It is common for humans to be separated into social bubbles, to avoid sharing social space and to connect to strangers. However, technologies like Internet social networking or the mobile phone loosens social boundaries, hence dehumanizing physical communication. To a certain extent, it generates social anxiety such as the one experienced in the “Hikikomori” and “Otaku” cultures in Japan. Touchy criticizes this phenomenon and suggests a solution by transforming the human being into a social device: a camera. The Touchy project investigates how such a device improves social life, presupposing that a camera is a known tool for sharing memories, valuable moments, enjoyment, emotions, beauty and so forth.
prosthetic knowledge
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TrackingPoint
Prototype firearm scope designed for digital tracking, fires when exactly on point - video demonstration below:
Via The Firearms Blog:
TrackingPoint is a manufacturer of “Intelligent Digital Tracking Scopes” and “Precision Guided Firearms” for hunting and tactical shooting. Their impressive technology allows a shooter to designate a target using the digital scope and the rifle will automatically fire only when the rifle is correctly lined up to the target. The demonstration of thier prototype looks more like a sci-fi movie than real life!
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Pool Tracking
In a 48-Hour hackathon, London start-up GoCardless developed a computer-vision Pool game ball tracker to keep scores automatically with a simple webcam:
You can see how the project was developed on their website here
RELATED:
Here is a video of a Snooker-playing robot developed in 1992:
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Nick Clegg Looking Algorithmically Sad
Remix of a Tumblr meme blog, with images of the UK Deputy Prime Minister run through facial and emotional recognition software.
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Computer IDs Culprits with Tattoo Recognition
Computer visual recognition software in development to identify people by their unique marks - via Live Science:
The face might be the obvious place to start for Facebook, homeland security and other groups interested in automatically identifying people in photos. Indeed, face recognition is one of the biggest areas of research in identification and security. Adding in tattoos and other marks, however, gives law enforcement an edge in using evidence where the suspect’s face isn’t clear.
“Let’s talk about standard police-type action,” said Terrance Boult, a computer science professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and a co-founder of a security startup, Securics Inc. In many police investigations, officers have to contend with grainy, low-quality photos that a bystander might have taken on his phone, or that a store camera captured, he said. “Those photos are often so bad that face recognition wouldn’t come even close” to finding a match in a photo database, such as the FBI’s, he said.
To help with these difficult matches, Boult and his colleagues wrote a computer program that examines the tattoos, scars, moles or other skin markings in a new photo, then finds likely matches in a photo database. The program is able to find similar tattoos that are not exactly the same, but which might help identify gang members who get coordinating ink. And it is able to make matches based on eyewitness descriptions that a cop might type into the program.
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Kinect@Home
Cloud 3D modelling service allows you to create 3D object files with video taken with a Kinect camera - watch the video embedded below:
Kinect@Home is a place where you can help robotics and computer vision researchers around the world and get 3D models of your room, office or whatever you want in return, right in your browser!
Kinect@Home aims to use your powers to make robots more awesome than ever. Robotics and computer vision researchers need vast amount of images from everyday environments such as homes and offices to improve their algorithms.
As well as being able to help science, you can download the 3D object file to do whatever you want with it. As a bonus, you can also embed your 3D capture on webpages, like below:
You can find the project’s website here
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![Tailored Displays
Research project develops hardware to aid eyesight, making glasses (as we currently know them) potentially obsolete and defined by software:
The knowledge of the optical properties of an eye allows traditional displays go beyond an individual’s visual acuity, presenting images that are in focus even without wearing corrective eyeglasses. Our new display uses measurements of refractive errors (see also NETRA) and cataract maps (see also CATRA) to free the viewer from needing wearable optical corrections when looking at displays. It supports nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, presbyopia (reading glasses), coma, keratoconus, other higher-order aberrations and any type of cataracts. The hardware is the same of glasses-free 3D displays (dual stack of LCDs), but in higher resolution. We propose their use in daily tasks where using eyeglasses are unfeasible or inconvenient (e.g., on head-mounted displays, e-readers, as well as for games); when a multi-focus function is required but undoable (e.g., driving for farsighted individuals, checking a portable device while doing physical activities for presbyopic); or for correcting the visual distortions produced by high-order aberrations that eyeglasses are not able to.
Here is a technical video demonstrating the work:
Tailored Displays to Compensate for Visual Aberrations from Vitor Pamplona on Vimeo.
While the work does not have a final practical usable product, it is worth bearing in mind that the focus on wearable displays such as Google Glasses could feature these types of features.
