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Filmmaker Working On Eye-Socket Camera

Posted by Soulskill on from the take-two-they're-small dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Wired has a story about Rob Spence, a Canadian filmmaker who plans to have a mini camera installed in his prosthetic eye. 'A camera module will have to be connected to a transmitter inside the prosthetic eye that can broadcast the captured video footage. To boost the signal, he says he can wear another transmitter on his belt. A receiver attached to a hard drive in a backpack could capture that information and then send it to another device that uploads everything to a web site in real time. ... Even though his project is still in its early stages, Spence says many people have already told him they wouldn't be comfortable being filmed. "People are more scared of a center-left documentary maker with an eye than the 400 ways they are filmed every day at the school, the subway, the mall," he says. He hopes he will help get people thinking about privacy, how surveillance cameras and the footage they record are being used and accessed.'" Spence runs a blog for the 'Eyeborg Project,' as he calls it, and has recently posted a video about the progress they're making.

13 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Back to the future by alain94040 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I always believed that 20 years from now, technology will allow us to keep a constant record of all that we see. It will be great for keeping memories of the kids, sure. It will also completely change the way we interact. The most fascinating part of this future is that very strong ethical, privacy and legal limits will have to be put in place.

    Think of the switch from analog audio to digital. With analog, you could record, but you couldn't store forever without losing quality. Stuff eventually got lost, or forgotten. It's a different ball-game when information stays around forever, easily accessible. Google Search taught us as much.

    Bottom line: there is no technological answer to this, it will have to come from principles and laws. Anyone can steal mail from my mailbox, there is no lock. But people don't. Let's see how we can create similar principles for digital information.

    1. Re:Back to the future by ScrewMaster · · Score: 5, Funny

      a bastard-child of Twitter and YouTube

      YouTwit? Twitube?

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    2. Re:Back to the future by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Bottom line: there is no technological answer to this, it will have to come from principles and laws. Anyone can steal mail from my mailbox, there is no lock. But people don't. Let's see how we can create similar principles for digital information.

      It is not going to happen. The reason people don't steal from your mailbox is NOT "principles and laws" it is because generally there isn't anything worth stealing and it is hard to do on a large scale. When it is easy to do on a large scale and there is something of value, then people do steal your mail - for example, new credit cards were routinely stolen in bulk at postal centers until the banks made "activation" from a confirmed phone number a requirement (and even then, the crooks came up with ways around that, changing the phone numbers on file to phone numbers they controlled).

      So as long as there is something valuable and it is easy to take with little chance of being punished for it, then no amount of laws or principles will make a bit of difference. (Which, some readers may have noticed applies just as much to the effectiveness of copyright law as it does to any laws regulating the use of digital cameras by the public at large.)

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    3. Re:Back to the future by RyoShin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The most fascinating part of this future is that very strong ethical, privacy and legal limits will have to be put in place.

      I think something else will happen.

      I think society will change.

      Speaking strictly for American society (though I fully expect the same to happen in other first-world countries, though perhaps at different rates), we've long had various scruples that, while perhaps not bad, don't make the most sense. For instance, the general requirement that we remain clothed; or, in a more tame sense, that men may go bare-chested but women may not (add to that further with much of women's fashion). There are reasons to wear clothes, but shame for the human body has always been an odd one. Also, it's perfectly fine (by society) to talk about someone behind their back, but never to tell someone they're bad/ugly and give constructive criticism. Who cares if you're helping someone out with that (whether or not they want the help), you should be talking about it to someone who can't do squat like some sort of weasel!

      As television has brought us pictures of war sooner and sooner, and VHS everything else, we began to become more and more "open" about things. The internet has only increased this, as well as allowing for amateur footage of... well, everything.

      I think that instead of all these huge restrictions being put on such devices, society's view will shift as it is further exposed. There will be a brief push-back, but that will subside. Over time, people will become more and more relaxed about various subjects and previous "taboos". We saw it happen with black rights, women's rights, and interracial marriage. Right now we're seeing it happen with homosexuality and marijuana.

