June 30, 2003
GPS Tagged CamPhones
Written by dav, someone I know through infoanarchy.org. I found the article on the web through muxway:
"Mie's cellphone can tag each photo she takes with the latitude/longitude coordinates. Last night she tried sending a geotagged jpeg for the first time, so this morning I started researching how to get the coordinates out of the jpeg. It turns out that the data is stored in EXIF headers.
...
Finally, I found a java library/util called metadata-extractor which seems to parse every bit of data it can from the jpeg, including all of the GPS data!
Now I was in business. I hacked in a call to the java util in blogpost.pl and also some code which causes each geo-coded image to be hot linked to a japanese version of mapquest called mapfan. A better system would take a look at the coordinates and link to whatever map system was appropriate (mapquest or tiger for US and European locations) but for right now the only person using geo-tagged jpegs with my blogpost.pl (that I know of) is Mie, and her phone only works in Japan." -Exerpt from AkuAku SF
June 22, 2003
BlueTooth GPS Unit
Aparently wireless GPS units have hit the market. Sounds good, I just wish 802.11b and BlueTooth would play nicely, because I'm interested in this item.
June 21, 2003
DejaView Announces Gargoyle Toys
DejaView has released a wearable computer with one purpose, to capture video. The camera itself starts at $80, but to get the full working model one needs to get their CamWear 100, which costs $300 $400 and can record 250 thirty second video clips. The DejaView wearable passively records, and when you request a clip, it's of the previous thirty seconds, not the thirty seconds after you hit the button. Their more expensive model, the CamWear 200XP costs $500 and can record four hours of video.
Update (June 12th, 2004):
They just announced that they've found someone to produce their product, sans expensive model.
"Deja View was demonstrating their interesting wearable camcorder. It contains their patent-pending technology that has created a camera/microphone unit less than an inch long and smaller than a nickel. It’s designed to be worn on your eyeglasses or hat. It’s attached by a wire to a PDA-sized remote unit that clips to a belt or waistband." - Exerpt from MSNBC.
June 17, 2003
Video Phone Ubiquity
Dragoon pointed me out to this post he had previously written. He will be away for the next month, but I am likely to increase my writing during this time. If anyone would wish to write in this blog, please don't hesitate to email.
We found out about a consumer-level use of digital recorders via Boing Boing, titled 'UK pub toilet rape captured on phonecams by onlookers'. Video phones are definately be a big proponent of cheap gargoyle items, as we can expect this technology to become standard items quite soon. Some people at The Register think that phones are going to become "the new computer".
Dragoon [Boing Boing and Hit and Run] at 06-17-2003 06:14 PM ET
"LA County's impounding camera phones already. No official notices up yet, but the courthouse guards noticed my attachment when it went through the metal detector.
One thing that struck me about this:
More and more phones are coming with cameras not as an attachment, but as a built-in component, just like the memo-recording capability of many phones. And videophones capable of low-quality streaming video are on the verge of moving from satellites to local networks and becoming accessible to consumers, not just embedded reporters.
Which means you're going to have a lot more people who are going to be forced to relinquish their phones in various places, even as more people become accustomed to always having the same communication power as a TV station and newspaper, although a insignificant percent of the audience, in a mobile fashion."
Image from AsiaHype
June 13, 2003
Wearable Power, Input
One of the issues preventing the uptake of wearables and the creation of a gargoyle subculture is power: what good is a device that requires multiple expensive batteries just for a single day's use? Fuel cells promise an eventual solution, but reducing the cost and size will take years.
News of one potentional solution comes from yuichi's Kokoro blog in the shape of Smart Textile, a technology from Infineon Technologies that produces electricity from the temperature gradient between one's body temperature and air temperature.
The japanese article from ZDNet Japan describing Smart Textiles includes the picture to the right, which shows what is not going to be the future of wearable computing.
Efficient input devices for wearables are another issue. Another entry from Japan is this new one-handed keyboard and mouse based on cell phone design. Japanese youth are fairly adept with cellphone text entry, so this might actually meet a demand. Hopefully some sort of autocomplete will be provided. (Snarfed from Slashdot)