Monocular San Francisco artist wants webcam installed in her prosthetic eye
By Laura June 
posted Nov 17th 2008 1:57PM
posted Nov 17th 2008 1:57PM
Tanya Vlach, a San Francisco-based artist, lost her eye in a 2005 car accident, and now keeps a blog chronicling the "monocular life." She's got a real-enough looking prosthetic peeper, but Tanya's a self-described "sci-fi geek," and, with the approval of her doctor, she's put out a call for engineers to build her a camera... for her fake eye. Likening her possible future self (the one with the eye-cam installed) to a cyborg, Tanya reasons that her aesthetic-only eye could become a source of "augmented reality," and she's got a list of possible specs up on her blog for would-be engineers to begin with. Just some of the things mentioned for inclusion are: DVR capabilities, MPEG-4 compression, a microSD slot, A/V out, and Bluetooth. In other words, Tanya Vlach is insanely cool. Emphasis on the insanely part.
[Via Digg]
[Via Digg]
We can see what she is seeing at her web site....now don't take this in the kinky direction.
Can we get one of the pro athletes to do the same thing. I'd rather watch practice, and locker room pep talks.
Pro athletes !?!?!?!
How about every police department in the U.S. ?
@ R40Railfan:
http://www.hulu.com/cops
What I think is so funny about Jeri Ryan is how alot of people don't realize she was in a sex scandal with her husband Jack Ryan who was beaten later on by Barack Obama for the Senate seat.
It was alleged she performed sex acts in the back of a kinky club.
I just wish it was me screaming "Assimilate this..."
Seven of Nine! I will comply!
Coming to a porn site near you,
CyberHooker
Hmm, I suppose there is some hope for mankind. Think we should put her in a cryogenic sleep state too and wake her up in 500 years to help water plants with water.
Her eye can store videos for the idiocracy humans in the future to see and take as gods words.
Is Idiocracy your gimmick now?
It would appear so.
Wasn't a great movie, but it had its moments and did make a good point.
"I'm not guilty!"
"That's not what the other lawyer said."
i feel like his comments are on some kind of auto-comment program that fills in some of the story into his pre-typed idiocracy based template
It's like those spammers that just say things like "Excellent post! Thanks for sharing this information! my comments at: www.imlame.com/douche."
I suppose 2 posts are enough.. any more and I will be in the leagues of iEye
Running a USB cable from the eyeball-cam will require additional surgery.
I wonder where the cable would go out from.
That implies a male USB connection. She would obviously be fitted for a female connection. I'm sure she has a few accessible ports already.
she already said bluetooth as a requested feature.
I wonder if she'll have to plug in her eye to charge the battery every night while sleeping!
Would be kewl if she could pop it out at night and drop it in a bowl that charges it via induction.
Seems feasible to get an induction medium that would double as a cleaning soultion, but in order to charge it would be pretty harsh on her tissues. You gotta go with a two-step combo that uses a separate rinsing/moisturizing solution.
Will she be able to pull it out, roll it across the floor and spy on people in different rooms?
Well, I suppose not really, because it wouldn't be transmitting to her brain. So close!
Power or charging via induction doesn't need to be hard on her tissues. There are several biomedical devices out there already that do both. Well, at least charging by induction is already done. Pretty sure there are some devices (or at least some in development) that are powered by induction.
oh you mean she wants to pull of a "doomsday"
Essentially there are only 3 hurdles to overcome: powering the camera, storage, and connection to the storage. Now assuming they use something small like an 8GB MicroSD for storage, that should be plenty of space for a few hours and comes with the added feature of storage upgrades, so that's not too big of a problem. If she doesn't mind removing the eye whenever she's reading the storage, there's another step overcome. But powering it...that might prove a little difficult, especially for multiple hours at a time. I'm definitely calling this plausible. DO IT!
Plausible? Ha - Only Adam or Jamie can determine that.
For the data connection, use the Eye-Fi SD card - built-in wifi downloads from the camera
About the energy, they could use little photovoltaic cells on the iris (the only problem is that I don't know if that would be efficient), and there's also the possibility of converting mechanical energy into electricity by the use of dynamos. The transfer of files could be made by Bluetooth or maybe WiFi, though I don't know if there could be an antenna small enough to fit with all the other devices. There's also the problem of the equipment being too close to the brain (remember some cases in UK of people reporting headaches after being exposed for a long time to WiFi signals?). Storage could be external, considering there would be a wireless connection to such device (which could be a portable hard drive of about 1TB, maybe).
