Notes on the last of the three talks giving by the Future Applications Lab folks. The last talk was on Context-Aware Photography, which seems like an interesting idea. I, too, have been bothered by the fact that digital cameras for the most part do and work exactly like their analog counterparts. Unlike them, however, they actually have some ideas of some neat things to do. They are still in a very preliminary stage.
Overview: combining sensor data with digital cameras
Motivation: Use of digital camera still the same as analog counterpart. Want to make user experience more exciting.
User study:
They considered traditional photographers too traditional to study, i.e. they are too concerned with "perfect picture;" the fidelity of the visual image is the goal. Lomographers, who are amateur photographers with "don't think, just shoot" mentality seemed to hold much more potential for innovative ideas. They are "explorative, spontantaneous, open-minded." They even use unreliable russian cameras with unpredictable color reproduction, but that's part of the art.
Big idea:
The main research idea is to "capture the invisible," to use parameters other than light, speed and focus. Context awareness can be added via a variety of sensors, so that one is "focusing on the moment of capturing an image, rather than after"
The implementation of this idea involves creating real-time visual effects based on sensor input. For example, if it's hot, the picture can be made more red, or a cold image can have it's saturation lowered.
Possible sensors include:
- movement, sound, temperature, pollution, smell, location, electromagnetic fields
The end result is "interpretable" images rather than "perfect photo."
prototype:
- ipaq with digital camera
- currently simulating sensor input
- modify HSV based on simulated sensor input
Future idea:
Triggering photograph based on sensors rather than button pushing. They hinted at investigating other types of digital filtering to use other than HSV modification. I think it might be cool to interleave the normal image with a Predator-style heat-sensing image, or they could render fake ice crystals if it's cold and have flames breaking through if something is hot. If they integrate sound they can introduce jitter/sound waves so that if I took a photo at a concert it would look chaotic. Sound localization would make this even cooler.
A really difficult idea to implement would be to do text-to-speech conversion and add in speech bubbles to the speakers.