      There's always the chance of another Roman-style (or was it Greek?) tragedy happening where we suddenly regress a millennium, but if we continue the path we are bound to become a society that has almost no social bounds outside of actual harm. Perhaps not in 20 years, and maybe not even in 100, but I believe it will happen, especially if content expands exponentially.

  2. Maybe because... by PalmHair · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dear Rob, maybe people feel uncomfortable because your eye gives a red glow and you keep telling them "See you later!" in Spanish with a heavy Austrian accent.

  3. Re:pirate ! by Chabo · · Score: 3, Funny

    It won't get him banned, but if he doesn't implement DRM, then the movie theater will aim lasers at his prosthetic eye for the duration of the movie so he can't get a good recording.

    --
    Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
  4. Re:babylon 5 by Daffy+Duck · · Score: 3, Informative

    Predated by a couple of decades in "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun". Herbert Lom has a spy camera in his fake eye to elude a full-body security search.

  5. Re:pirate ! by heretic108 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Or they'll only let him in if he's wearing a certified eye patch, arrr arrr!

    --
    -- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
  6. Re:pirate ! Socket to me! by davidsyes · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, if he captures a crime in progress, the criminals (if they recognize him) can hurl all sorts of puns his way:

    Eye of the beholder
    Socket too me
    An eye for an eye...
    See, if you had that camera in your ass or fannypack, hindsight would be 20/20

    Depending on the focal length he uses, if he fixates on breasts, will he be a living boob tube? Titty-gazing could, like, oh my god... soooo tubular...

    If he sees two rogue law enforcement officers beating on a civilian, he could sing "EYE SHOT THE SHERRIF, but EYE didn't SHOOT THE DEPUTY..."

    There may be a new law: DCMA

    "Don't Capture Me, Aye!" (especially since he's Canadian...)

    If he sees a SUUUUUPER ugly person, they may crack his lens.

    If they put smoke and mirrors in his path, he could be blinded with science.

    If he's in a room with flash-bangs and smoke grenades, he'll be "bedazzled and frazzled"

    If his good eye goes out, and he's broadsided, it could be said he was blind-sided...

    Would he go crazy if swimming with fisheye lens goggles?

    I suppose much of this assumes he as a neuro-optical data link.... and can process the imagery. Hopefully he won't be a cross between Geordi (super barrettes) La Forge and Saul (Demon Eyes) Tigh...

    But, if he's visious, and lays eyes on you, you'd be caught in the eye of the tiger...

    Yeh, i'm on a ROLL (but not a film roll)... LOL!

    --
    Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
  7. Re:I already do something similar. by Anachragnome · · Score: 3, Funny

    I said I RECORD everything I see.

    I didn't say I have access to it later!

    I'm getting the sneaking suspicion my wife does though.

  8. Missed opportunity by dangitman · · Score: 4, Funny

    This story has three icons attached to it, but not one of them is the "Bill Gates with Borg eye" one. C'mon, this was the perfect oppportunity to use that icon, and you blew it, slashdot!

    --
    ... and then they built the supercollider.
  9. Eye think otherwise by nanospook · · Score: 5, Funny

    If I was going to wear a small hidden camera, I would attach it to the end of my index finger and transmit it to a set of glasses so I can see what it sees. Think of the uses.. 1. You can see around corners 2. Look up a gal's skirt 3. Read with your finger 4. Pick your nose and put it on youtube 5. film yourself sleeping 6. Experience Sign Language in a fresh way The possibilities are endless..

    --
    Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
  10. Privacy nightmare? by meist3r · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not for our new bionic overlord but for everyone he sees on an every day basis. Will he be forced to wear one of those full-body signs saying "I'm filming you as we speak" or does he just wink when someone wants to stay anonymous? There's no way he can ask anyone for the right to take their image w/o consent!?