Can Startup Bubbli Turn Geotagged Photos Into Matrix-esque Augmented Reality?

BY KIT EATONWed Feb 9, 2011

Startup Bubbli just raised $2 million in funding from August Capital, which will help it in its mission to build "the Matrix (minus the sentient AI)." What's it all about?

Bubbli's home page is mystical, to say the least. It really does say its mission statement is to build the Matrix, but there's a string of text that gives us some big clues: "Take a look in your pocket," it suggests, "You probably have a smartphone. You're looking at something that governments used to pay millions of dollars to launch into space. You presumably launched your device into your back pocket for merely a few benjamins." So we know this is smartphone-centric. But then the text goes on:

While you were out shopping: Thousands of brilliant papers have been published in computer vision about understanding the world around you through a camera chained to a workstation in a basement. The algorithms need to be set free. Why liberate the algorithms? The better we understand reality through a camera lens, the better we can replicate it elsewhere. After all, our eyes are just light sensors, what does it matter that the light that goes into your eyes is reflected off of an object from the sun or comes from a digital display?The company is trying to recruit three programmers, including a computer-vision expert, and will soft launch at the upcoming TED event.

Bubbli's site has resulted in some speculation online thanks to this mystery, and the fact that some of the site's support has come from John Doerr, who injected massive amounts of cash into Twitter--a venture that has done pretty well. Doerr noted he'd seen Bubbli, and thus had "seen the future."

But what can we infer from Bubbli's site? It seems the firm is planning something pretty impressive. Bubbli has realized that when all of us, by the million, snap photos and videos (by the billion) of our daily events, we're recording a rich digital story of the world--with accurate GPS locations, angular information and digital compass data (in some cases), so that it's possible to work out precisely where the images were created.


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FROM THE SINGULARITY HUB

Will Lady Gaga’s New Glasses Bring Lifelogging to the Masses?

Pop diva Lady Gaga’s latest sunglasses are straight out of a spy movie. Produced in collaboration with Polaroid, and unveiled recently at CES 2011, the GL20 Camera Glasses use two small screens in the lenses to display images and video from an embedded camera. Users can snap photos or record video of their surroundings, and then upload that content to a computer via Bluetooth or a USB port hidden in the ear piece. The GL20 is scheduled to be available later this year at an undisclosed price. You can see the premier of Gaga’s latest venture into electronics at the CES press event in the video below. Devices like these Camera Glasses will make it remarkably simple to record one’s life as it happens. With her new line of products, Lady Gaga could help bring lifelogging to the masses.

Over a year ago, Polaroid announced it had hired Lady Gaga as its Creative Director. Through that collaboration was born the Grey Label, Gaga’s new line of designer electronics. Along with the GL20 Camera Glasses, Polaroid also announced the launch of a $150 mobile photo printer (with Bluetooth connectivity), and a new line of Polaroid cameras (with both digital and photo printing capabilities). During the press event, Gaga also mentioned that she’ll be producing a device that could push your photos directly to social media outlets:


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FROM DVICE

Smiley face spy cam delivers secret video with feel good design

The last thing a cadre of stormtroopers, or the subject of a sting operation is expecting is a smiley face button concealing a spy cam, which is exactly what makes this device a must have for amateur covert ops.

The Smile Name Badge Sports HD DVR can take still pictures and record video and audio all from the surreptitious confines of your lapel. Powered by a rechargeable lithium ion battery and equipped with a Micro SDHC Card slot for 2 gigabytes of memory, or two hours of recording, you can pick up the ultimate peace lover's spy tool for just $35 here.

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FROM YAHOO NEWS

Rearview cameras could become more common in cars

WASHINGTON – Rearview cameras could become more common in future cars and trucks under rules proposed by the government Friday to address concerns about drivers unintentionally backing over children.

The new requirements from the Transportation Department are intended to improve rear visibility in cars by the 2014 model year. Most carmakers would comply by installing rear-mounted video cameras and in-vehicle displays. The government estimated that video systems would add about $200 to the cost of each new vehicle.

Congress in 2008 set in motion the safety upgrades in response to dozens of accidents in which children were backed over. At issue in particular were blind zones in large sport utility vehicles and pickups.

