A Visual Memory: Microsoft Labs Create a Wearable Digital Camera
SenseCam, created by Microsoft's research facility in Cambridge, England, is a wearable digital camera that is designed take a low-resolution photo every 30 seconds while dangling passively from its
wearer.
Unlike a regular digital camera or a camera phone, SenseCam does not have a viewfinder or a display that can be used to frame photos. Instead, it is fitted with a wide-angle (fish-eye) lens that maximizes its field-of-view. This ensures that nearly everything in the wearer’s view is captured by the camera.
The SenseCam has received increasing attention in the medical field as an experimental tool to help those with memory problems, such as Alzheimer's disease. How memory works is still a medical mystery. Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and the University of Leeds in England have a research project underway using the SenseCam to study autobiographical memory, or how people remember events over their lifetime.
SenseCam also contains a number of different electronic sensors.
These include light-intensity and light-color sensors, a passive
infrared (body heat) detector, a temperature sensor, and a
multiple-axis accelerometer. These sensors are monitored by the
camera’s microprocessor, and certain changes in sensor readings can be
used to automatically trigger a photograph to be taken.
A
significant change in light level, or the detection of body heat in
front of the camera can cause the camera to take a picture.
Alternatively, the user may elect to set SenseCam to operate on a
timer, for example taking a picture every 30 seconds. Microsoft has
also experimented with the incorporation of audio level detection,
audio recording and GPS location sensing into SenseCam although these
do not feature in the current hardware.
Users can opt to wear
the camera on a cord around their neck, although it would also be
possible to clip it to pockets or belts, or to attach it directly to
clothing.
SenseCam holds 1Gb of flash memory, which can
typically store over 30,000 images. The time-lapse,
first-person-viewpoint sequences represent a useful media type that
exists somewhere between still images and video that are used as memory
supports rather than rich media.
Posted by Casey Kazan.
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Links:
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/microsoft-sensecam-080115/
http://www.typepad.com/t/app/weblog/post?__mode=edit_entry&id=44188900&blog_id=604253
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