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Graphics Software HP Privacy

HP Experiments with 'Always On' Camera 288

Posted by michael from the sieve-his-proper-worth dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Hewlett-Packard researchers in the U.K. are working on a camera that's always on, recording everything you see and letting you go back later and decide what's actually photo-worthy. Raises some serious privacy questions. But as an HP researcher notes, "If your wearable camera is always on ... you're not going to miss any moments, but you're also going to get a load of junk.""
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HP Experiments with 'Always On' Camera More

HP Experiments with 'Always On' Camera

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  • Load of junk (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sowbug ( 16204 ) * on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:50PM (#8751428) Homepage

    "...but you're also going to get a load of junk"

    If by "a load of junk" you mean "a lot of pictures of people pointing at your goofy-looking glasses and laughing," then you're absolutely right.

    • Vannevar Bush wrote an excellent article called As we May Think [theatlantic.com] in 1945 predicting this invention.
      <i>The camera hound of the future wears on his forehead a lump a little larger than a walnut. It takes pictures 3 millimeters square, later to be projected or enlarged, which after all involves only a factor of 10 beyond present practice. The lens is of universal focus, down to any distance accommodated by the unaided eye, simply because it is of short focal length. There is a built-in photocell on the walnut such as we now have on at least one camera, which automatically adjusts exposure for a wide range of illumination. There is film in the walnut for a hundred exposures, and the spring for operating its shutter and shifting its film is wound once for all when the film clip is inserted. It produces its result in full color. It may well be stereoscopic, and record with two spaced glass eyes, for striking improvements in stereoscopic technique are just around the corner.
      </i>

      Interestingly, in the same article, he predicted the CD Rom, the Internet, Wikipedia, Color Photography -- well before the first dry cameras or the first computers.

      • Also, there's a direct link between Vannevar Bush and HP! Fred Terman (well described as the Father of Silicon Valley) [stanford.edu], the Stanford prof who inspired Hewlett and Packard to start a company in Silicon Valley, was himself a student of Vannvar Bush.

        This connection makes it wonderfully poetic to see this invention coming from HP.

      • The quotes for the Borg...

        Must we always transform to mechanical movements in order to proceed from one electrical phenomenon to another? It is a suggestive thought, but it hardly warrants prediction without losing touch with reality and immediateness.

        ... and the prediction of the electronic calculator ...

        Adding is only one operation. To perform arithmetical computation involves also subtraction, multiplication, and division ...The advanced arithmetical machines of the future will be electrical in n

      • NOT Predicted before the transistor was invented (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Considering that the next paragraph of Bush's article reads:

        The cord which trips its shutter may reach down a man's sleeve within easy reach of his fingers. A quick squeeze, and the picture is taken. On a pair of ordinary glasses is a square of fine lines near the top of one lens, where it is out of the way of ordinary vision. When an object appears in that square, it is lined up for its picture. As the scientist of the future moves about the laboratory or the field, every time he looks at something wort
      • Umm.. not quite. Vannevar Bush did not predict color photography.

        Color photography was invented in 1850 [enc.org] by Levi Hill. Commercial color prints first appeared in 1903 with the Autochrome process. Kodachrome was widely available in 1945 when Bush wrote that article.
    • If you record more than half of your life, well, there just isn't going to be time to sift through it all before it's over...

    • Re:Load of junk (Score:5, Funny)

      by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:51PM (#8751931) Homepage
      "...but you're also going to get a load of junk"

      I think by "load of junk" they mean it's a Compaq/HP product.

  • junk eh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by AssProphet ( 757870 ) * on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:50PM (#8751429) Homepage Journal
    "you're not going to miss any moments, but you're also going to get a load of junk."

    wow I guess they're right... most of my life is a load of junk.
    But what if you gave this camera to those guys on the MountainDew or Surge commercials who only do exciting things constantly?
    • But what if you gave this camera to those guys on the MountainDew or Surge commercials who only do exciting things constantly?

