?"
Allow me to rephrase that. Anyone prepared to admit to having watched 'Wild Wild West'?
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
"Interceptors! They put them in my eyes too!"
I wonder whether 'Ghost in the shell: Stand Alone Complex' provided any influence for this, was simply influenced by it or simply had two groups thinking of the same thing. If you have seen the series you will know what I mean.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
You know how sometimes you can stare at something and not realize it? That's me and my daft self most of the time. So... even though you look you don't see, right? No one can prove you actually noticed it.
...that look in your eye...
Perhaps this is a bit scifi - but you could apply this knowledge and build a projector that transmits narrow band at a subject's eye.
Imagine being able to make things invisible by replacing the light hitting the cornea. You could hide things in plain site. Hide doors. Make things appear that don't exist.
...don't get a real-time version of this, i'm in the clear.
is intended.
Prior restraint is funny business. Prior restraint in the form of "Don't crap in your pants". Is a good thing. Prior restraint in the form of "Don't question authority under penalty of thoughtcrime."
Is a not good thing.
Unwarrented surveillance is the latter, not the former.
lot's of people will jump in to tell you that spiers aren't insects and furthermore that there is no insect 'kingdom.' but i don't care about that. i'm just here to tell you that, even if spiders were insects, they wouldn't have shit on praying mantises or dragonflies.
lysergically yours
imagine if this technology was used by the police to take a picture of a child being abused and by centering in on their eye create a image of the child abuser.
OTH the guy in the cubile next to mine has his daughter threaten to call the police and claim child abuse if he didnt buy her a video game.
i got an idea when we are born lets implant our children with visual recorders that automatically alert police if the child sees any mishaps.
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"You know he's the villain, because he's got shifty eyes." -- Homer Simpson to Mel Gibson.
Some of you may be interested to know that Canon Canon has implemented eye-controlled autofocus in some of their professional SLR cameras, namely the EOS Elan7ne. This tracks the movement of your eye using an infrared illuminator and a small camera-like sensor, to allow you to specify the the focus point simply by looking at it in the viewfinder! Neat stuff.
The article indicates that this technology may one day be used in high-end surveillance systems or (further down the road) in retail stores where retailers track what you look at the most.
I wonder if an evidence extracted using this technology can be used in a court of law. Specifically, if this technology can say, "Yes, you were picking out the face of our undercover cop in the crowd whom you thought was your dealer", versus "No, you were just sort of looking over the crowd but not at anyone particular." On one hand, the judge could admit the evidence since it was not extracted by coercion or by torture (you may not even be aware that you were under surveillance). But the judge could also throw it out based on privacy laws and "unreasonable search and seisure".
Dont they already use something in fighter planes that works like this?
It doesn't produce an image, but it tracks targets that the pilot is looking at, allowing for better missile lock-on, etc...
As far as surveillance of individuals, the 12 megapixel camera hovering 8 inches from their eye may be somewhat a giveaway? Just a thought.
I guess sales will increase for
Matrix - type flat black sunglasses.
I remember an article long ago about the possibility of somehow reading and reconstructing the last images from the eyes of a recently dead person. I think it was a serious project. It has some obvious applications for murder investigations.
Now that is really getting spooky.
The military already has laser-tracking eyepieces that can track what a helicopter gunner is looking at, and point his cannons at the target.
I kid you not; it's been used for years.
De Niro may have been able to pull it off, but "There is a 93.245% probability that you are looking at me" just wouldn't have the same ring to it.
This story surprises me - as I saw this tech demonstrated many years ago on UK daytime TV. It was from a headset rather than a distance, but they were able to confirm the first thing a man looks at in a strange woman is her, ah, 'form factor'. Real dog bites man news there.
anime fag
Uh, no, because no one actually saw the movie Wild Wild West, speaking of what people are seeing.
--- Ban humanity.
If this thing works by reading the reflection off your eyeball, then don't you have to be looking at a camera (or at least have one in your field of view) for this to work?
If so, then other than stealing things like passwords and ATM and credit card numbers, what's the point? When else am I likely to be looking at something incriminating (or at least interesting) while sitting still?
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
That's was a common 19th century superstition with the introduction of photography and the "eye as camera" analogy. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen that as a plot element in stories.
Guys look at breasts a LOT. Wow. Newsflash.
:-)
Some guys look at other guys. Oops.
Also, can't use this technology in the locker room or a lot of fights might ensue.
"Here we go again ... Why is surveillance cameras that spot suspicious behavior bad?"
Jesus, I'm continually amazed (and depressed) by the number of exceptionally bright people on slashdot who JUST DON'T GET IT.
Here's why it's bad.
