In the future you could be reminded about your experiences with people and places just by looking at them.
Credit: iStockphoto
MEGEVE, FRANCE: Picture this: as your eyes alight for the first time on a skyscraper in a foreign cityscape, a disembodied voice whispers in your ear the phone number of a posh bar on the top floor.
Or this: You have been spotted on the street by an old friend whose name suddenly eludes you. But even before there is time to shake hands, a glance at your smartphone reveals her identity and the date of your last encounter.
Welcome to the world of augmented reality, the here-and-now enhancement of everyday experience through virtual, interactive technology.
From the augmented human conference
Prototypes of both of these applications - based on the novel use of eye-tracking tools - were presented last weekend at the inaugural Augmented Human International Conference.
Over two days, engineers and scientists gathered in the French Alps ski resort of Megeve unveiled cutting-edge research on boosting human perception with information from the Internet, customised databases, or even biofeedback from our own brains.
The first devices for monitoring eye movement collected data from pilots in the 1940s to help improve cockpit design. They have also been used to figure out the most effective ways to get people to see advertising.
Vision as a two-way system
More recently the systems have became interactive, making it possible to instantly provide computer-enhanced feedback to someone about what he or she is gazing at.
These newer technologies has been used mainly by the military, and to develop life-assistance tools for the severely disabled.
But researchers from The Telecommunications Research Center in Vienna decided to take a state-of-the-art eye tracker designed for Web-use analysis out of the laboratory and onto the street.
Eye linked to GPS
They hooked up the device - with one camera trained on the user's eye, and another on the scene being observed - to a smart phone with a built-in compass and global positioning system (GPS), to get a fix on the user's orientation and location.
They added sensors that show whether one was looking up or down, and attached the whole kit - designed to navigate urban landscapes - to a bicycle helmet. Closing one's eyes for two seconds triggers a request for information about the building, bridge or monument in view.
range finding
Imagine that an athlete or soldier had this ability. A golfer or sharpshooter with instant range finding or a baseball hitter who has an enhanced ability to know the speed of a pitch.