      Then there'd be a lot of takes, and finally some geek hacking some cool effects to make us believe they actually succeeded in doing those exciting things :-p

  • Big News Today (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:50PM (#8751431)
    HP Revolutionizes the boring webcam technology by fusing it with reality TV. Story at 11.

    Ride the snake

  • Re: HP Experiments with 'Always On' Camera (Score:3, Insightful)

    by manavendra ( 688020 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:50PM (#8751433) Homepage Journal
    Looks like the dawn of times when one would have to decide what NOT to capture.

    *sigh... life's tough

  • Battery Life? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ulky ( 199350 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:51PM (#8751436) Homepage
    Hmm...intesting idea... need some big batteries..

  • Can you say... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Erick the Red ( 684990 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:51PM (#8751445)
    Gargoyle?

  • similar thing posted already (Score:4, Informative)

    by radixvir ( 659331 ) * on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:51PM (#8751447) Homepage

    Sounds alot like the Microsoft Wearable camera [slashdot.org]. anyways i think its a cool idea. Sometimes i dont feel like taking pictures manually and maybe it will get more 'real life' photos instead of having everyone poised for them.

    • "The lens camera records hours of high-quality video at 20 images per second onto either a very large compact flash card or a 1.8-inch hard drive."

      It's probably taking pictures at a max of 640x480 considering the frequency of the pictures and the continuous nature of the camera. Those pictures would be a nice backup for a real camera but not a very good replacement.

      Then again, it would be great if you happen to witness a crime or car accident which didn't take place in your peripheral vision.
      • SKPhoton (683703) writes:
        > Then again, it would be great if you happen to witness a crime or car accident which didn't take place in your peripheral vision.

        Last thing I saw on Slashdot.org/683703/live was a car crash, the cops showing up, and a club. Then things went blank. You'll have to take my word for it, because that page is 404 today. Don't know why.

        Hang on, there's someone at my door. I'll be right back.

    • Re:similar thing posted already (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The concept of this, apparently, is that you will never miss an important event or moment or anything. But that's not quite so. You'll only capture things that YOUR OWN EYES were looking at. If someone says "hey look over there" and that thing is gone, you're still screwed.

      I would say that, in about a year, there are approximately 10 minutes worth even recording. Why would I want to wear a stupid camera and deal with it being confiscated or the video later being used against me if I'm raided before being a
      • deal with 365 DAYS worth of video just to take the 10 minutes I might even remotely [care] about.

        More like you're wearing a TiVo that retains the last 30 minutes of what you've seen and after you've seen something interesting, you capture it and put it in a kept recording.

        For parents, it would be like having Ender Wiggins' monitor on your children.

      • Re:similar thing posted already (Score:5, Insightful)

        by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:49PM (#8751912)
        >If someone says "hey look over there" and that thing is gone, you're still screwed.

        not at all. that's where THEIR camera comes in useful.
    • Problem is that these 'real life' photos generally suck. They have no 'staying power'. You don't need to line everybody up and shoot them but come on, take 10 seconds and compose something with at least a nod to aesthetic and technical considerations. I was going that way ('real life snapshots') with most of the shots of the huge protests around DC two and three years ago, and they're less interesting every time I look at them. Do you really need pictures of every mundane moment of your life? I sure as h
      • Which is true - digital media is less permanent than physical media. However - look at it from a different perspective. I never delete any digital photos I take (and I take a lot). Why? because each is only a couple of meg and one day I might want it. Disk space is cheap - in a major city it's MUCH cheaper than the equivalent storage space for real photos - most of mine are in boxes slowly rotting in my parent's basement.

  • slashdot (Score:5, Funny)

    by ispepalocacoc ( 592651 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:51PM (#8751451)
    Sadly, all I would get are many many screenshots of slashdot.

  • Great... (Score:4, Funny)

    by jamonterrell ( 517500 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:52PM (#8751455)
    Now I'll have to sift through 1000s of google responses when I search for anything containing nothing more than someone unimportant opinion, with 10,000 pictures of their boring life scattered throughout. Oh wait, blogging already does this, it's just going to get worse with the pictures to document things no one really cares about.