It's risky, expensive and it's going to be tough, but it sure would be a great example of connectivity of man and gadgets. ;)
On another note, it would also be cool if she could wear some type of sunglasses looking apparatus that had would let her zoom in with the camera and display the picture on a screen in front of her good eye. Oakley should be all over this, maybe they can throw in an mp3 player as well.
Thanks for the high rankings.
Dude, poor form. You don't thank someone for thinking you're cool or funny - you quietly accept the compliment and continue doing what made you momentarily socially acceptable. It's refined peer pressure. Thanking them simply lets them know that you actually aren't cool enough to be so ice cold in the midst of a compliment. We'll give you a break this time.
On my wifi dongle it says "operate at least 30cm away from the body", my point being that having effective wifi in your eyesocket might not be healthy really, at least BT is designed for low power and might cause less such concerns.
I have an off topic question: Why does engadget gray out some comments? Anyone know? Sorry for posting it in random thread.
It greys out low/lowest ranked and highlights highly/highest ranked...
Just look at the rankings to find out >.< It's not hard.
Greyed out: Low rankings. Bright blue: High rankings. The plus and negative above each post.
professor... it must be your eyes... you should consider removing them and installing webcams instead
Now you know...
Now you know...
My bad for not refreshing the thread...
Now watch me greying out slowly, ProfessorKaos, and take notes.
Wow!
Wow! To your avatar, man!
forget his avatar I'm fapping to that gorgeous model in the photo right now... those lips :X
I second the wow to your avatar!
Cutey Honey
Don't let Sony make the battery, would be horrible if the battery exploded in her eye socket >_
that would be a spectacle.
iEye?????????
Eye see what you did there.
oddly hes no-where to be seen....
sssshhhhh, you'll wake him. I was hoping to go douche free today.
A douche a day keeps the away.
Don't do it...as you'll most likely be banned for life from movie theaters, concerts, public bathrooms, the locker rooms at my gym, and a whole host of other places. But seriously though, it gave me an idea. Does anyone know how I can reach John Bobbitt?
Only if they know about the camera.
@Eric
Hum, I think half world already knows she plans to have a camera inside her fake eye. It sucks to be famous, huh?
People that read blogs aren't half the world. They could post her face and this story in the biggest newspaper in the U.S. and she still probably wouldn't be noticed in person all but extremely rarely. She'll be fine, and will have a kick ass camera eye.
Haha- What is we then got this chick and Bobbitt together for a little BJ action? We'd have all the angles covered!
I'd love to see her go through airport security. She'll never see (out of) that eye again.
Did anybody else immediately think of Artemis Fowl?
Considering the fact that on AF books the cameras were just contact lenses... no.
what the hell just happened?
did you get out artemis fowled on?
No, but I thought of Citizen G'Kar...
POV! oh yeah!
get ready for some rug munch action!
that'll help soothe your permanent virginity
Forget storage. The "altered reality" part is the cool one. Instead of seeing the world in a filter of Red, Green, and Blue that our normal eyes get, you can observe infrared, ultraviolet, or any rush of wavelengths in between. Add filters, adjust contrasts, or tune in night vision. That would be awesome!
She is not going to be able to "see" what the camera sees without some external monitor.
@zirb, yes! I have been saying this for years. Seriously.
I think nobody remembers there should be a microphone. It could be implanted in her ear, don't you think?
na she already has a real ear, i know a guy with only one, they should join a digital crew
@Oli D
What?? Man, I didn't say she needs a new ear, but she needs a microphone to use with the camera, and it could be implanted inside her ear, that, by the way, she already has, and two (!) of them.
P.S.: I was being sarcastic with the (!).
Forget the camera, how about more of Jeri Ryan?
this group only likes prepubescent oriental girls
they wouldnt know what a real woman looks like
@bangladeshiluv
I was just about to agree with you, but then you used the term "Oriental" and made me ten kinds of disappointed.
Ah! I got it. She wants to record what she misses with the prosthetic eye and then watch it on here TV with the healthy one.
