Imagine a small device that you wear on a necklace that takes photos every few seconds of whatever is around you, and records sound all day long. It has GPS and the ability to wirelessly upload the data to the cloud, where everything is date/time and geo stamped and the sound files are automatically transcribed and indexed. Photos of people, of course, would be automatically identified and tagged as well.
Imagine an entire lifetime recorded and searchable. Imagine if you could scroll and search through the lives of your ancestors.
Would you wear that device? I think I would. I can imagine that advances in hardware and batteries will soon make these as small as you like. And I can see them becoming as ubiquitous as wrist watches were in the last century. I see them becoming customized fashion statements.
Privacy disaster? You betcha.
But ten years ago we would have been horrified by what we nonchalantly share on Facebook and Twitter every day. I always imagine what a family in the 70s would think about all of their photo albums being posted on computers and available for the entire world to see. They’d be horrified, they couldn’t even imagine it. Heck, a life recorder is less of a privacy abandonment step forward than we’ve already taken with the Internet and electronic surveillance in general.
A Business Week article talks about a ten year old Microsoft project called SenseCam (more here) that is just such a device.
It’s clunky today and doesn’t do most of the things I mentioned in the first paragraph above. But a true life recorder that isn’t a fashion tragedy isn’t that far away.
In fact I’ve already spoken with one startup that has been working on a device like this for over a year now, and may go to market with it in 2010.
The hardware is actually not the biggest challenge. How it will be stored, transcribed, indexed and protected online is. It’s a massive amount of data that only a few companies (Microsoft, Google, Amazon) are equipped to really handle anytime soon.
But these devices are coming. And you have to decide if you’ll be one of the first or one of the last to use one.
Will you wear one? I will. Let us know in the poll below.
Hrmm, have to decide if I’ll be the first or last to wear one of these? Alrighty.
Maybe if they make a model that you can just mount to your Segway it will really take off.
Segway? Nah, but maybe if it clips onto my hoverboard…
Just imagine if we wear all this and people get to see what we do all day and night, then we would stop being the mystery we are to people sometimes…
Why don’t you volunteer by wearing one and letting us access your life?
I’d never wear it. Like the article said, Privacy Disaster.
Could you imagine if the government or criminals could access this.
u mean “Could you imagine if the criminals (including the government) could access this.”?
If we all had one .. why would we need a government?
That would be cool for all those “You said that!”, “I didn’t said that” situations. Who never dreamed of having a rewind button to prove the other part is wrong?
Would be cool for crime solving too. “Checkout the victim’s lifecam. Ha, it’s the psyco next door! Crime solved!”
Obviously there are the worries of identify theft, but beyond that I would love for a device like this. It would be boring as I spend a great deal of my life on the computer, but regardless I would see no problem in its ‘invasion of privacy’. I rarely do anything I need to keep secret and as such dont care. However, I do forget things very often and would love such a device for that reason. I am also a social networking addict and update my status/location all the time along with pictures if I am able.
lol, i didn’t think about that. for me it would be taking pictures of a computer screen all day. My kids would be completely unimpressed.
ahaah exactly, imagine all the hours of footage (and mundane audio) that consists of a computer monitor, movie screen, or xbox game.
Oh god, movie screens. I hadn’t thought of that either. Hello, MPAA lawsuits…
If the think is smart it can detect changes in the picture and only record one if it has change significantly (configurable treshold).
It’s not just about the wearer’s privacy. That’s like saying Google street view is a concern for Google’s privacy.
What about the people the wearer interacts with every day?
yep they are boring…
lately I’ve been recording my activities by keeping my Webcam switched on at all times and storing the Video…
I have even uploaded the Screenshot Gallery from the Video…
But they are plain boring…
The Video were sometimes a little interesting…
I think in the said system uploading the history but keeping them private unless explicitly publishing them could be a Good Idea… but then who has the time to do that explicitly…
anyways… Time only will tell…
Check some of my Life Streamed into the Screenshot Gallery at
http://twitpic.com/gvssi/full
http://twitpic.com/ay6rb/full
http://twitpic.com/photos/rungss
And the Album at Facebook….
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=284336&id=636310392&l=8e559f7ec8
Justin Herrick, I have to say
you *are really an asshole*
“but regardless I would see no problem in its ‘invasion of privacy’. I rarely do anything I need to keep secret and as such dont care.”
We don’t care that you stay all day long in front of your computer watching some dummies brainwashing government-supported stuff.
