Prone to the occasional memory lapse? Smart cameras can now remind you where you put your wallet or if you turned off the stove and locked your front door.
Khai Truong at the University of Toronto in Canada and his colleagues have created a smartphone app that records . The system involves bar code-like markers that the user sticks to the objects they would like to track.
With the smartphone worn around the neck, the app automatically records short video clips when preselected objects come into view. Each video is saved and grouped based on object type. 鈥淭he user is able to browse through the application and see the last time they interacted with it,鈥� says Truong.
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The app can help people track the state of objects 鈥� such as whether they locked a door or switched a light off 鈥� as well as routine actions, like the last time they watered a plant or took their medication. At present, the app successfully captures about 75 per cent of interactions, but only works for fixed objects.
A similar but separate system can tell you . E. Akin Sisbot and Jonathan Connell at IBM Research in New York have devised a ceiling-mounted camera system that monitors objects and people.
It continuously watches an area, such as a table top, tracking the placement of objects in relation to one another. It also remembers who first brought an object into the field of view as well as if anyone moved it afterwards.
When asked 鈥淲here is my wallet?鈥�, the system might respond, 鈥淚t is next to the vase, under the magazines.鈥� It could be used in factories or operating theatres, where tools have specific locations and the tidiness of a workspace affects efficiency or accuracy, says Sisbot.
For now, the camera uses a depth sensor to spot objects. It is limited to detecting things thicker than 3 centimetres, meaning that it has trouble with thin items such as a closed laptop placed flat on a table.
Multiple cameras would need to be set up to cover several flat surfaces in a room where items could be left, or to cover multiple rooms in a house. The team has plans to implement the system in a robot that can move between rooms.
Both the smartphone app and ceiling camera could be used to help people with memory problems.
In future, both systems will trial proactive reminders, such as prompting someone if they have left the stove on, or if they have accidentally taken someone else鈥檚 cup of coffee.
Human memory is fallible, but our ability to recall events can be significantly improved by external cues, says Geoffrey Ward at the University of Essex, UK.
The accuracy of such smart camera systems may need to improve before they are widely adopted. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to trust the technology for it to be of any comfort or reassurance,鈥� says Ward.
Continuous surveillance by smart cameras may also pose privacy issues. Cloud-connected appliances might be an alternative way to provide a more reliable solution, such as internet-connected stoves that send alerts if they have been left on.