1. WHO defines "suspicious"?
2. WHAT are they allowed to do about it? (remember "Vanilla Sky")
3. WHAT are they allowed to do with the INFO? Keep it forever? For what purpose?
4. WHAT other consequences eventually flow, as a result of people becoming de-sensitized to these kinds of practices?
Christ, for US readers, I've gotta ask:
were you truant, out sick, or brain-dead, during that week in elementary school when they taught you about the American War Of Independence, about the Bill Of Rights, and about the reasons they came about?
What part of the Fourth Amendment don't you understand?
So many times, in these threads about civil liberties, I see people who say, in so many words, "You're privacy & rights are already gone, get over it,"
-- or WORSE, "As long as you're doing nothing wrong, why do you care about being constantly watched?"
It's hard to decide how even to begin to reason with someone who's that oblivious.
Here's a detailed PDF written by the people discussed in the article:a tion/KNish ino_CVPR04.pdf. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a Googlecached version.
http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~kon/public
Just FYI, Google doesn't usually cache PDFs. They only cache HTML pages.
i had 4-incision bilateral RK 12 years ago, so i have a slightly warped corneal surface...
but i'm sure the resulting images can be unwarped using software...(it's just too bad they can't unwarp the REAL tissue yet...)
Although the author of the article declares that "the system can automatically recover wide-angle views of what people are looking at" (emphasis mine), to me one of the most exciting potential applications is to further human understanding of what animals choose to look at.
With our current knowledge of ocular biology we can make some assertions about what color ranges different species can see, but being able to study more precisely what they choose to focus on and what conditions attract their attention would advance our understanding of other species tremendously.
Talk about seeing a glass half empty - did the poster just ignore the second half of that paragraph:
Because the algorithms can track exactly where a person is looking, the system may one day find use in surveillance cameras that spot suspicious behavior or in interfaces for quadriplegics who use their gaze to operate a computer.
Which do you think is more likley to make it into use first? Do you know how tight most exisitng cameras would have to be zoomed in to get any kind of detail from a reflection in the eye or to be able to determine focus? The focus thing might be easier, but even so we'll probably see accisable interfaces from this before spooky security cams that can tell what everyone in a crowd of hundreds is looking at.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I guess I'll be wearing mine from now on.
"This technique could reveal things that were in front of them that they weren't aware of seeing so that we can understand the truth of what happened, and advance the veracity of eyewitness accounts," he said.
How often would one have a picture of the witnesses' eye without having a picture of the crime?
But very funny.
www.wavefront-av.com
Am I the only person who wonders if this technology could be adapted to get more information out of reflections in images, ala Blade Runner? If so, this technology could be incredibly useful for police investigations.
[correction, that obviously should have said "YOUR privacy & rights", not "You're". I was het up.]
Even those of us with functioning limbs will be wanting this on our computers.
Mouse and cursor focus is ALWAYS where I'm looking at, dammit. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
here's a freecache link in case the site gets slow (unlikely).
Not really, but it does remind me of an episode from Lord Darcy by Randall Garrett.
Why mod the parent down? They speak the truth.
I'm just afraid chics will be able to know when I'm staring at their buttsky with this! gah!
I find the statements about "we can go back to old pictures of JFK and see what he was looking at" to be questionable at best.
You need a LOT of pixels of the eye itself from which to reconstruct an image. Now, look at how much of a given normal picture the eyes of a person represent.
You *might* be able to reconstruct where the person is looking. You probably aren't going to have enough pixels to reconstruct what they saw.
To do that level of imaging you are going to need a picture of the person's eye at high resolution.
So the government spy cameras will have to zoom in on your eyes - call it about a 500 to one zoom. They will have to track your eyes as you move about.
And yes, if you wear sunglasses you can defeat this.
Now, what this WOULD be very useful for would be in combinatino with a head mounted display - since the display device has to subtend a large angle as viewed from the eye, the display device must have a good view of the eye. So combining the display device with an imaging device would allow the system to see what you at what you are looking, so you now have a pointing device. Theoretically, a wink or slow-blink could be a "select" operation.
Now, if they could get the focus point of the eye, they could REALLY make an interesting system - if you are focusing past the image, they could mute it - reduce the brightness, possibly even reduce the amount of information (iconify apps, reduce update rates, show only "critical" items, etc.) When they detect you've shifted focus to bring the display into focus, brighten up. Think of looking through a dirty windshield, then shifting focus to the dirt on the glass.
www.eFax.com are spammers
it was being developed with the US air force. to help train pilots and to investigate causes of crashes. the goal was to use the technology along with the black box so that they could tell how long the pilot was looking at each gauge. possibly allowing a bit more insight early on, like he was checking the fuel gauge more often. maybe it was going down to quickly. also to help pilots more efficiently scan their gauges. they found they could shave off a few seconds every minute if they adjusted the order they scan the gauges, that wasn't very long but found inefficiencies and were able to shave precious seconds off seconds that if were spent looking in the right places they could save lives... that sounds like a benevolent use of the technology to me...
