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by Simon Firth
Your daughter's first smile. Your son's joy the
first time he catches a ball. The wink your favorite
uncle always gave you, but that he'd never do on
camera.
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?
That's the thought driving a research project
called Casual Photography, now running at HP Labs
Bristol, UK, where researchers are exploring what
it would take to truly never miss a moment we'd
like recorded for posterity.
Their answer -- an experimental wearable camera
that records everything we see -- has led them
to devise some neat gadgets and software solutions.
And it's had them pondering such fundamental questions
as what makes a moment priceless and what role
cameras should play in our lives in the future.
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An always-on camera
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"If you are serious about never missing a moment," says
Phil Cheatle, Casual Photography team member, "you
are drawn into the idea of an always-on camera."
HP has no current plans to sell such a camera.
But as a world leader in digital imaging, the company
is dedicated to helping consumers capture, share
and print the best photos possible. Besides offering
the promise of never missing a moment, the team's
work could someday let consumers automatically
select the images they most want to keep.
Cheatle notes that ads for the new generation
of camera-enabled mobile phones promise you'll
never miss an image. But "plenty of moments are
missed," he argues, "if the camera phone is still
in your pocket."
To test the value of having a camera running all
the time, Cheatle took a conventional camcorder with
him on vacation to Venice, Italy, and let it run
for eight hours straight without once looking through
the viewfinder -- just pointing it in the direction
that he was looking.
The result, he reports, was a lot of boring images
but also a number of real gems, including a perfect
snapshot of the Bridge of Sighs taken while passing
beneath it in a gondola -- an image his wife failed
to find her camera in time to snap.
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The unobtrusive camera
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So if an always-on camera is useful, how do you
ensure spontaneity for both photographer and
subject?
"You don't want to be always waiting to take pictures," says
David Slatter, Casual Photography project manager. "You
just want to get on with your life and be left
with some nice photos."
Those thoughts led researchers to develop camera
prototypes where both the camera and the method
of data recording became progressively less intrusive.
The camera's most recent instantiation, principally
developed by researchers Guy Adams and Gary Porter,
places the lens in the nose bridge of a pair of
glasses. 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.
But collecting the images is just the first part
of the challenge.
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Sifting through
the junk
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"If your wearable camera is
always on," Slatter explains, "you're
not going to miss any moments,
but you're also going to get
a load of junk."
So the next challenge, he says, "is,
can we develop algorithms that
will automatically pick out the
interesting bits?"
In some respects this is where
the Casual Photography project
really breaks new ground.
Although other research labs
(and even some undercover investigators)
have experimented with tiny cameras
placed on the body to record
everything a person sees, very
few people are trying to find
a way to automatically process
the enormous quantities of resulting
data to mine it for the best
bits.
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Defining
a good picture
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The HP team's
approach has
been to whittle
down the number
of images to
a manageable
number from
which to select.
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.
Researchers have also experimented
with recording
a second channel
of information
from devices
such as inertial
sensors attached
to the camera.
With a rapid
head motion,
for example,
many frames
will be blurred
and therefore
of little interest.
Information
from the inertial
sensor can
then direct
the algorithms
to automatically
cut those frames
out.
Although the
team's algorithms
still tend
to select too
many images
we'd consider
boring, they
are already
managing to
pick out the
majority of
the moments
most of us
would like
to keep.
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The
question
of
privacy
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One
key issue that needs to
be addressed is privacy.
Is it ever OK to wear a
camera that is so small
that no one will notice?
Slatter
says he recognizes the concern,
and notes that the issue is
already being raised with camera-enabled
cell phones.
Indeed,
some U.S. states have passed
laws that target improper
photography using
such phones. And many organizations
are enacting policies that
restrict their use as well,
especially when there are
strong security and intellectual
property concerns.
Social
taboos about what we can
look at, let alone photograph,
are strong, Slatter
notes. They also vary from
culture to culture. Potential
legal restrictions may vary
widely as well. But his hope
is that existing
customs and practices each
society has about conventional
photography will be built
on to accommodate always-on
and even covert cameras under
certain circumstances.
Lawmakers
and society have many potential
options for addressing these
issues, he adds.
"HP
is contributing to and tracking
global standards to address
potential privacy and civil
rights concerns around new
technologies," says
Barbara Lawler, HP's
Chief Privacy Officer. "The
goal is to design with privacy
considerations in mind."
Cameras
could be made to have a light
flashing when they are on,
Slatter suggests. Or they
could be required to conform
to a standard that switched
the camera off when it receives
a certain radio signal. Then in certain
locations -- say a movie or
a store changing room --
the camera will switch
itself off.
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On
retail shelves soon?
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Rather
than focus
on developing
a product,
the team
is more
interested
in applying
the insights
they've
gained
about how
to automatically
determine
whether
a picture
might be
worth keeping
in other
digital
photography
contexts.
"Currently
in digital
photography," says
Slatter, "we
optimize
things like
the exposure,
but there's
very little
to help us
optimize
things like
getting the
expression
you want
or avoiding
someone blinking.
"As
cameras become
more powerful
and you're
able to capture
more images
per second," he
adds, "why
not use that
little bit
of video
around each
still to
help you
get a better
still?"
The researchers
have already implemented a 'that
was interesting'
button. This
allows the
user to run
a camcorder
all the time,
always keeping
the last
five minutes
of action
in short-term
memory. When
the button
is pressed,
the camera
commits those
last five
minutes to
permanent
storage.
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The
future of casual
photography
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The
team is continuing
efforts to
develop more
robust and
powerful
camera units.
And researchers
are working
to refine
their algorithms
to more efficiently
find the
moments we'll
treasure.
With
HP staking
at least
a part
of its
future
on the
emotional
power of
digital
imaging,
Slatter's
team hopes
that the
promise
of never
missing
a moment
-- and finding
those moments
after they're
captured
-- might
offer the
company
a new connection
with the
millions
of people
who take
digital
photographs
of their
friends
and families
each year.
The
promise
is certainly
one the
researchers
feel themselves.
"There's
a moment
we captured
where one
of my colleagues
wearing
the camera
and holding
his baby
and turning
him around," recalls
Slatter. "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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