From Science Blog I learned about a project at HP Labs Bristol in the U.K. that is exploring the hardware, software and ramifications surrounding the concept of an always-on camera. The project, named Casual Photographer, is designed around never missing a moment with a still photo or video.
Developing the technology isn't as difficult as sorting through all the images as well as considering the ramifications, including privacy issues.
"Spontaneous, unguarded, fleeting -- they're often the moments in our lives we most want to photograph. But these moments are also those we frequently miss -- gone before we could reach for a camera. But what if we could easily capture such priceless moments? What wouldn't most of us give to have picture albums full of them?" the article notes.
Capturing the moment
The lab has been following developments in camera phones, but the handset isn't always-on and available. Phil Cheatle, a member of the Casual Photography team, says advertisements for camera phone promise that users will never miss any moment.
But plenty of moments are missed "if the camera phone is still in your pocket," he says.
As a test, Cheatle let a camcorder run for eight hours straight, pointing it in the direction he was looking -- but not looking through the viewfinder -- when he and his wife were in Venice. The camcorder captured a lot of junk, but it also captured a great image of the Bridge of Sighs as Cheatle and his wife were passing under it in a gondola.
His wife wasn't able to take a photo in time with her camera.
Technology and sorting
The HP team developed a camera that fits on the bridge of the nose piece of a pair of eye glasses and can store 20 images a second onto a very large compact flash card or a 1.8-inch hard drive. But capturing the images isn't the main problem for HP. Sifting through the chaff to find the wheat is much more difficult.
The article says, "To do this, they developed algorithms that can figure out the photographers' head motion at any point and from that, infer what might be the best way of representing that sequence of images.
"Some sequences are represented by stills. Others are stitched into panoramas and some are kept in full and can be played back as video."
Saving five minutes
The Casual Photography's focus (so to speak) isn't about developing a commercial product. However, they've come up with a feature that perhaps could make sense commercially -- assuming an always-on product makes sense!
HP has designed an always-on camcorder that stores the most recent five minutes of video in "short term memory," as the article terms it. When a user wants to keep some of the images, they can be stored permanently.
David Slatter, the project manager for Casual Photography, says, "As cameras become more powerful and you're able to capture more images per second, why not use that little bit of video around each still to help you get a better still?"
A second information channel
The HP team is exploring development of other types of information that would be integrated with images in order to produce better images. For example, the group has tested attaching an inertial sensor to a camera. Software examines information from the sensor to determine if images would be too blurred, and eliminates those images.
The article notes that there still are too many boring images but the software does help select many images people would typically consider interesting.
The HP group as well as the company in general is tracking privacy issues. Indeed, HP even has a Chief Privacy Officer.
Privacy
Slatter suggests that an always-on camera could incorporate a flashing light to indicate the device is operating. Or, the camera could be turned off with a radio signal, such as in a movie theater or a dressing room.
Will we really want an always-on camera? Slatter notes, ""There's a moment we captured where one of my colleagues [was] wearing the camera and holding his baby and turning him around.
"It's a moment of real quality time with his child and when you see it you think, yes, people are really going to value that."
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