That is what the tinfoil hat crowd complains about: potential for abuse.
Yes, all security-related technology can have positive uses. Nobody is disputing that fact. However, such technologies can also empower the government, law-enforcement agencies, or private business to snoop where they shouldn't snoop, and to stifle our freedoms.
Many of us don't want to live in a total surveillance society, and as such we aren't going to embrace these technologies (not, at least, without strict regulation).
There is no way you can tell what the person is mentally processing by virtue of the fact that a particular image happened to be reflected in their eye. All you can reasonably conclude is that they were facing in a particular direction. What if, for example, someone was merely staring into space, with their thoughts wandering between and betwixt something completely unrelated? Isn't that what we call daydreaming? What rational conclusion could you you possibly draw in a situation like this, and how could you refute someone's claim to the contrary?
rtfa poster
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
1. WHO defines "suspicious"?
I am already under investigation if I'd like to go to the US by plane. I have to supply all kinds of information, like Visa#, biometrics and lord what more.
Of course I understand it is very suspicious if you want to go to the US and that alone is enough to be under investigation. (kidding)
But back to 1. flying to the US in my eyes is not a de facto reason to be suspicious, yet it is a reason to be investigated...
Privacy is terrorism.
When "Bladerunner" first came out I called bullshit on the "photothingamizer" that let Deckard scan around in a photo and pick up and enhance images from a convex mirror in the photo.
Once again, it looks like I was wrong.
This technology shit is just plain scary.
Being Modd'ed (Score:0, Troll) for telling an idiot to RTFM before modding? - Priceless!
"Life is not magic." Dr. Ron Weiss - "If we don't play God, who will?" Dr. James Watson
Remind anyone of that scene in the movie 'Wild Wild West'...
Someone actually saw Wild Wild West and admitted it!
This is not a troll (disclaimer??). What else can this be used for? I can see possibilities for blind people once technology is at a point where it can more closely interface with the brain, but other than that, what else is there except Big Brother? Oh, sorry, robots!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Thay extracted a image of the surounding from a picture of Da'an's eye. That was Episode 110 'Live Free or Die'
Well now if there's actually a camera there that happens to take a high resolution photo of an eyewitness, wouldn't it be much more likely that the actual incident gets photographed. You don't really need eyewitnesses so much if there's actually photos of a scene. On the off chance that there happens to be a camera around, and on the slight possibility that the photographer ignores whatever event is going on and just snaps high quality photos of people's eyes then by all means this could be a revolutionary tool. Sure.
Vote Quimby.
The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades..
Good-bye carpal tunnel syndrome, hello eye-strain syndome!
If your computer could use this technology, with a web cam, to figure out what part of the screen you were looking at that would be really cool! No more mouse; the cursor just moves around with your eyes! Or an FPS where you can aim using your eyes without changing the direction that you are moving. That'd be sweet. :)
Aw crap, ninjas!
Wild Wild West?
No.
Barb Wire?
Yes.
Ouch! My foot!
My other sig is a Porsche!
For images before 35mm that used larger film sizes, you could actually probably get a lot of detail from the shots. The older silver halide stuff has a huge amount of detail, if you scan the negative or even a really good print.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A person can be put in jail for kiddy porn for having completely normal photos of clothed children that would be legal in any other person's hands - if it can be demonstrated the person was sexually gratified by the images. The images themselves are irrelevant, it matters only what the viewer thinks when he or she looks at them.
To extend it to this new technology, imagine you were walking by the local public pool and a surveillance camera noted you spent an above-average amount of time watching the kids splash around... Imagine it is decided you are being sexually gratified by the scenery - jail time for you!
Yes, a bit of a stretch at the moment, but don't assume such things would be impossible or "fruitless."
Your vote can help de-select the World's Most Dangerous Leader
Seditiously,
K. Trout
Check out the cheesey 1981 flick "Looker" for how evil corporate America utilizes such technology to determine exactly what part of their commercial advertisements you are focusing in on - then craft their evil plans to control your mind through focused imagery. Eventually of course they start killing people who figure out whats going on ... I don't want to give it all away - but keep your eye on the butler. Ok, there is no butler - but there is a brief nude scene by Susan Dey.
You ARE the thought police.
I saw this when I was at CVPR--the resolution does appear to be rather impressive. This seems an interesting extension to the practice of using metallic spheres (garden gazing balls, Christmas ornaments, ball bearings, etc.) for gathering photographic and high dynamic range environments for high-accuracy CG compositing.