More Here [via Hack A Day]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7buj8LQrV1qav3uso1_1280.png)
Tailored Displays
Research project develops hardware to aid eyesight, making glasses (as we currently know them) potentially obsolete and defined by software:
The knowledge of the optical properties of an eye allows traditional displays go beyond an individual’s visual acuity, presenting images that are in focus even without wearing corrective eyeglasses. Our new display uses measurements of refractive errors (see also NETRA) and cataract maps (see also CATRA) to free the viewer from needing wearable optical corrections when looking at displays. It supports nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, presbyopia (reading glasses), coma, keratoconus, other higher-order aberrations and any type of cataracts. The hardware is the same of glasses-free 3D displays (dual stack of LCDs), but in higher resolution. We propose their use in daily tasks where using eyeglasses are unfeasible or inconvenient (e.g., on head-mounted displays, e-readers, as well as for games); when a multi-focus function is required but undoable (e.g., driving for farsighted individuals, checking a portable device while doing physical activities for presbyopic); or for correcting the visual distortions produced by high-order aberrations that eyeglasses are not able to.
Here is a technical video demonstrating the work:
Tailored Displays to Compensate for Visual Aberrations from Vitor Pamplona on Vimeo.
While the work does not have a final practical usable product, it is worth bearing in mind that the focus on wearable displays such as Google Glasses could feature these types of features.
More Here [via Hack A Day]
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Wearable Computing Pioneer Assaulted In Paris McDonalds
Steve Mann, who has a physically attached digital eye piece since 1999, documents a strange and unprovoked assault whilst on holiday. Via @serial_consign:
In June of 2012, my wife, children, and I just traveled to Paris, France, for our summer vacation, in order to give our children the opportunity to learn true Parisian French (we have them enrolled in French immersion at school).
On the evening of 2012 July 1st, my wife and children and I went to McDonalds at 140, Avenue Champs Elysees, Paris, France, after a day of sightseeing (8 museums and other landmark sights, as part of a boat cruise package), and while we were standing in line at McDonalds, I was stopped by a person who subsequently stated that he was a McDonalds employee, and he asked about my eyeglass.
Because we’d spent the day going to various museums and historical landmark sites guarded by military and police, I had brought with me the letter from my doctor regarding my computer vision eyeglass, along with documentation, etc., although I’d not needed to present any of this at any of the other places I visited (McDonald’s was the only establishement that seemed to have any problem with my eyeglass during our entire 2 week trip).
Since I happened to have it with me, I showed this doctor’s letter and the documentation to the purported McDonalds employee who had stopped me in the McDonalds line.
After reviewing the documentation, the purported McDonalds employee accepted me (and my family) as a customer, and left us to place our order. In what follows, I will refer to this person as “Possible Witness 1”.
We ordered two Ranch Wraps, one burger, and one mango McFlurry, from a cashier who I will refer to as “Possible Witness 2”. My daughter handled the cash to pay Possible Witness 2, as my daughter wanted to practice her French. Possible Witness 2 complimented my daughter on her fluency in French.
Next my family and I seated ourselves in the restaurant right by the entrance, so we could watch people walking along Avenue Champs Elysees while we ate our meal.
Subsequently another person within McDonalds physically assaulted me, while I was in McDonand’s, eating my McDonand’s Ranch Wrap that I had just purchased at this McDonald’s. He angrily grabbed my eyeglass, and tried to pull it off my head. The eyeglass is permanently attached and does not come off my skull without special tools.
I tried to calm him down and I showed him the letter from my doctor and the documentation I had brought with me. He (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 1) then brought me to two other persons. He was standing in the middle, right in front of me, and there was another person to my left seated at a table (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 2), and a third person to my right. The third person (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 3) was holding a broom and dustpan, and wearing a shirt with a McDonald’s logo on it. The person in the center (Perpetrator 1) handed the materials I had given him to the person to my left (Perpetrator 2), while the three of them reviewed my doctor’s letter and the documentation.
After all three of them reviewed this material, and deliberated on it for some time, Perpetrator 2 angrily crumpled and ripped up the letter from my doctor. My other documentation was also destroyed by Perpetrator 1.
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Touchy
Experimental social technology project involves helmet installed with camera, yet wearer cannot see without physical touch:
About
This project is a phenomenological social interaction experiment that focuses on the relationship of giving and receiving by literally transforming a human into a camera. Touchy, (the person wearing the device) is blind most of the time until you touch his/her skin. Once vision is given to Touchy, he/she can take photos for you. This human camera, with its unique properties, aims at healing social anxiety by creating joyful interactions.
Social ConcernHere is the project’s trailer:
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Squintasaurus
Bizarre DIY project creates motorized head-mounted eye-squinting machine using parts from an old portable CD player, labels itself as a ‘cybernetic dynamically adjustable vision enhancement system’ to replace glasses.