This is really dangerous for our privacy, all of us! 1) I really don’t see the purpose of that! It already pisses me off to see people posting 20 pictures on facebook of themselves in the new incredible city they’ve juste been visiting – which I really don’t care about not only because the pictures are bad, but also because my “friend” does not even pay attention to what matters anymore: to share these pictures with people. I do not mean “share” like facebook means it, but I mean “share” like *real people* who *communicates* not like robots but like *humans*.
2) This seems a big step further our complete dehumanization: we won’t have to remember anymore. Why would we keep memories, if anything is on record?
3) And I don’t even talk about the potential (and surely probable) drift of such a thing! Imagine if we’d live in an entire society using this! My God! This is what Oceania’s Big Brother society would have dreamed of!
And it is not because it does not infringe your own little privacy directly and right now, that you should let this happen! Think also on the consequences on other human beings!!
But anyway… it seems like we won’t even have to think anymore, a robot could someday do it for us better than we do! Why do we bother? Thinking is *so hard*
I agree that there are potential dangers for privacy, and that for now these devices do tend to dampen our interactions with other people.
But they have a number of incredible uses both now and for beyond our generation. Yes, I don’t have to remember as much if I have a personal recorder, but for a person with alzheimers this could be an incredible help. Plus future generations could see how we really lived, without the tint of personal opinion that is applied to writing.
A great book that shows how this sort of technology could be used to benefit mankind is Robert J. Sawyer’s “Hominids” series: http://www.sfwriter.com/syho.htm
About the alzheimer argument, I have only one thing to say: **the cure is worse than the disease**
About the “future generation” thing: future generations already have enough information about us with all the media we already produce.
Plus, what is the point for future generations to have all this “legacy”, if it does not have the tint of personal opinion?! Where does personal opinion come from? Partly from our thinking! It is far more interesting for future generations to give them culture; the way we think now, etc. instead of billions of billions of completely uninteresting videos.
@TomHandy: Nothing will ever help the Segway to take off. Other than rockets.
I am pretty sure the segway idea was sarcasm.
idea is cool.. but in reality it would suck…. its like a solution that is looking for a problem…
So answer is no.. besides like most said, privacy
photos + gps + facial recognition = scary
Scary is another word for “feature rich”… depending on your point of view of course.
Yes, but your “feature rich” impinges on my privacy. If I chose not to carry one of these devices and a significant proportion of the population did, my movements would be tracked all day (on the life recroders of others) regardless of my wishes. The public would become the equivalent of a walking CCTV system. I wonder if in this brave new world, the police could subpoena your life record to track someone you may have come into contact with?
Then I hope that person was obeying the law. Although I do see your point, but unless the do some kind of work around (ala Google Earth’s invisible house feature) then I see no way out of this.
Along the lines of Google Earth’s feature, they could allow some type of “opt out” program were if/when the system recognizes you, you are black bared (or masked) out of the footage, etc.
Of course they still have a catch 22 as you need to sign up to opt out, so they already get your information anyway.
current privacy laws aren’t setup to deal with the technology available today. somebody just needs to tie together the currently available technology around taking photos, mobile net connections, social networking profiles and facial recognition for it to become really scary.
Speaking of law, this device could be the solution to the crowded prisons.
Here in California, we have a state government budget crisis and the prisons are bursting at the seams. Maybe the judges can consider sentencing the non-violent convicts to “Home Detention + Wearing Life Recorder as Movement Monitors”.
At the end of each day, the home-detention prisoner needs to transmit the daily images/data back to a automated prisoner monitor system, and if the images and GPS data show he leaves the house or does something he is not supposed to, back to the prison he goes.
Works for the parole system too.
There is a million-dollar-government-contract kind of deal for ya.
XXX
As I typed this comment, another idea just hit me: this device could be promoted to parents who are suspicious of their children’s “extracurricular activities” – make them wear this thing when the kids claim they are just “out hanging with the buddies.”
This sounds like a business opportunity for a personal Jamming device to negate the unwanted effects of being lifecasted…
PKD’s Scramble Suit comes to mind.
Sign me up, please!
It’s more likely you’ll see multiple angle CCTV arrive than personal devices en masse — kind of like what London et al put together.
But at the same time… do a search on the efficacy of the VIIDO units in relation to closed cases, stoppage, or any metric you wish to divine — it’s all money that could be better spent putting more humans on the beat.