What about lazy eyed people? What eye do they look at? Guess I'll just have to walk around cross-eyed. Sure, they might be able to tell where each eye is looking, but as far as the brain is concerned, they cant see squat because its way too blurry to make anything out.
Just to clear up a few misconceptions here:
1. Eye-tracking is not new, and has been used in research for decades.
2. Controlling a computer with eye movements is trivial (but the equipment tends to cost more than luxury cars).
3. While the technology is mostly used in connection with computer displays, it has also been utilized in real-world environments.
4. The military has been funding research in the field for a long time.
5. The technology is more precise and faster than most people would imagine (for decades we have been pixel-precise and measuring in thousandths of a second in real time).
6. While the most accurate systems use head-mounted equipment (Eyelink, ASL) or bite plates (DPI), newer systems are virtually hassle-free (ISCAN).
The new technique in the article is different in that it uses natural reflections on the cornea rather than by projecting infrared light at the eyes. It will probably end up being slower and less accurate, but does offer advantages which will likely lead to it being used in completely different ways (security, court cases, etc).
G
I think it would be relatively easy to do.
I can't recall where I saw this. It could have been a very authoritative scientific report, or a sci-fi show. But there was a test in which people were shown images on a large screen. The parts of the image that were focused upon, and the order in which they were focused upon allowed quite specific analysis of thoughts.
Whether that was a sci-fi show or not, it seems to me that it's quite easy to tell what someone is thinking when they look at a child and then look at a hammer. Naturally, a bit of psychoanalysis on a stream of recorded eye movement data could reveal a lot more.
As a simple example, the case you mentioned of 'staring into space' is obviously evidence of this possibility. If someone is not looking at what is in front of them, their eyes would usually NOT track it, except, perhaps, in the most simplistic of ways. Therefore, if they ARE tracking things actively, jumping from a particular event to another, they are obviously processing those images.
I would expect new privacy laws controlling this technology, once it got beyond what could be seen by simply watching someone openly.
Just a great way for me to make money by selling "eye spy protection" in glasses or contacts.
step 1. find new technology
step 2. defeat new technology
step 3. make lots of $$$
step 4. sell patent
step 5. make more $$$
?SYNTAX ERROR IN LINE 42
A couple of times when I was really, really tired (endless 80-100 hour weeks), I zoned out in a restaurant. When I came back to myself, the spot exactly in front of me across the room was occupied by some random woman at a table. The first time, the woman was smiling at me. The second time, the woman was glaring at me. In each case, they assumed I was staring at them. In fact, I wasn't looking at anything, and my eyes had focused on infinity. When I first returned, Imy eyes naturally focused in on something, which is when I realized I must appear to be staring at someone.
So even if they know what I am looking at, they may not know what I am looking at. That depends on whether they can really get good information on my eyeball lenses through these thick lenses I wear. Just the information on my cornea (or off my glasses lenses) won't necessarrily help.
Improved technology can use the video footage of terrorists to scan their eyes to get a better view of the area they're recording.
There is no way you can tell what the person is mentally processing by virtue of the fact that a particular image happened to be reflected in their eye. All you can reasonably conclude is that they were facing in a particular direction.
You CAN however correlate what a person is looking at with a brain waveform called a P300. That waveform is essentially an evoked potential that signals recognition. It does not tell you anything else about that recognition, only that the person has seen the image or object or person before.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I find the statements about "we can go back to old pictures of JFK and see what he was looking at" to be questionable at best.
You need a LOT of pixels of the eye itself from which to reconstruct an image. Now, look at how much of a given normal picture the eyes of a person represent.
Pixels? What pixels? No photos of JFK were taken with digital cameras (well, some of the Roswell Conspiracy Gang migt think so).
Depending on the exact photo and the camera and film involved, you might be able to recover some useful information. Granted, probably not from Joe Blow's Polaroid at 30 feet, but from reasonably zoomed in photos from professional cameras, or even high quality 35MM and such, there could be a wealth of information available.
The real qustion is just how useful or interesting that information will be. Personally, I doubt it'll be that great. But we won't know until we check.
``Look! He was looking at Connoly's Dick Tracy TV-wristwatch, and it clearly shows Marily Monroe was the sniper on the grassy knoll!''
Sounds like it would be great as a method of input for wearable computers; look at something and issue a command (a button, verbally, subvocally, whatever).
Would be cool if this could work with a computer. Instead of "focus-follows-mouse", I'd like to have "focus-follows-eyes". Lots of times, I'll look at a window and start to type in it, then realize that I hadn't moved the mouse over it to get focus.
So, did you two hook up (the first one, not the second one)?
Perhaps you've stumbled upon a new way to pick up women.
