A camera is attached outside the glasses. The blue light indicates that the camera is shooting something.

It first really started as away messages on our IM client. You couldn’t easily take your curser, run it down your buddy list and see exactly what they were up to. But that of course was not enough, what if we were out, what if we wanted to communicate more and so Facebook was born. Everybody could see how you feel about the man in the corner and they could even comment on your duck-faced kiss photo. But why would that be enough? So Twitter was born and we all know about that. By the way, please “like” our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter. For some people, these methods are enough, but for others, they wish for you to know everything about their life.

Enter Lifeloggers. Via Wikipedia, Lifeloggers (also known as lifebloggers or lifegloggers) typically wear computers in order to capture their entire lives, or large portions of their lives. Sony Computer Science Laboratories (Sony CSL) Inc. and the University of Tokyo have created a camera that is small enough to attach to your glasses and record what you see. The key here of course isnt the small camera, because we all have them on our cellphones. Instead, what makes this unique is the camera’s ability to measures human eye movement and record that information.

 An infrared light is directed to the eyeball, and the photoreceivers detect the light reflected on the eyeball to locate the position of the black part of the eyeball so that the movement of the eye can be measured. By associating the eye movement with the image from the camera, the user’s objects of interest are determined. 

Next, Sony has been able to allow the camera to recognize English characters and collect and record data based on that. This information, in conjunction with the future update of GPS tagging will allow the unit to determine exactly where you are and what information you are looking at. So as an example, if I was wearing such an equipment tonight, my glasses would read Lady Gaga concert and my GPS would show the Staples Center. Putting the two information together would then have the system report that I was at a Lady Gaga concert at the Staples Center. And yes, I will actually be there tonight.

The device to track the movement of human eyes is attached to the glasses and connected to a notebook PC. An image taken by the camera embedded in the device is being shown on the PC screen. The white box on the screen indicates the part that is being gazed at by the user.

Of course, all of this is fun and silly talk, but one can only imagine what this technology can achieve once it is fully functional and much more robust. The military can get full data from the soldiers while they are on the battlefield. This can be very valuable as a soldier might not remember all the information or be able to take it all in. Instead with this equipped to them, the information would be sent back to command, while they analyze all the information and make the appropriate changes to the battlefield plan. Another measure can be for patients and having your information reported to your hospital with the appropriate alert and location being sent back to them in case something were to happen to you.

The device has a function to recognize English characters being read by the user. In this picture, it recognized the characters "Eye Tracking Methodology."

[Via Tech-On]