Video digestion for behavioral vectors is in infancy and has been primarily applied to retail [1] where there is money to be made (or curb theft) vs. public monitoring where each society will have a unique push back or embrace of the expected ROI — i.e. tax dollars and an assignable conviction rate tied to the technology investment.
[1] Tyco’s IntelliVid for example
Maybe I’m just a child of the times, or perhaps I embrace technology overly assuming its benevolence, but I find all of those feature to be exciting, useful, and eventually in-disposable.
no this is a great oppertunity for all future criminals. i can’t wait.
you missed out the biggest technology of them all:
legislation
That’s what screws people en masse.
Take care of that and I will wear 10 of devices and live a clean life because everyone can watch what I do.
Don;t take care of that and my honest clean record can be criminalized overnight in a sly framing operation.
Then even good people cannot wear this thing. Not to mention RFID tagging.
This is just horrid. Makes me wanna revolt.
Sounds like real Brainstorm.
Like the movie, with Natalie Wood and Christopher Walken.
Heh. Nice timing.
Ever closer to Max Headroom, Brainstorm, Defending Your Life, or any of a number of after life or future possibilities…
Will there be limited commercial interruptions though?
Yes, privacy concerns on one hand, but on the other hand, think of what it can do to solve crime. Missing children, abductions, robberies, all what have additional material to investigate.
And it would solve all your ‘but you said…!’ disputes.
Microsoft’s photosynth could be come ever more interesting and even real time if many people wear such a device.
I can also imagine that over the years it gets more advanced. Instead of pictures every few seconds, it would eventually get video.
With a fisheye lense it could capture even more than your own eyes would.
If the privacy issues are addressed properly, I’m all for it.
Speaking of advances of technology/invasion of privacy. Remember the scene in, The Dark Knight, where Bruce is able to view the entire city by their cellphones.
With a technology like this (if it becomes advanced and used in mass numbers) someone could view an entire city in real time in 3D. Every place people are you would be watched, and the world would be updated and available in the cloud.
Besides the obvious doom and gloom outlook of nameless people spying on us as we drink our coffee and walk the dog. That is another example of an invaluable resource down the line. To have entire cities taped in real time, as recognition software becomes more advanced the ability for computers to know the exact patterns people walk in, conditions before crimes, and even minuet changes in environment from one time to another.
as long as it’s in digital format readable by a machine, i’m failed to see a reason why it wont be used in opposite term.
solving crime? as easy as cut and paste different footage and there you go, you HAVE a suspect.
Or we could go as far as “Pre-Crime” in Minority Report.
That movie points to a lot of technology that isn’t as far off as you’d think.
I think it is incredible technology but a major invasion of privacy and the collection of a lot of useless information that no one would every look at.
“But ten years ago we’d be horrified by what we nonchalantly share on Facebook and Twitter every day.”
Not going to happen.
There will always be those who don’t understand about the implications of such a behaviour. But that will never be everybody.
I would wear one if it could be affixed to my glasses.
At the rate things are going, we won’t even need cameras and recorders…everything will just transmit wirelessly from our senses to the cloud…
Nice work to Gordon Bell who has been researching this for Microsoft as long as I’ve known him
Gordon Bell is a wonderful guy (I used to work with him in the 80’s at DEC) and his research in this area has been interesting but the idea for this device was earlier described in Vannevar Bush’s article “As We May Think” that appeared in the July 1945 Atlantic Monthly. It was, of course, the same article in which Bush first described what later became known as “Hypertext”…
bob wyman
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush
Enjoy.
Welcome to Gattaca
The Final Cut is a better comparison imo
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364343/
That’s the first thing I thought of too.
Totally agreed~
yes, now we just need the editors so that our lives looks *awesome* rather than the dull mundane montage of drivel that they usually are
I also think of this movie. Of course the movie’s view is moved even further by recording video, not just taking photos. But this one has GPS so I would say they are even.
same here. and perhaps a good lesson as to where this kind of tech can take you.
My baby is 2 months old and virtually every moment of his life has already been documented from before birth on.
I think that something like this device may not be something I would personally be comfortable wearing, but I would be pretty comfortable to outfit my kid with one so he can fill in the timeline of his life between the 1000’s of pictures and video we’ll have of him.
Since it is something to be wore not something implanted, I guess the privacy way would be lesser.
The cops are gonna wanna know why you had yours turned off at the time of the crime.