Remind anyone of that scene in the movie 'Wild Wild West' where they extract the last thing the dead guy saw?
To be honest, I pretty much try to avoid anything that reminds me of Wild Wild West...
Remind anyone of that scene in the movie 'Wild Wild West' where they extract the last thing the dead guy saw?
Wasn't that that Will Smith movie? People saw that? I have no faith in humanity anymore.
Remind anyone of that scene in the movie 'Wild Wild West' where they extract the last thing the dead guy saw?
Someone else saw this movie? I thought I was the only one.
In fiction, was this idea (looking at the photograph of a person's eye) used before it was used in Twin Peaks?
"were you truant, out sick, or brain-dead, during that week in elementary school when they taught you about the American War Of Independence, about the Bill Of Rights, and about the reasons they came about?
What part of the Fourth Amendment don't you understand?"
I've never heard of any of these. Does all of this have something to do with the Internet?
I can see it now - Left-blink for rockets, right-blink for jumps and nose wiggles for weapon changes..
Religion is for people afraid of going to hell.
Next time they will not send a video of the victim. Or will be more carefull than ever when making the "please get off Iraq and save my life" video ("look only to the camera, don't look at the operator, don't look at that window, don't...)...
No. There was a Twilight Zone episode from the 1960s, whose title I can't remember, in which a murderer was caught by recovering the last image seen by his victim.
It might even have been written by Harlan Ellison, in which case Slashdot will probably be receiving some kind of flaky defamation claim any minute now.
The last thing we need is for them to learn how to attract MORE attention to their displays and ads. They would be able to survey people without even asking them any questions, just watch their eyes as they walk by.
regardless of privacy/big-brother/thoughtcrime issues, this doesnt seem that impressive to me.
algorithms have existed for a number of years for facial recognition that keys on features of the face, most notably eyes. being able to find irises in a picture with faces has been done; and not even requiring a picture of just one face as the article seems to suggest.
from there, its extracting a transparent reflection off of a constant backing with multiple frames. again, previous work. nothing new.
yes, its a neat application, but this is no breakthrough. this article is like someone going out and taking a picture of something nobodys taken a picture of before, and then saying they invented a new camera.
Yes, but they cache HTMLized versions of PDFs.
Even better, what about people like me (who are colorblind) or those with Opsoclonus (Eyes vibrate back and forth rapidly)?
Truly colorblind people lack the fovea. It's the massive cluster of cones near the center of your retina. When you "focus your eyes on something" you are actually setting it so the image of what you are looking at lands on your fovea. I on the other hand, tend to look over people's shoulder's when talking to them or even near 90 degrees away. This is cause I have a much better detail recognition when people aren't directly in front of me. I've trained myself to look at faces and such when on the job because it's more comforting for the other person.
People with Opsoclonus have eyes that vibrate left to right rapidly. They have aa tendancy to need to tilt their head sideways when focusing and have a tough time keeping focused. It can get severe enough that their head starts twitching as well to counter act the process. I had 2 friends in college that had this problem as well.
On either set of people (and colorblind is much more common) this tech would be rather useless.
-Ab
Nothing fails quite like prayer.
well, i guess it's just a matter of time before my sunglasses violate the patriot act.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/04/07/eyes.html
I remember reading something where they said your pupils dilate when you see an attractive person.
I wonder if the technology could be combined with this? Not only can your girlfriend tell which woman you were checking out, and for how long, but she can tell *how attractive* you thought the person was by the degree of dilation in your pupils.
That could be dangerous if your pupils don't dilate as much for your girlfriend as for another woman.
Damn, I had to choose between modding you up or posting a rather unique experience I had. I'm afraid you won't get mod points from me ;-P
;)
...
About 5 years ago I had a small black spot, just in the middle my visual field (of the left eye). Actually the doctors could not diagnose it with 100% acurracy, but they suggested it due to a lack of some vitamines. Back then I was a CS undergrad student, so this explaination is quite reasonable
The spot lasted for about 2 months, then luckily it vanished. It was really distracting, as it moved with every movement of my (left) eye. It was something like having a aiming dot (target scope) mounted on top of my eye.
However it was really annoying, since your eye make little moves, even if - or especially when - you focus on something. So I had this little point jumping around in my vision, driving me mad. I always thought that when I was talking to someone, they would notice that my eyes would move in an erratic way. Maybe that was the case, but I now think that perhaps I was a little bit paranoid.
Anyway, this changed the way how I think of people with 'weird eyes' (movement)
There was a movie with this 20-something years ago. Albert Finney ... Looker ... but don't watch it, it is pretty darned bad (unless you wanna see a young Susan Dey :)
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
I imagine that the first economically-driven application of this technology would be market research. (Evil, evil, market research.) Imagine walking into a store and having a high-res surveillance camera tracking what products catch your eye, how long you ponder over them before making a purchasing decision, what kind of packaging is most effective, what kind of store signage grabs your attention, etc. I can already see advertising folks drooling over this kind of feedback.