    On the serious side, this is, in my opinion, the resolution of a problem that doesn't exist. It's very cool, it just isn't a very needed product.

    Jamon

  • Muder in the DC area... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Total_Wimp ( 564548 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:52PM (#8751459)
    Great. My GF is already pissed that I don't delete enough of the stupid pictures I take. I tell her "I keep everything, just in case." She would murder me in my sleep if I got one of these.

    TW

  • I already have these (Score:4, Funny)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:52PM (#8751460) Homepage Journal
    I like to call them "eyes".
  • It's called a CamCorder.
    • The frightening thing is that I've seen people use camcorders like this -- in a museum, of all places! Rather than look at the exhibits directly, they were looking at them through their camcorder while filming. I can understand wanting to preserve one's daughter's first piano recital or something, but watching a museum visit over and over?

  • The Truman Show for EVERYONE! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GPLDAN ( 732269 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:52PM (#8751463)
    Somewhere, sometime, somebody will catch something on par with the Zapruder film, or the Rodney King tape, and it will spark a cultural revolution, and then Microsoft will make you pay a DRM fee to decode your OWN LIFE!

  • Privacy Issues? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AtOMiCNebula ( 660055 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:53PM (#8751469) Journal
    Sure, it may create some privacy issues...if it's storing it at some central HP or public database. If it's just recording it to some internal storage drive, and then you move the footage to your hard drive or somewhere else, then what's the problem?? I'm not trying to troll, but why is this such a big deal?

    Is it just me, or is the paranoia level going up these days...

    • Re:Privacy Issues? (Score:5, Informative)

      by MerlynEmrys67 ( 583469 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:59PM (#8751535)
      what's the problem?? I'm not trying to troll, but why is this such a big deal?

      It isn't YOUR privacy that they are worried about. How about all of the people around you that are now being "photographed" on a regular basis. My wife HATES having her picture taken. Now anyone wearing glasses might be taking her picture 20 times a second. At least if they go to pull the camera out she has a chance to say "No thank you - I prefer not to have my picture taken".

      I'm not even going to go into all of the places that you shouldn't be taking pictures anyway (locker rooms, gyms, dr. office, the list goes on)

      • Re:Privacy Issues? (Score:5, Funny)

        by System.out.println() ( 755533 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:07PM (#8751633) Journal
        I'm not even going to go into all of the places that you shouldn't be taking pictures anyway (locker rooms, gyms, dr. office, the list goes on)

        I think you just...um.... did. :)
      • Now anyone wearing glasses might be taking her picture 20 times a second. At least if they go to pull the camera out she has a chance to say "No thank you - I prefer not to have my picture taken".

        And what does that have to do with whether the camera is "always on" or not?

        • Re:Privacy Issues? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by malfunct ( 120790 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:33PM (#8751808) Homepage
          This raises the question for me of what is the difference of seeing something with your eyes and taking a picture of it. Isn't it the distribution of the pictures that makes the difference? If I am the only one that sees said picture then the camera is operating as memory enhancement of sorts.

          That said I think that we should limit the distribution of the pictures taken and not the taking of them in the first place.

      • How about all of the people around you that are now being "photographed" on a regular basis.

        Unless your wife is some kind of Montana rancher--like, she has a job, or she goes shopping, or does anything whatsoever involving stepping onto the property of some corporation, she's probably being already being photographed on a regular basis by surveillance cameras without even knowing it. The only difference is that now everyone can do it, not just businesses. IMHO, that's a very good thing.

      • At least if they go to pull the camera out she has a chance to say "No thank you - I prefer not to have my picture taken".

        To which I can say "Sure, whatever *click* *click* *click*." If your wife is that offended by having her picture taken she shouldn't go out in public, because there isn't, and shouldn't be, a damned thing she can do about somebody taking her picture. Well, I guess with the obvious restriction of harrasment/stalking, but we aren't talking somebody following her around all day taking
      • Now anyone wearing glasses might be taking her picture 20 times a second.

        I know how you feel. I'm still holding off having wild monkey sex with the two 19 year-old, willing nubile females that work at the local corner store. They might have hidden cameras in their apartment, and I can't find the right combination of Wi-Fi jammer/magnetic HDD wiper hardware.