Your baby probably has an unimpressive life so far – considering the only thing he’s seen is you with a camera. Remember, this thing shoots OUT rather than IN.
including my sex activity recorded for my great great grand daughter? i dont think so.
Thanks, but no thanks. I’d like to keep whatever I do on the bathroom or the bedroom unrecorded.
I’m sure at some point we could take it off and place it in a box, or something. lol, hopefully it has an off switch.
hopefully by then I will be retired chillen in the mountains somewhere
Yeah it also needs to monitor your heart rate to see if what you are doing is exciting.
I think the privacy worry is on the wrong side here. People who would buy such a device obviously wouldn’t be too concerned for privacy. But what about the tens of thousands of people you’d photograph, videotape, and record? I’m imagining a million Linda Tripp’s set loose across the world; it’s not a pretty picture (aesthetically and legally).
The whole fact that it records sound would make it illegal if the device is made so fashion forward that someone would not know you’re wearing it. What would your boss do in blackmail situations, fire everyone who talks junk about him? What If your wife’s girlfriend sees you in public with another woman? Your wife could be waiting at home with a frying pan ready to go upside your head before she even gets your defence! I don’t like the idea…now that I think about it.
I like the idea, it would need a “rated R button” form time to time though.
Also, the poll is a bit “extreme” you either are NUTS FOR IT, or HATE IT ENTIRELY
Privacy is overrated. Who cares about what the little guys do? Who reads their tweets (except the data mining bots)?
I strongly believe that if a person is concerned too much about their privacy, it’s either because they are committing a crime, or using drugs, or cheating, or, in other words, have something terrible to hide. Anyway, all this data being on the cloud does not mean that it has to be public or unencrypted. The endless number of benefits outweighs by far the few negative sides that privacy freaks could ever find!
People have to understand that life would be much simpler, much more enjoyable and stress-free if there’s nothing to hide though! Make it all public and searchable, live a happier, healthier, and longer life!
lI have to agree.
sure will sir.. in minutes i will post my CV over twitter. do you need my social security number and all password to every account i have? My banks accounts?
Yes, but you work for the KGB so…
Well, you work for the CIA then.
You, Sir are a Moron.
You, Sir, are a complete Moron.
Thank you! Coming from a person without a name and a face – it’s an honor!
This (“the only reason that you would be afraid of a breach of privacy is that if you have something to hide”) is one of the arguments that always seems extremely thin and narrow minded.
Perhaps, I would be concerned of privacy because I choose to live my life, indulge in whatever hobbies I chose, without scrutiny of others. Not sure where you are from, but here, many people consider it a sin to drink hot beverages. I enjoy coffee. I do not want other people judging me or having access to exactly what my choices are. Not because I want to “hide my coffee drinking” but more to the point, it does not concern them.
I might be concerned with privacy, because what might be a cute picture of my ten year old daughter is lusted after by lascivious persons. Believe me this does happen. When you look at who is looking at your flickr account, it is very disturbing.
I might be concerned with privacy for any number of reasons that are much more complex than “somthing to hide.” — So, please, everybody– let’s take this argument OUT of the equation.
And if others judge you then what? You should stop living a life thinking always about what others could think about your choices. Show them clearly you care less about their opinions and live and simpler happier life. People will always judge you, but so what?
What if the people judging you are the authorities who have suddenly decided that your oh so open and honest endeavors are criminal?
Whenever I hear that quote I can’t help but remember a much older one:
“Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him.”
Regarding the pictures of kids… I have 3 kids. Predators are lotech and offline. They are around schools, in the parks, in the supermarkets, walking around our neighborhoods. If my kid has a lifecam, then predators won’t have a chance. It’s really hard to teach kids to avoid strangers when they are too little as those animals know how to earn kid’s attention and trust. Imagine a lifecam that analyzes on the cloud what the kid is hearing and seeing and sending the police squad before the terrible thing happens. Of course, this is years from now in the future, but the reality is that without technology like this, it’s really impossible to safeguard your kids 24×7.
Actually, you should read the Harlan Ellison short story about how roaming videobots capture crime-in-action so we can all watch the gory details of the assault on TV, real-time. The public becomes jaded to the constant video and assault’s like popcorn to them. That’s not an unreasonable extension of playing 911 tapes, and you might prefer not to see your kids in that footage. :\ Just because there is a good to come from a technology doesn’t mean the tech is ALL good (or all bad). You’re just still on the hype cycle up-swing. Plus I’m sure we’d never intern you because your video life looked suspiciously anti-war.
