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Filmmaker Working On Eye-Socket Camera
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri Mar 06, 2009 07:09 PM
from the take-two-they're-small dept.
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.
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Submission: "Project Eyeborg" Eye-Socket Camera by Anonymous Coward
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Back to the future (Score:5, 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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
will allow us to keep a constant record of all that we see.
Except for sex and the occasional witness of a police beating, all I can envision from that is a bastard-child of Twitter and YouTube...as if those two weren't bad enough.
Why not mount enhancements(IR or other extended-spectrum sensitivity, long-range zoom, etc) inside the prosthesis and find a way to feed the visual back into the other eye(and eventually to the visual cortex itself) to give the patient superhuman sight? Now we're talkin', baby.
Re:Back to the future (Score:5, Funny)
a bastard-child of Twitter and YouTube
YouTwit? Twitube?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can definetly move a prosthetic eye, focus is a different matter but I suspect it would be one of the easier things to do given that it's just a matter of finding which nerve went too the muscle.
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...It will be great for keeping memories of the kids, sure...
I was thinking more that it would be great to replay excellent experiences as porn for "me-time".
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Principles, hell. If you're in the U.S., the reason people don't steal your mail is because a. they probably don't give a damn and b. interfering with the mail is a felony. No real principles involved there: it's just that nobody wants to go to jail for reading someone else's junk mail. I'm not really sure that reading someone's email should invoke the same sort of penalties.
Re: (Score:2)
So just because someone hasn't stolen the OP's mail yet, doesn't actually mean it is safe.
I didn't mean to imply that it was ... obviously, the fact that we make interfering with the post a serious crime indicates that it is a potential problem. I'm just saying that I don't believe that extending those same standards to the Internet is automatically a good idea.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
yeah, yeah, I saw the "Final Cut". the guy gets killed for what he's got in his head
Re:Back to the future (Score:4, 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.)
Parent
Re:Back to the future (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re: always believed? (Score:2)
You've always believed this? Wait, how old are you? Right... you're at least older than 20, so then if you've always believed that 20 years from when you first started believing it that we'd have all have persistent video, then that would mean we already have it!? What are you hiding? What secret online store [spook-accessories-r.us] do I have to visit to get it? Do I gotta be a spook and have some security clearance, or be secretly enslaved to the CIA [imdb.com] once I have it?
pirate ! (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess this will get him banned from movie theaters, right ?
Re:pirate ! (Score:4, 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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
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.
And if he does it again, they'll point the lasers at his other eye.
Re:pirate ! (Score:4, Informative)
Or they'll only let him in if he's wearing a certified eye patch, arrr arrr!
Parent
Re:pirate ! Socket to me! (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!
Parent
babylon 5 (Score:3, Interesting)
been there done that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosthetics_in_fiction [wikipedia.org]
Re:babylon 5 (Score:4, 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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
"Ah, this problem is provably solvable!" *goes off to the pub*
I already do something similar. (Score:2)
I record everything I see.
The only difference is that I use an organic data storage device.
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, well over 90% of the data gets lost due to a buggy caching policy... :/
Don't worry though, it's on the TODO list in a future release.
Re:I already do something similar. (Score:4, 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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
How do you know you record everything if you don't have access to it later?
Obvious Use (Score:2)
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Maybe because... (Score:5, Funny)
What a wonderful idea! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Just wrap it in tinfoil; you'll be fine.
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Six Million Dollar Man (Score:2)
Missed opportunity (Score:5, Funny)
Eye think otherwise (Score:5, Funny)
Joss imitates life? (Score:2)
Wow, this is a little spooky. Just saw the preview for next week's Dollhouse, and it looks like they'll be using something very similar to this...
Dan Aris
Easy to add cool filters (Score:2)
It'll be easy to add colored filters or polarization or similar - just choose the appropriate pair of shades...
Could even use glasses with a built in display to add night vison for the other eye...
Combine audio and vision, you are 'in' it (Score:2)
The stereo focus of the sound recording moves with the actor's head, recording voice and breathing.
Now it can be done with sight.
http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/04/31/sound_design_rolf_de_heer.html [sensesofcinema.com]
What about sex? (Score:2)
Privacy nightmare? (Score:4, Insightful)
Gives a whole new meaning... (Score:2)
To up-skirting.
Center-left documentary maker (Score:2, Funny)
they are filmed every day (Score:2)
Now, first, dumb as a shoelace. Surveillance camera feeds are not posted on websites for everyone to see, no law allows that, at least in countries I'd be comfortable living in. In very many cases those feeds aren't een recorded. In some other cases the feeds are recorded for a specific amount of time (i.e. 24-48-... hours) and then automatically overwritten. There are - or at least legally should be - no places where every feed's recordings could be retained forever, or disclos
David Brin's Transparent Society (Score:2)
Which city do you live in? [davidbrin.com]
rational, too (Score:2)
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
And that's fairly rational, too: the privacy implications and usage of security cameras are much more predictable than those of a filmmaker running around with a bionic eye.
If he's married... (Score:2)
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I don't think artificial eyes saccade.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
I smell a sequel to cloverfield!
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I'm sure you could process out the saccades using the same basic image stabilization technology that's used in all but the cheapest digital cameras these days. Then again, why do that when you can use them to your advantage? Mimic the eye's structure with a super-high-rez 'fovea' plus a low
Re: (Score:2)
Really, you can sum it up like this:
Mall surveillance is not being published on a public website in real time.