Created by Lee von Kraus:
I can’t see things very well at a distance. I used to wear classes, then contact lenses, then nothing. I hadn’t worn any corrective lenses for years because glasses were annoying and my contact lenses were messing up my eyes. One day I was thinking about the reason for near-sightedness and I figured that if it’s caused by an inability of the eye’s lenses to flatten out, then maybe I could physically assist them in some way instead of just optically correcting for the problem like ‘corrective lenses’ do. Then after trying some things I realized that I could pull back back on the skin at the sides of my eyes and this seemed to do the trick. Since then I’ve been in several seminars in which I successfully used this trick to be able to read the screen or chalkboard that was too far away for me to otherwise make out clearly. So I decided to make a simple device to do this for me. What I made probably wouldn’t be something that most people would want to wear in public, but a professionally made, miniaturized version of such a device might have more widespread appeal, and it was fun to make and test in any case.
More information, including a step-by-step guide to making one yourself, can be found at Instructables here
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A bionic prosthetic eye that speaks the language of your brain
This is both fascinating and interesting …
A scientist talks about their work on prosthetic sight, working on a technique which could potentially benefit not only other prosthetic technologies, but also understanding of the brain.
Sheila Nirenberg seems to have successfully managed to create a visual encoder placed on the optic nerve which can transcode visual stimuli into a signal into the brain. From Extreme Tech:
Now, reading the brain’s output (as in a prosthetic arm) is one thing, but feeding data into the brain is something else entirely — and understanding the signals that travel from the retina, through the optic nerve, to the brain is really about as bleeding edge as it gets. Nirenberg still used a brute force technique, though: By taking a complete animal eye and attaching electrodes to the optic nerve, she measured the electric pulses — the coded signal — that a viewed image makes. You might not know what the code means, but if a retina always generates the same electric code when looking at a lion, and a different code when looking at a bookcase, you can then work backwards to derive the retina’s actual encoding technique.
Perhaps even cooler, though, Nirenberg insists that this same technique — wiring up electrodes to our sense organs and brute forcing the encoding technique — could also be used to produce prosthetic ears, or noses, or limbs that can actually feel. Presumably, at some point, with enough data points under our belt, we might begin to unravel the human brain’s overarching communication codecs, too.
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Glasses made completely of paper - no glass, just a set of small holes to control focus:
These glasses look like something you might wear to a party, but they are actually a very serious paper tool. Because of the 1mm holes, it’s possible to focus your eyes without lenses. Paper goods, such as paper cups or paper plates are useful goods, when there is an emergency. These paper glasses are made to help you ride out a crisis when your glasses are broken in a disaster or accident.
… although it probably isn’t a good idea to wear them whilst driving …
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Jobs was looking into using Wi-Fi for phone calls (via Crave) 
Now THIS would have been a complete industry game-changer:
Apple might have launched the iPhone without the help of carriers if Steve Jobs & Co. had found a wireless workaround.
IDG today reported that Jobs apparently spent the better part of two years leading up to the release of the company’s first iPhone trying to figure out how to turn Wi-Fi spectrum into a network that users could make phone calls on, as opposed to relying on carriers to get the job done.
Jobs “wanted to replace carriers”, said John Stanton, the chairman of venture capital firm Trilogy Partners, during the Law Seminars International event held in Seattle yesterday. “He and I spent a lot of time talking about whether synthetically you could create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum. That was part of his vision.”
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Amazing RGB POV clock via Hack A Day
This is a great (although I’m sure it is noisy)
We’re no strangers to POV time pieces around here, but something about them never gets old. Whether they use a ring of LEDs to draw clock hands, or an intricately cut HDD platter to replicate LCD segments, we love seeing them. [David] sent in this hard drive POV clock built by a fellow named [Kly], and it’s just beautiful.
[Kly’s] “Propeller” POV clock is named as such due to the design of the circuit board. The board is mounted on the HDD spindle, rotating much like an airplane’s propeller.
There is more - if you go to kohalmi666’s YouTube Channel, you will see how this visual display can do more than display time, such as animation and display graphics
kly - the maker of this - has a website with the electronic schematics here
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Protopixel HARDcade (via @emiliogomariz)
Protopixel HARDcade consists of a software embedded into a vintage videogame arcade cabinet. Visitors can perform live visuals, interacting with the original controls of the cabinet (joystick and button). The visuals are generated by the software and displayed through the monitor of the cabinet and two video projectors. The monitor displays the images at a slow refresh rates (15Khz), in a similar way to the arcade games of the 1980s, while projectors provide a different experience. The images on the monitor look blurred, while those projected on the walls are more crisp. The moving images are characterized by low resolution, aliased images, limited frame rate and set of colours, as well as loops and “old school” effects such as colour cycling. Some graphic elements are abstract geometries and repeated patterns. The software also includes electronic 8-bit glitch sound, related to the images displayed on the screens.
laboralcentrodearte.org/en/recursos/obras/protopixel-hardcade-2009 -