So all we need now is the voice activated software to allow the user to zoom in on minute features of a picture and then we'll see so much more!
Truly I think this is amazing. If you could build a device so isolate and scan multiple eyes, then you can immediately see around corner, inside boxes etc etc. Dunno how its useful, but it *is* amazing!
Maybe this also explains why everyone in the Matrix wears sun glasses?
I've always wondered how other people see things. For instance, colours, forcus, etc etc... I'm pretty sure I'm no the only one too. Having this would be beneficial to scientists learning about what kinds of colours people see, survalence, etc etc... I wonder how much this technology would cost, and how hard it would be to implement into someone's brain!
Something tells me that every professional poker player in the world will have one of these, and they'll all start wearing non-reflective shades.
You might be able to see what's in front of the person (by the reflection), but you can't track the eye itself, to determine what the user was looking at.
And read the article -- they specifically mention that due to the curvature of the eye, there is a lot of tolerance for the viewing angle.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
She can tell exactly which girls I'm checking out, no matter how careful I think I am.
It's funny to see that so many people including me have almost erased most memories of this atrocious movie (look down the thread and many people are making the exact same joke that the parent and this is the first thing that came to my mind two). I think its the first time I remember to have see this film since I the day after I saw it in cinema. I say the day after, because I had to tell everybody around me how this film sucked so they do not loose their time and then when I felt that my civic duties were accomplished, I was able to forget it.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
Well, time to get my corneas frosted.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
It's too bad the coolest tech is immediately subverted for evil...'surveillance cameras that spot suspicious behavior.'
It's too bad that the average slashdot'r considers spotting suspicious behavior as "evil".
(Score:-5, Rational)
To add to this, my eyes have a condition (I'm not sure what it is actually called, unfortunately) where my eyes actually center to the right of where "normal" eyes would. Basically, when looking straight it appears to everyone else that I'm looking to the right (and slightly up they say, but looking in a mirror I can't see it, but that's probably just me). Looking to the left results in the "normal" appearance of looking left and likewise looking right appears "normal." This behavior was caused by some rather severe retina damage around the center of the eyes, so I guess the eyes recentered themselves to get a better picture. The eye is an amazing thing, isn't it? :)
:)
Interestingly enough, I also have a tendancy to tilt my head to the left, but I don't know if that is related to my eyes being off-center or if it has more to do with the fact that I only ever use the right eye. This, too, is kind of hard to explain. The right eye has far, far better visual acuity (20/100 in it compared to the 20/400 in the left eye) than the left, and as a result somehow the brain has managed to simply not use the image from the left eye. If I want to I can still look through it, but then focus shifts nearly exclusively to the left eye. If I really work at it I can use both at the same time, but then I find it impossible to focus on any one thing in particular. Bizarre, isn't it?
uhm... hate to burst your bubble, Lumpy, but those RS-170 and NTSC legacy systems are going to be upgraded, some day... and consumer electronics have pushed megapixel resolution CCD chips to a pretty low price level. For reference, I have an old[ish] (~6yrs) 3CCD RGB camera, in my lab... it was 'capital equipment' when purchased -- cost a couple of grand for 640 x 480 pixel resolution color video. How much does a 4 MPixel camera cost at your local Wallmart, today? (I bought my little sister one, this past x-mas, for ~$200, with extra memory card, and full range of accessories).
The ADC cards ('frame-grabber[s]') which cost $1k+++ can be replaced with something like an ATI AllInWonder card, for a fraction of the cost, and performance which is on par with the 'professional' stuff (I have a bench-model set up with consumer-grade electronics, in my lab, which is more versitile than the 'professional' grade systems, and cost ~1/2 as much. It took me a while to get used to DirectX coding, vs. the old proprietary SDK coding, for Image analysis, but it still works, on the cheap.
Even if you don't look upon consumer-grade electronics as a viable replacement for the old, over-priced (lower quality, in many cases) 'professional-grade' equipment, I don't know where you're getting numbers like $30k for lenses and $50k for cameras... Even if you are looking at the old [over-priced], niche, companies -- a full resolution, RGB, NTSC camera [e.g. Sony DXC390] costs less than $3k [MSRP]. The ADC cards - even if you go with some outrageously overpriced old niche company (e.g. Matrox, DataTranslation, &al.), and add the cost of the card, a box to plug it into, a good UPS, etc., you could set up an entire system with half a dozen (over-priced) color survelance cameras, computer controlled, and a tape-drive backup [ok, a tape library would cost a bit to much for this example -- have the security guard change the tapes] for less than you're quoting for a single camera.