        The current plan is to gain access to their computer surreptitiously (by installing a wipe-out command via a USB memory plug-in keychain device whil
    • Sure, it may create some privacy issues...if it's storing it at some central HP or public database. If it's just recording it to some internal storage drive, and then you move the footage to your hard drive or somewhere else, then what's the problem?? I'm not trying to troll, but why is this such a big deal?

      In many places, wiretapping law requires that if you are recording a conversation, all parties involved must be informed in advance of the recording. Despite the name, this applies to recordings of a

    • Re:Privacy Issues? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Angry Pixie ( 673895 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:40PM (#8751851) Journal
      If it's just recording it to some internal storage drive, and then you move the footage to your hard drive or somewhere else, then what's the problem?
      That's precisely the problem. I don't know about the quality of the photos this camera can produce. I'm thinking the resolution will be lower than what you could achieve with a regular digital camera due to the automated nature of the camera and its limited storage space, but that's irrelevent. The fact is, a photo can be taken of a person without that person's consent or knowledge.

      There are a lot of girl-watching hobbyists out there who have been aided by digital cameras and camera-cell phone combos. Some upload the images to newsgroups or to commercial sites catering in upskirt candids. I've had my photo taken by complete strangers on the streets, the beach, and in nightclubs. I personally don't mind some guy "enjoying" a photo of me in the privacy of his own home, but it's reasonable that other women would have a problem. My privacy concerns are with the photo being uploaded to a public site without my knowledge or permission, especially if said site had a sexual or voyeuristic tone. My biggest privacy concern however is with abuses of the technology by law enforcement agencies and the government, or just nosy neighbors who enjoy spying on others. There is also the possibility that the photographer has a more nefarious scheme; that I'm intended to be more than a pretty face and nice legs for one's personal candid delight. The point is, I'd have no idea what the photographer's intentions were, nor would I even know I was being filmed or spied on.

  • Photo-Worthy? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dr. GeneMachine ( 720233 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:54PM (#8751478)
    I don't think so. The worth of a photograph or a film usually stems not only from the scene or event documented, but from the composition of the scene, from the thought of the photographer, freezing a particular moment in a particular perspective. This will mostly lead to an even mightier flood of crappy pictures no one really wants to see.

    And yes, you can pry my mechanical Yashica and my black and white films from my cold, dead fingers...

  • Seriously, the only people geeky enough to want this are just going to be watching slashdot all day anyway.

    Jamon
  • First we had to have automatic sinks because we were too lazy to turn them on, then we had warning labels on toys with a circumference of four inches, then we had an idiot who sued McDonalds because it made her fat... Now we're so lazy we have to have a camera we don't press a button on? That's sad... Just plain sad...
  • Why do you always wear those damn glasses when we make love ???

  • dont have to keep loads of junk (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:54PM (#8751488) Homepage
    just have the camera always on, but discarding anything over a minute or two. Then when something happens you want to keep press the button and the last two minutes are saved, plus what happens as you watch.

  • This is by far, the lamest, most annoying, and totally stupid april fools story that's been posted yet. I mean, glowing hamsters, cold fission, W bush on viagra, those are all things easy to believe, but a camera that you wear?? Now come on!!
  • ...under your skin and you have one heck of an anti-drug for teenagers. Screw the campy "it's just a little pot!!" routine.

    Boy, there would be some shocked fathers out there if they witnessed in close, excruciating detail what their daughters did to/for me in high school.

  • Wasn't this a feature of a Neal Stephenson book?

    • David Brin (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, I think this shows up in David Brin's "Earth". He called them "Tru-Vue Goggles", or something similar.

      Two tangential comments:

      Perhaps the glasses could monitor the
      wearer's brain activity and only store a
      frame when it detects a strong reaction to
      what's being viewed.

      There was a public outcry when photography
      was invented, when Goerge Eastman marketed
      it to the public, when X-rays were discovered,
      etc. The uproar over these is nothing new.
  • Hah! Tom Cruise has a far more compact looking pair of camera-glasses than that, I saw him wearing them in Mission Impossible!