"There is no more tragic accident than for a parent or caregiver to back out of a garage or driveway and kill or injure an undetected child playing behind the vehicle," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. He said the changes would "help drivers see into those blind zones directly behind vehicles to make sure it is safe to back up."

Nearly 300 people are killed and 18,000 injured each year because of backovers, according to data kept by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Many happen in driveways and parking lots. Nearly half the deaths involve children under age 5, and the crashes also affect the elderly.

The agency estimated that the requirements annually could save 95 to 112 lives and prevent more than 7,000 injuries.
In about 70 percent of the cases, a family member is responsible for the death, said Janette Fennell, president of Kids and Cars, a Kansas-based safety group.

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Prof to drill camera into own skull

Al-Qaeda hacker set for third eye

An assitant professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts will embed a digicam into the back of his head as part of a year-long art piece — and some of his fellow faculty aren't too happy about it.

The Iraqi-born American artist Wafaa Bilal has been commissioned by a new museum in Qatar to drill the camera into his head and have it take pictures at one-minute intervals for a year, with the images to be displayed in the museum — Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art — after it opens in Doha on December 30.

Bilal declined to comment on the project, entitled "The 3rd I", to The Wall Street Journal, which reported it on Tuesday,

In classic artspeak, the museum's promo materials describe "The 3rd I" as being "a comment on the inaccessibility of time, and the inability to capture memory and experience."

Some of the NYU faculty, however, describe having an active camera embedded in an active professor's skull as an invasion of students' privacy.

"Obviously you don't want students to be under the burden of constant surveillance; it's not a good teaching environment," associate chairman of Bilal's photography and imaging department Fred Ritchin told the WSJ.

The department chairwoman Deborah Willis says that when Bilal informed her of his planned headcam, she asked: "What if students are upset? What if you're documenting what they don't want you to see?"

The department is still mulling how to handle the matter. Suggestions include putting a lens cap over Bilal's all-seeing back of the head during teaching hours, or just turning the damn thing off when he's on the NYU campus.


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From The Telegraph

Germans develop device to stop drivers falling asleep at the wheel

German scientists have invented a device designed to prevent motorists from falling asleep at the wheel which could save 300,000 lives a year around the world.

The system devised at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology involves minuscule cameras that monitor eye movements, which trigger an alarm when drivers seem about to nod off.
Cameras are set up to follow the line of vision even when the driver's head moves left or right.
Utilising up to six dashboard-mounted cameras with compact 3 to 4 millimetre lenses, the system processes up to 200 images per second to detect sleepiness using parameters like line of vision and eyelid position, irrespective of the position of the driver's head.

Professor Peter Husar of the institute said; ""What we have developed is a small modular system with its own hardware and programmes on board, so that the line of vision is computed directly within the camera itself.


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FROM FAST COMPANY

Coming Soon: Movie Screens That Watch You Back, Measure Your Reactions


Movie theater technology is getting a novel tweak--it'll start watching audiences to see how they react to movies and ads. The silver screen is set to watch you back, and it's all in the cause of market research.

Some theaters have already been watching you for years, but only to make sure you're not recording the show. Cameras embedded in the screen can detect the tell-tale infra-red signature of a digital camera. But that was just the first step. Aralia Systems, a U.K. high-tech security firm, just earned nearly $350,000 in a grant from the University of the West of England to turn those cameras into a system for gauging audience reaction to films and advertising.

We're not talking about a dumb clapometer-style system, either. The intention is to produce rich data that can measure the details of an individual's face. Aralia will leverage 3-D face recognition technology that the university is already developing. When you sit in the audience of a theater with their system, you'll be illuminated with an infra-red beam, and three or more cameras will continually monitor the crowd to create stereoscopic images--just like the 3-D digital cameras that are now launching on the consumer markets.

The system should be able to detect a great deal. It will know the direction your face is pointing in, your expression, whether you're shocked by something, whether you're sitting in a family group or on your own, at what point you get bored, and so on. This is invaluable data for marketers, who can gauge how well their ad messages are getting across. Potentially, they could change the ad's placement in the reel between showings to see if they get a better reaction. And it isn't just the ad reel, of course. Movie studios have been running test screenings for years--they'd love to get a sense of which scenes to cut, without having to go through the fuss of having audiences fill out surveys.


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