Because I want my privacy and don’t want people to know exactly what I am doing I must be a cheat or doing something wrong?
Get off your dumb high horse you pompous fool.
I would trust Michael Arrington a lot more if he makes his lifecam public or at least if he’s not afraid to wear it all the time and all data to be subpoenable. Now, this is real trust!
There is something a lot more primitive, but still similar to the lifecam: CenceMe.
And, Ahmed, you should restrain yourself from using “fool” so much – your blog (and life?) is full of it.
Some people around here need to read up on their 20th century history, urgently. This system has already been tried. It’s called totalitarianism.
That’s not hyperbole. “Your business is my business is everyone’s business” is more or less the definition of both fascism and communism. Privacy is about freedom from the state, and from others.
Double-plus good!
I’ve always been interested in the fact that people feel like they have some unspeakable right to be private in public place, where, presumably, these people would be capturing the unwilling. It’s public – you have no control over who is there in person anyways.
And it is not like the government doesn’t already have all sorts of capabilities to follow someone’s life if they want to – and can probably find out more about you than you know yourself.
I feel like not exploring a technology just because it might be used badly doesn’t accomplish anything but hold back progress. If someone wants it bad enough to do wrong, they will develop it eventually anyways. Might as well get the benefit we can out of it too rather than just letting the ethically questionable take advantage of it.
K – I agree with your remarks. I will add that those who are upset with concerns about privacy being “violated” might be justified. Were a friend or family member (or co-worker) to find information on such a device that is potentially damning, it could be a stickler for that person, especially if shows them being caught in a lie. On the other hand, have you ever listened in on one side of a telephone conversation, perhaps at a public telephone? It is really boring and generally a useless pasttime. Unless you know the person on the line I cannot imagine any reason to continue eavesdropping. Most “privacy concerns” that people have are not the EARTH-SHATTERING revelations that they imagine they are. Yes, people could see that you walked into Best Buy to browse the Country Music CD section, but unless you profess to absolutely hate Country music nobody cares.
By far the greatest reason to purchase & use one of these devices would be to archive where you’ve gone each day & to retrieve conversations you’ve had that may be important later on. And, upon replaying their itinerary some people may be genuinely surprised at what they’ve said in passing. I believe that the real discovery will not be that their privacy is in jeopardy but that the person will realize just how often they reveal their prejudices and bigotry with unexpected candor.
It’s not what happens in public. It’s how everyplace becomes “public”: your hotel room, your gym, your office. There’s more than one level of public, and people have different expectations and desires for the amount of exposure they get. There’s a huge difference between someone seeing you in the gym, and someone videotaping you, because the human brain doesn’t process every little detail and the details don’t get stored and/or posted to the world. Clearly, some people prefer to have control over their image, voice, and information and be the ones who determine whether they share it with the world, while others like yourself don’t care.
Lets imagine the world when your baby will got… No! Never!
I actually had a similar idea awhile back, but my idea was to have say contact lenses with built-in video cameras that see exactly what your eyes see and record everything for later playback…
With nano technology, these sort of things could become possible… we shall see.
it is just what the mind/awareness/consciousness can already do …
why reinvent the wheel?
Because we can’t share that imagery with others otherwise? Because memory is definitely far from a perfect recording? Because it could do anything from let your parents see your kids growing up far away to helping convict a rapist to helping you figure out where you left your keys?
The idea has been around for decades. It will be interesting to see how it works – it will take hold.
Arrington… SERIOUSLY!?! Who the hell has time to watch all the shit that this records? This is the dumbest post to date for TechCrunch…
You think people will have 24hours of play? after this comes, companies will form around it. I can already see a bunch of companies offering the “highlights of your dad’s life”, a search engine for “one night stands in san francisco”, etc….
Try to see the big picture
I think the point is to have the material and to pick and choose what you want to go back and look at, not to watch it from beginning to end…
It’s an interesting idea, I can only imagine the problems with image use rights, but if today we can take pictures, I don’t see why in the future a device like this could even record everything in 3D. Only issue I can see is battery, so I guess this would be popular when true wireless electricity become a reality.
And this could be ported today as an iPhone application, right? Just use it on your shirt pocket.
Sounds like Mike is trying to beat Apple to market with something, ANYTHING….
Making a Truman Show again?