    Seriously though, this is a classic case of a problem in search of a solution. I wouldn't be too hard on researchers who go down strange alleys like this, you never know where it could lead. I'd say the military would find good use for it.

  • Social considerations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kobayashi Maru ( 721006 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @06:59PM (#8751534)
    I wonder, at times it seems technology gets a pass, just because it is complicated.

    Though the article mentions privacy concerns, it is stuff away between a half-dozen other headings. All technology is nothing more than tools. It is the context that gives the tool its meaning. And in this case, the social context of the tool should very much be weighed against the abilitity to "never miss an important moment." Who defines important? And who defines what *should* be recorded, and what should not be recorded? The social implications of all technology deserve more consideration than they currently recieve, I think.
    • At the same time, the social considerations could be liberating if the perspective were to be reversed: the context of *who's wearing it*, rather than just what it takes in.

      This would be excellent to have on hand for law enforcement, search and rescue / fire departments, even soldiers.

      In these cases, the information (either stored or relayed) about individuals in publicly accountable roles assists in the enforcement of the trust engendered by the position. It could also increase safety, allow sharing of

  • Its gonna happen (Score:3, Interesting)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:00PM (#8751550) Journal
    imagine everyone walks around with a little camera/mic clipped to their shirt as common as having a phone in your pocket, disputes would always be on video, ufos would never be missed and blackmail would be plentiful, its gonna get partially like that like it or not, camera phones keep getting more popular and their memory is getting larger and larger, even if you dont have them always on in a couple of years almost everyone will have a camera within reach 24/7. Privacy issues are gonna go mental super-hardcore!

  • practical use (Score:2, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 )
    Now I won't have to figure out how to control my shoe-cam when walking behind skirted babes. However, a Kilt Avoidance System would be nice.

  • Star Trek (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rock_climbing_guy ( 630276 )
    It seems I remember in Star Trek, there was a blind man on board the enterprise who could only see with an electronic camera of sorts. In one episode, I believe that it was hacked so that the enemy was seeing everything he saw.

    Imagine what you could do with that kind of snooping power.

  • It'd be nice if that camera had a "shutter button", much like your typical film camera or digicam, which instead of signaling the device to take a picture, actually marked that particular time as interesting. Later on you could go back to those shots and pick frames at or near those points. Another feature: Add audio capture so you can whisper to the camera when you take those shots, so you can make notes about the shot.

  • private eyes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:02PM (#8751582) Homepage Journal
    Where's the privacy problem? Let only people you trust see things they're allowed to remember. That's why the difference between "public" and "private" places is so important, and why the right to control access to our private places is essential to privacy, and to our participation in society - rather than alienating us from it.
    • Where's the privacy problem? Let only people you trust see things they're allowed to remember. That's why the difference between "public" and "private" places is so important, and why the right to control access to our private places is essential to privacy, and to our participation in society - rather than alienating us from it.

      Walk in to a department store dressing room in the lingere section, "accidentally" open the door to an occupied stall. "Oops, sorry!", and you've got a few more pictures for you
      • And get arrested for publishing someone's private space when the cops come and find your camera. Especially when, in the age of Net cameras, dressing rooms are more private, and shared semi-public spaces log access for later review in catching voyeurs. The difference between privacy invasion and privacy publication will become clear as our society plays with them. That's how we *invented* the public/private dichtomy in America.

  • Done. (Score:2)

    by diggem ( 74763 )
    LONG time ago (mid to late 80s). So NO FREAKIN PATENTS!

    http://www.wearcam.org/

    Steve Mann is a nerd God. :)
  • ... or is this the perfect example of a solution looking for a problem? Most people taking pictures fall into the following three categories:

    1. Taking pictures of live action, in which case they should be using a video medium (read: DV)

    2. Taking pictures of things that don't move too much (read: Geographic or structural objects, or people that are actively participating in being photographed, posing, etc.)

