Ever wish you could hit rewind and play back your life’s experiences like scenes from a movie?
You might be able to soon. Microsoft researchers are working on technology that captures and organizes daily life with the same compulsive orderliness they apply to office documents.
It begins with the SenseCam, a device Microsoft researcher Lyndsay Williams calls “a black box recorder for the human body.”
More Top Picks Best Treadmills For Running
Hidden inside a piece of jewelry or badge, the SenseCam records hundreds of images a day without the wearer ever pressing a button. The fish-eye lens faces forward, taking pictures of the scene in front of the person wearing it.
Fusing a digital camera with a variety of small sensors, the SenseCam’s shutter is triggered by any change in motion, light or temperature. Later, Microsoft might add sensors that detect sound and heart rate.
“It’s a passive device that gives me a photo diary of my entire day,” said Williams, who works in Microsoft’s lab in Cambridge, England.
Wearing a prototype SenseCam around her neck, Williams took a walk one day last week through a college campus and marketplace in Cambridge. On Thursday in Redmond, she relived that walk by fast forwarding through the images on a computer.
The SenseCam captured 150 photos in less than an hour, with results that looked a bit like a home movie. It captured her footsteps past gray buildings and bright shops and into the seat of a taxi.
The gadget might have as much appeal to snoops as the absent-minded. It uses a motion sensor like ones found on outdoor lights, snapping pictures of anyone standing nearby.
Williams said no one she encountered in Cambridge asked her about the camera around her neck, even though its red light flashed with every click.
“People are so busy, nobody noticed,” she said.
The SenseCam could be useful in the tourism industry for travelers to re-create their holiday experience. No products have been planned yet, but the camera itself costs as little as $100 to $200 to produce, said Andrew Herbert, managing director of the Cambridge lab.