If a decent quality video survelance system can be purchased for less than the cost of a new pick-up truck, do you really think that the price is going to be a barrier to corporations/gvmts?
Hey, I bet this could easily be adapted to show the images reflected in the curved visors of the Apollo Astronauts to prove once and for all that it was all faked!
[Tin Foil Hat Wearers: it's a joke]
In Tikka to Ride, Lister convinces the crew that they won't polute the timeline if they go back in time, get a really big curry take out order, and come back.
They go to the wrong place and time, and ruin the assassination attempt. They jump forward in time, only to find that they've completely hosed history to the point where the mob have indirectly taken over the white house. So, they go to JFK, and convince him that if he kills himself, he'll go down in history as a hero. He agrees, and shoots himself.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I was trained to use my peripheral vision - exercises like counting fingers further and further out from the target you're looking at progressively increase your ability first to discriminate detail that you usually don't process, and progressively widen the field of view so that you take in more at a glance.
In martial arts sparring, it is very useful to see something coming, essentially, to see it early. There is plenty of reinforcement, both positive and negative, in that environment. Learning this well pays numerous dividends in the arts. It is an interesting general ability as well.
At this point in my life, I can "look" right at you in the sense that a centered axis out of my pupil draws a line to one of your eyes. At the same time, I can actively study something I can see very clearly that is considerably off that axis, behind you, somewhat off to your side, and way out of the same focus plane your face is in. You won't know, and gear like this wouldn't know either. I'm "looking right at you" as far as any observer is concerned.
I learned to do this - I certainly couldn't do it at all before actively training to do it. I teach my students to do it. The initial level of ability varies from person to person, but I've yet to encounter anyone who couldn't improve markedly over six months or so of daily exercises. I suspect that if the technology being discussed here comes into any kind of use where it is actually a social/legal issue, others will learn it just as well. You could probably detect the focal plane being different (the eye's physical configuration after all does change based on the focal plane) but this whole center of attention thing is absolutely defeatable.
I have high confidence that until or unless you can actually read minds and determine cognitive intent, this kind of technology will be very limited in application and reliability. We should ask, who will be motivated to learn to defeat such a mechanism by it becoming a law enforcement tool? It seems to me that the most obvious answer is those who have some kind of subversive orientation. Criminals, to put it more bluntly.
Action, reaction.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The first time, the woman was smiling at me. The second time, the woman was glaring at me.
The third time, I had mace in my eyes.
Evil is the money of root.
How about take it in a different direction and instead have a store's computers realize that a person is looking at a particular item and produce the proper advertisement to intice them to buy it. Since anyone who has ever window shopped the first things that our eyes fall on are (1) the most glittery and attention getting items and (2) things that we might actually want, or have wanted.
This sort of technology, if swift enough, could give advertisers that extra edge to actually hit primary target audiences who might need that extra push to finally buy their product.
Mill Avenue Vexations
Since film has a grain size, the picture gets divided into pretty small elements. It ain't "pixels", but it pretty much boils down to the same thing.
I just guess these guys never heard of electro-retinograms. But some peeps did, time when these ones writing the "news" were never even born.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
For example, if a murderer/kidnapper takes pictures/video of their victims they could possibly use the images in the victim's eyes to trace where they are, who killed them and who was in the room... Especially since the corneas capture more of the room than what the eye is looking at.
This technology is awesome for law enforcement and solving old crimes where photographs/video were invovled.
I hope someone runs with this.
Hadesan
camera tech is starting to get scary - who knows, soon you'll have very high res miniture (i dont know how the physics will work with small lenses and hi-resolution but it would be simple to scatter many cameras around a room and link them up) cameras with powerful software behind them. You usually wont even know they're there, but they will be able to deduce many of your biometrics (iris, height, face, clothes, how you move etc and ofcourse where you were looking) and if any of that information happened to be in.. i dunno an airport security databases, it would be able to look you up in seconds. Walk into any building and the person behind the desk would instantly know if you had anything from a bad credit record to a bank-robbing charge. If you were banned from one place you could be banned from 1000's more. Of course it could also be used on planes, but what happens if you check out the air hostess? or the guy?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Well...that depends on who wins in November. If the incumbent wins, then the surveillance function will come first and be of foremost importance. If the challenger wins, then the former is unlikely and the latter is assured.
Oh I'm so sure Kerry is going to do anything but strengthen Patriot. And of coure Kerry comes with the surity of the Industrial Strength DMCA due to Hollywood pressures.