    3. Porn (which I imagine requires much more equipment, lighting, people, etc.)

    In these three ca

  • Not a new idea: Deja View (Score:5, Informative)

    by ayeco ( 301053 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:04PM (#8751601)
    This is not a new idea. This DejaView Camera [mydejaview.com] keeps a buffer of 30 seconds.

    Deja View's Camwear Model 100 captures everything you see, records it in a buffer so you never miss that moment! Simply press the record button and the last 30 seconds of video with audio will write to a removable storage device.

    The Deja View Camwear Model 100 easily clips to your glasses or hat is constantly buffering 30 seconds of what you experience while wearing our product. With one simple press of a button, the camera will record a 30 second video with audio in 320X240 CIF in the latest MPEG-4 technology! The file is saved to a SD Memory card (64MB provided) upgradeable to 512MB (optional). The file is easily stored and transferred to a computer or when played in Video out mode, can be recorded directly through a VCR or viewed right on your TV screen! USB connection for computer or remove SD memory card and view it in an SD reader (not included).
  • It might be interesting. If the "always on" camera recorded all the time allowing you to "go back in time", say 30 minutes, to save something interesting that happens. Kind of giving you a camera buffer.

    Otherwise, the camera keeps recording over the past recorded data.

    I always hate when something odd/funny happens and I don't think to take a picture right away. But somehow I think that this "always on" camera is going to be taking a lot of horrible shots.

    -S

  • Transparency (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:04PM (#8751604) Homepage Journal
    This will be all fun and games until the first subpoena.

  • Alternative? (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Smidge204 ( 605297 )
    Have it record (and remember) the past, say, 60 seconds of happenings automatically. This will cut down on the 'junk' significantly, but allow for enough time to capture that unexpected moment and save it.

    Have two additional modes: Full time record (For constant recording beyone 1 minute) and snapshot (still images). that way you'll always have your camera readt to take a picture or video at a moment's notice, and won't have to go back and find what you really want to keep.
    =Smidge=
  • "Raises some serious privacy questions."

    My God, does this sort of thing really have to be stuffed in everywhere? Technology has nothing to do with privacy - it is it's use.

    A comment like this has no more place here than saying "oh yeah, eyes? and memory? serious privacy concerns there".
  • The part I find interesting is that the camera will be able to record things realtime. What makes me wonder is how they'll do that, considering how most digital cameras work nowadays.

    If I'm not mistaken, most digital cameras have a series of sensors arranged in a trinary pattern of reds, greens and blues. Each "dot", can only sense sensitivity towards that color of light.

    When a digital camera takes a picture, it takes those reds, greens, and blues, and then interpolates the values from the surrounding

  • Their idea is to have the camera respect electronic boundaries and stop recording if within range of a specific radio signal?

    Their idea of warning those being recorded is to put a red light on it?

    Seriously - it would take all of two seconds to break the antenna and smash the light... now give it to a hacker and you'll get a more elegant solution almost as quickly.

  • Right to Photograph (Score:5, Informative)

    by ejaw5 ( 570071 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:26PM (#8751765)
    http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm

    Basically, if you're in a public area you can't stop someone from photographing you (though you could ask not to be) nor can anyone stop you from taking pictures in public areas. This includes buildings and "people/street watching" ...although having a camera snapping away constantly isn't exactly "Photography" IMO.

  • Moving Frame. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SharpFang ( 651121 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:27PM (#8751778) Homepage Journal
    What about a different model. One that doesn't keep the record of all you see, but just, say, last 30 minutes. So, you saw something intersting, it's gone, but you tell it "make snapshot of last 5 mins" and it records last 5 minutes on permanent record. Say, a lot was going on, but you catch a breath and record last half a hour. And if you know a lot WILL be going on, just tell it to start recording right away.
    I guess this not only will save a lot on media costs, it won't raise so many security concerns (all data records are opt-in, not opt-out, only unlike with normal camera - with ability to record what happened already, not only what is going to happen.

    Think 1000 lines long shell scrollback.
    • have hit the nail on the head.

