Shoulder-mounted camera could extend human abilities

No question about it, strapping a webcam to your dome or rocking a set of unsightly head-mounted displays can kill a substantial amount of time, but researchers from the University of Bristol are looking at more practical uses of wearable cameras. A shoulder-mounted camera system that "automatically tracks head movements and can recognize hand gestures" has been developed in the UK, and eventually, they hope for it to recognize what the user is doing and make his / her life easier by communicating with other devices based on their actions. The cam is controlled wirelessly by a host computer, which "uses the camera's output to keep track of objects, map its position and recognize different hand gestures made by the user." Interestingly, the perched device even includes a trio of motors for muti-directional assistance, and built-in inertia sensors keep it level with the dips and dodges of life. Of course, we can't promise you that everyone (like mall security) will take kindly to a Big Brother-type device flanked on your shoulder, but at least you won't have to hire a bodyguard to watch your back, right?

[Othello @ Mar 27th 2007 5:49AM]

That will not make life easier for anyone. The last thing anyone wants is devices interpreting what they want. Someone tells a joke, I laugh, and the refrigerator door starts opening and closing spasmodically.

[Kobaljov @ Mar 27th 2007 6:34AM]

perfect for justin.tv style broadcasts

[3rdsun @ Mar 27th 2007 6:43AM]

I for one, do not welcome our bionic overlords.

[Maff @ Mar 27th 2007 6:59AM]

muti-directional? is that for muties only?

[Chris @ Mar 27th 2007 7:02AM]

This will complete my Predator costume.

[Rjay @ Mar 27th 2007 7:20AM]

Someone please hurry up already and photoshop the word "pwned" below the guys face...

[wasabi @ Mar 27th 2007 7:34AM]

yea like make an individual look as dorky as that guy in the picture.

[Excalibur @ Mar 27th 2007 7:39AM]

Umm... Borg some?
And then to make things worse he strapped a camera to his shoulder

[spaceman @ Mar 27th 2007 9:17AM]

I dub it the, "Polly-cam".

[Bazza @ Mar 27th 2007 9:46AM]

soon they will be surgically implanted in our foreheads. the fabled third eye of zinthos

[meist3r @ Mar 27th 2007 10:00AM]

@Bazza:
"My gosh what's that on your forehead?"
-The Eye of Zinthos, it's my cyberimplant to control all kinds of electronics.
"Eye of Zinthos? All I know is that it looks ridiculous"
-Oh yeah? You haven't seen my three eyed "splinter cell" sunglasses yet.

[meist3r @ Mar 27th 2007 9:54AM]

Oh my gosh someone hide that website. If the US military gets a hold of that technology we're all screwed. Can someone besides me imagine the possibilities for navigation and recon with that thing? Kinda scary.

@Othello: What are you talking about? That's why people are using more and more open source so they tell the machines what to interpret. Of course if you'd buy such a device from MS or Apple you would surely be astonished of WHAT they want you to see and do with it. I for myself would love to have a 3rd gen model of that with customizable software. All mounted in a little parrot shell on my shoulder ... ahoy Cyber-pirate-mateys!

[Bazza @ Mar 27th 2007 11:19AM]

hehe! Nice one. It will become mandatory to every third tier human in 2051.

[crycry @ Mar 27th 2007 10:25AM]

and apparently you don't even need shoulders to use it.

[Tommy @ Mar 27th 2007 10:33AM]

wow

[David @ Mar 27th 2007 10:39AM]

What happened to all the attractive ladies fawning over the extra camera? I think there's something wrong with the prototype...

[Blue @ Mar 27th 2007 11:11AM]

There is a lot of uses for this, such as for paraplegics and quadraplegics, i.e. Dr. Stephen Hawking.

Emergency Medical assistance could be greatly improved - imagine having a doctor be able to see what an EMT does at the scene real-time and be able to assist him/her with feedback?

Law enforcement could be aided too - you get a parrot's eye view of what officer does while in a training scenario and offer advice on what to do and not do.

[Aaron @ Mar 27th 2007 2:17PM]

I agree with you completely Blue. Those are at least three good uses for the technology.

I would add though having it be able to recognize sign language for the speech impaired to be able to use a voice sysnthesis application to communicate with others.

The device could be taught to recognize sign language and and other user programmable gestures then convert that to speech via a small imbeded speaker which would greatly improve being able to communicate in requesting things at stores, etc and even using voice commands on a computer.

Way to think outside the box for seeing how technology can be used to improve everyone's life instead of making snarky comments.

However, I don't see a mainstream application for general consumers for this outside of the three you mentioned and the one I added. It doesn't fit a need for the average user.

I still think voice commands are the best way to interact with a computer when you are not close enough to use a keyboard or touch (which includes inking on a Tablet PC).

[Steve @ Mar 27th 2007 11:40AM]

Looks totally Borg to me!

[steve @ Mar 27th 2007 11:49AM]

I am Locutus

[HenryJonesJr @ Mar 27th 2007 11:59AM]

Except for the ability to attract the opposite sex, apparently.

[laterallateral @ Mar 27th 2007 2:12PM]

yeah, or interpret your movement into "what you're doing" - automatically update your twitter profile and reign as the alphadouche.

[Mike10010100 @ Mar 27th 2007 5:23PM]

Is it just me or is this guy's stare kinda creepy?

*I just love scanning for life forms... Life forms, you tiny little life forms, you precious little life forms... Where are you?*