Vote Libertarian if you want any hope for real change. Otherwise don't tell me how it will be so great when a Dempublican wins.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Eh... I would assume your eye doctor has already ruled out the possibility, but the latter condition sounds like a classic case of lazy eye except that that generally originates only in children. As you describe, one of the eyes does not see as well, so the brain learns to shut off input from that eye. If not corrected (generally with eyepatches on the "good" eye to force the other eye to process information), permanent loss of vision in the right eye can occur.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Seriously. I know people (not terrorists) that have eye muscle problems, so their eyes cross, leading to only one eye actually being used by the brain. Wouldn't a surveillance system then only have a 50% chance of figuring out what a person was looking at? This situation can be corrected by glasses in some cases, but then the algorithm determining the direction of view would be messed up since the glasses (with who knows what prescription) are bending the light on the way to the cornea. In fact, wouldn't eyeglasses in general mess up the algorithm by obscuring the camera's view of the cornea?
reminds me of Twin Peaks...
(appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
"Remind anyone of that scene in the movie 'Wild Wild West' where they extract the last thing the dead guy saw?"
No, reminds me more of Earth:Final Conflict, or
Blade Runner.
I was under the impression that this was called "eye wiggles" and was caused by using too much ecstacy over a long period of time.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
To see what someone is looking at you have
to look into their mind. The image formed
on the retina is not very closely related
to what you "see", and certainly not anything
like what happens with a camera.
Our eyes normally move about, and what we
respond to is the *change* in light and
not the static image. The picture on the
retina is actually similar to what you would
get if you took your 35mm and held the
shutter open while wildly moveing the camera
around. The brain then computes an image
based on the changing light patterns and past
visual experience. An incredible computational
feat, if you ask me.
An old experiment related to this places
a small optical device on the pupil and, in
consort with outboard equipment, an image
is projected onto the retina in such a way
that it stays in a fixed place while the
eye does it's normal movements. The result
is that the image dissapears in a short
time. That is to say, we do not see still
images, but only the change in light brought
on by the eyes movement.
Also, people do not interpret what they see
in the same way. Your personal image is
*not* the same as someone else's. People
see wildly different things while looking
at the same image.
I am describing well documented science
from the 60's. In the light of this,
I wonder, how other readers interpret this
story? It seems like it has it's uses, but
what they are talking about doesn't make
sense to me.
Yes, and I'm arresting you for loitering.
"Our security cameras showed that you spent no time staring directly at Ms. Jones' chest in the last month. I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go since we do not as a matter of policy employ gays. Have a nice day."
but that means almost nothing. I can look at a scene and see a simple scene, nothing outstanding. An FBI agent can look at the same scene and find suspicious activity. A phyicist can look at a scene and see something else. A prosecutor can look at the scene, after the fact, from my perspective, and try to imply that because I saw something it had an effect on me or that the glance actually meant something. This is worse than being hooked up to a lie detector and having broad questions lobbed at you .... it's equally worthless.
Imagine placing one of these devices in a display window of Macy's or Sears. Now these companies will know what it really being looked at and can now adjust to favor those items. It makes advertising and marketing much easier, and removes unwanted items from a display to make room for other items.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Like probably everyone else, I am tired to death of journalists constantly adding how this and that technology will help fight terrorists or cure cancer. Fuck that - there are millions other uses, which are just as important. Not everything should be a weapon or a cure.
For example, this technology may be used as interface for wearable computers, it can be used in museums by AI guides and everywhere else where computers can provide context sensitive information. It can be used by life recording systems (like Microsoft's My Digital Bits or some such). Girls can be use it with their wearable computers to confirm their suspicions that a guy indeed stares at her chest. There are so many uses, especially those that are not obvious now. Why should we always worry about terrorism?
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
WTF? In this "eyewitness account case", why the hell would you point the camera at the person's cornea and laboriously piece together the scene in front of said person? How about just pointing the camera directly at the scene?
Either I'm missing something or that's some poor writing (or the good Professor didn't fully understand the technology).
Very interesting stuff...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
http://www.a-s-l.com/
Isn't "a-s-l" something one sees in America Online chatpits?
Homer: Uh...it's like...did anyone see the movie "Tron"?
Hibbert: No.
Lisa: No.
Marge: No.
Wiggum: No.
Bart: No.
Patty: No.
Wiggum: No.
Ned: No.
Selma: No.
Frink: No.
Lovejoy: No.
Wiggum: Yes. I mean -- um, I mean, no. No, heh.
No. Was it a rip-off of the Dr. Who episode where they extract the latent image from a dead guy's retina?
It's a conspiracy!
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
[grin]
as a matter of fact, yes, although not as you facetiously meant it.
btw, i'm emailing you about your project, & FS kit.
Anyone hear of the movie "Looker". That had some cool ideas.
Have you read my journal today?