      TiVo doesn't just record everything; it keeps a sliding buffer. Same should apply here. In fact, just after I got mine, I thought how useful it would be for something like this to be mounted in one's car (kinda like those the cops have in many "wildest police videos gone wild" clips) -- you could automatically get the plate number of some jerk who hits and runs; you could prove you were not at fault in an accident; and so on.

      As for wearing an odd pair of glasses to get the

  • badge cameras (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phr1 ( 211689 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:31PM (#8751795)
    Badge Cameras [badgecam.com] are a project by H. Keith Henson of space colony and anti-Scientology fame, to put cameras into police badges, hopefully preventing future Rodney King incidents. The HP scheme sounds similar.

  • Recognition (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bobthemuse ( 574400 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:39PM (#8751849)
    I wonder if this will advance facial and object recognition? Would be kind of cool to be able choose a picture of a person and see every other image they're in. Even better, thrown in object/character recognition, search for "When was I on State Street" (based on viewing street sign), or "show pictures of my car".

    I predict that if this becomes popular, peer to peer networks will pop up which will allow me to register my friends so they can see any pictures that include them. Very neat!

    I also predict there's gonna be a shortage of tinfoil hats and face masks in the near future....

  • Could be made to work if... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Alomex ( 148003 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:40PM (#8751852) Homepage

    This would work if you had a trigger to mark "on the spot" ranges that are interesting. That way when you get home you won't have to search weeks of non-events to find a cool shot.. Sort a "that was funny" button, or perhaps more appropriately for /. a "wow, she was cute" button.

  • It's been done (Score:3, Interesting)

    by seekohler ( 264712 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:42PM (#8751871)

    An episode of PBS's Scientific American Frontiers back in April of last year featured an MIT Media Lab student named Brian Clarkson who built this exact same thing himself. He wore it like a backpack with fisheye lens cameras on the front and back. One of the more interesting things he was able to capture and re-watch was the first time he met his then current girlfriend.

    You can watch the episode online [pbs.org].

    (The part featuring Clarkson is titled "Never Forget a Face")

  • Possible Uses in Law Enforcement (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pgrst ( 662201 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @07:45PM (#8751892)
    I can see this device being extremely useful in certain situations:

    If a police officer had a device like this when conducting an arrest or a stop the device would be beneficial for everyone involved:

    1) If Officer does anything illegal the defendant has proof

    2) If the defendant says something or does anything, the police now have proof.

    In this context the only person with cause to worry is the individual doing something illegal (either police officer of member of public).
  • besides, a camera that's on all the time would give uterly useless crappy shots! photgraphy is about composition, light, technique...
  • If that camera is always on, it's gonna be catching a lot of junks when I got into a locker room.
  • Not sure why HP is so proud of themselves on this one...pretty sure camcorders have been around for a while now.

    Hurray for me...i officially added nothing to this discussion

  • HP Wearable Digital Camera: Free
    16MB Memory Modules: $1000
    Irony: Priceless

  • 1973 precedent (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sakusha ( 441986 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @08:55PM (#8752404)
    I remember attending a panel discussion at a Leica School of Photography seminar in 1973, photographer Robert Heinecken declared that in the future there would be always-on cameras, sort of like eyeglasses, with a massive memory storage (he suggested holographic memory because that was the cutting edge of research at the time). You'd be able to pick out any moment of time and pull up a stored photo of what you were seeing at that moment. The other panelists disagreed vehemently and said it was impossible, it would never happen.

  • Ah, memories... (Score:3, Funny)

    by artemis67 ( 93453 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @09:20PM (#8752537)
    "Oh, and here's the first time I got beat up at school for having a dorky camera strapped to my head!"

  • bathroom breaks... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Transcendent ( 204992 ) on Friday April 02, 2004 @10:31PM (#8752880)
    ...oh those should be fun with this on... Just try not to look down that much.

  • isn't this already invented and use right now? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by john_uy ( 187459 ) on Saturday April 03, 2004 @12:43AM (#8753619)
    a video camera?

    the only thing limiting to what you can capture is the tape and battery.

    you use a camera for capturing a still moment. you use a video camera for capturing an entire event.

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