Cyber-Goggles Record and Identify Every Object You See

RemyBR writes "Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a smart video goggle system that records everything the wearer looks at, recognizes and assigns names to objects that appear in the video. Advanced programs then go back and create an easily searchable database of the recorded footage. Designed to function as a high-tech memory aid, these 'Cyber Goggles' promise to make the act of losing your keys a thing of the past, according to head researcher professor Tatsuya Harada. 'In a demonstration at the University of Tokyo last week, 60 everyday items -- including a potted begonia, CD, hammer and cellphone -- were programmed into the Cyber Goggle memory. As the demonstrator walked around the room viewing and recording the various objects, the names of the items appeared on the goggle screen. The demonstrator was then able to do a search for the various items and retrieve the corresponding video.'" Add in facial recognition technology and this would make for a great aid at conferences and family reunions.

Comments

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[Anonymous Cowpat]

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[Psion]

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Vapourware!

[Saint Aardvark]

Ze goggles, zey do nossing.

Snow Crash

[Aeonite]

Someone in this overpass, somewhere, is bouncing a laser beam off Hiro's face. It's annoying. Without being too obvious about it, he changes his course slightly, wanders over to a point downwind of a trash fire that's burning in a steel drum. Now he's standing in the middle of a plume of diluted smoke that he can smell but can't quite see.

But the next time the laser darts into his face, it scatters off a million tiny, ashy particulates and reveals itself as a pure geometric line in space, pointing straight back to its source.

It's a gargoyle, standing in the dimness next to a shanty. Just in case he's not already conspicuous enough, he's wearing a suit. Hiro starts walking toward him. Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider, these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all of the attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time.

The CIC brass can't stand these guys because they upload staggering quantities of useless information to the database, on the off chance that some of it will eventually be useful. It's like writing down the license number of every car you see on your way to work each morning, just in case one of them will be involved in a hit-and-run accident. Even the CIC database can only hold so much garbage. So, usually, these habitual gargoyles get kicked out of CIC before too long.

This guy hasn't been kicked out yet. And to judge from the quality of his equipment -- which is very expensive -- he's been at it for a while. So he must be pretty good.

Re:Snow Crash

[RDW]

'Those VL glasses. Virtual light...Friend of mine, he'd bring a pair home from the office where he worked. Landscape architects. Put 'em on, you go out walking, everything looks normal, but every plant you see, every tree, there's this little label hanging there, what its name is, Latin under that. . .'

- William Gibson, _Virtual Light_

Re:Pointless project

[Mantaar]

Aw common, you're being a crank now. What's the point of this strange things, supposedly able to move all by themselves? They stink, they're slower than horses, and they're ugly, too! You'll never get laid if you ride such a thing, but think about riding a nice beautiful horse! Now that's what the ladies like!

Seriously though, imagine we could get the size of that thing down. Substantially. Like, totally. There are several possibilities:
a) implant to the retina. Make the goggles go away, wire it directly to the brain. Like Terminator's interface, only this one makes sense!
b) get it down to a size where it would at least fit into glasses. What about making blind people 'recognize' what they can't see? All you need is some glasses with this technology and a bud in your ear that would tell you: 'street' or 'car, incoming, rapidly' or 'woman, age: mid-30, attractive, married'. OK, the system would need a great deal of sophistication for the latter...

This project is all but pointless! You can enhance a human's possibilities, whether they're impaired (visually or otherwise) or not!

Sounds promising for Alzheimer's sufferers....

[Em Adespoton]

I think this would be excellent tech to provide to Alzheimer's sufferers, as long as they could remember they had it! If they could program in people's names and play back the last few times they'd seen the person, do a quick review of what they did before they had their nap, review the route they took to where they currently are, etc. that would have a HUGE impact on Alzheimer's sufferers' lives.

Re:Sounds promising for Alzheimer's sufferers....

[Mr. Roadkill]

I think this would be excellent tech to provide to Alzheimer's sufferers, as long as they could remember they had it!

And that would be the problem for some.

Imagine yourself with Alzheimers. Imagine you used to be a sane, normal person - perhaps a little paranoid, because you worked in IT or security or some other field in which the knowledge that other people could be dicks was rubbed in your face day after day, or just from reading one newspaper too many.

Now, imagine that part of your everyday environment is a little voice that whispers details to you about what you've supposedly done, people you've supposedly seen, things you don't remember. Or glowing words that appear in mid-air - "This is your son. His last visit was a week ago, and he brought your grandchildren". Only, you don't remember any of that - and that can't be your son, because he's five years old and that man was close to fifty. And it won't stop. You *do* remember that people who hear voices or see things get carted off to places far less pleasant than the one you're in, even though you don't quite know where *here* is, and keep your mouth shut.

Perhaps things would be better if the person you used to be had trained themselves to accept direction better. Only, you don't know that's the problem because you've forgotten all that - and you were always more of a goat than a sheep anyway. So, you shut up out of self-preservation, go through the motions and pretend to recognise the strangers who show up bearing names of relatives. Only, that man who claims to be your son actually looks a little like your father. Could it be... your hands, they're old... you suddenly realise for a few seconds who you are and what you've become, and you break down into uncontrollable tears. Then, just as the man you claims to be your son calls for the nurse, it stops and you ask him "Who are you? What are we doing here?", just as you always do. The voice tells you that this is your son (only it can't be, your son is ten), and that you're home. You remember the voice - it's the only constant in your life, and you remember it lies, but you can't make it stop and you're too weak to do anything but go along with it. So, you nod along, pretend to know the people who show up ("Ah, he's a little better this week - no outbursts, and he seems to know everyone") and occasionally remember enough to want to pray for forgetfulness - and forget to be thankful when that prayer is answered.

sounds iffy indeed

[Quadraginta]

I've dabbled in object segmentation and recognition, and it's a bitch unless you cheat, e.g. by restricting yourself to pre-assigned objects, making sure your objects are always in high-contrast good-lighting conditions, or accepting lots of false negatives or positives. So I'm kind of doubting it will replace the ol' eye-brain recognition system.

That said, I can see some useful related applications. Imagine a helicopter pilot doing search and rescue work. He sees something worth checking out -- say a tiny smoke plume -- and says "bingo." That's picked up by a computer, which is also monitoring his goggles, so it knows in what direction he's looking, and has done some very basic image analysis so it knows to ignore the canopy struts, Sun, shadows et cetera in the field of view. It then combines this with a GPS locator beacon and a good topo map, and instantly computes and records the exact location (latitude and longitude) of the sight of interest. Could save some lives.

Or imagine an emergency worker on the ground during a big fire. He sees a worrying flare-up. Wearing the goggles, he can just say "Looks like trouble over there!" and the goggles, plus associated GPS device and computer, can instantly transmit to headquarters precisely where there is, even if the guy observing doesn't know himself.