Clever girl!
This story immediately made me think of Olhado from Speaker for the Dead (and the subsequent two Ender books in which he was also present.)
I was hoping I wasn't the only one. Great series!
Me too, I love those books, on to the Shadow series now! Would it not feel really weird to stick a usb mini plug into your eye, or eject a microsd card by pressing?
Olhado was the first thing that came to my mind too....
Smells like someone rented Doomsday,
Man that movie sucked.
Bluetooth!
I also imagine the heat generated from power would be a danger. Don't want to fry her brain.
If I was getting a camera implanted in my eye I'd want it to be a RED eye.
http://www.red.com
Schill.
Mmmmmm. Seven of Nine. I forgot how hot she was...
If she went to a movie theater she would be arrested for video recording piracy. If she read a book, or saw a picture, or saw a trademarked logo such as the big yellow arches and then put what she saw on the web she could be in violation of copyright. We don't have the right to publish everything we see, only the right to the sweet memories of our visions.
Haha, I'm soooo ready to read books through someone's eye-webcam off of youtube...
Still, she'd be in a real pickle if she had need for a recording ear rather than eye.
Better to go for something interesting, like UV or IR vision. Something nobody else sees in real-time.
I'll be sure to KEEP AN EYE OUT for anyone that might be able to help.
Call Apple, see if they have an "iSight" camera avail..[thud].
This is couchpundit's spouse. I've knocked him unconscious so this should be the end of the tasteless posts for a while. My apologies...
The man/woman in the picture looks like a man dressed as a woman. Oh wait it is San Fransisco, that's why.
That's just David Bowie!
You don't know Jeri Ryan? You fail.
I hereby sentence you to watch seasons 4 through 7 of Star Trek: Voyager. At a 24 hour San Franciscan gay bar.
nothing good can come of this....just go watch the movie Strange Days....nothing good ever became of that movie for sure.
Hmm, Judging by the long list of specs she's mentioned for inclusion, I can only imagine how far that things going to stick out of her skull!
Not to be that guy but I'd go with a pic of Blind Mag from Repo! The Genetic Opera in this case.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEXWcxiCVP4
Check out around 1:14.
Worst movie EVER! (And you thought Rocky Horror was bad!)
I can see it now people hacking her eye camera for all sorts of perverted reasons.
I like the solar-powered idea...but what about kinetic energy?
I dunno much about ocular prostheses, but I assume that the muscles still work, i.e., she can move the eye around just like she moves the other one. Much like those flashlights that get charged by shaking, or those watches [do they really exist or are they just conceptual at this point] that are powered by their daily being jostled around, couldn't the eye-cam be powered by the constant micromovements that ones eyes go through, even in sleep [several movements per second in both cases]?
Bluetooth seems the most sensible way to transfer data to me...surely even a tiny antenna inside her peeper would be able to transmit data from said eyeball to the cell phone in her purse/pocket. The bluetooth connection could go both ways, and her phone could act as a remote control for transmission or maybe even zoom or a hypnobeam/mindreadray.
Resistance, it seems, is futile.
Interesting idea, but would be even better if combined with:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/07/vr-goggles-turn-the-real-world-into-ascii-art/
This lady has spent too much time reading cell phone specifications while conceiving this idea without thinking if they make design sense.
Shrinking AV ports and a memory slot in to the size of an eyeball does not make any sense. Sure it's nice to have, but not the best way to go. Creating a high tech eye that can stream data to a waist mounted recorder box with all the av ports and other features makes more sense. Intel and others are working on wireless electricity, within 3-5 years we will see cell phones which are charged wirelessly. So it makes sense for her to ride on the coat tails of existing cutting edge Research & Development. Shrinking the wireless electricity in to an eye could take longer then charging a cell phone, but it is no more then 8 years away.
From a design perspective:
The micro sd slot will consume far too much precious space and require shrinking down everything else to compensate for the lost space from the memory slot.
The AV port once again is a waste of precious space and is not necessary. AV ports mean more circuitry.
Make an eye with a custom ASIC that combines image sensor, wireless transceiver and near field induction coil for receiving power wirelessly. The eye would communicate to a waist mounted power supply/data storage box. The box would contain her desired memory slot, AV ports in addition to a wifi transceiver so she could stream her perspective to others.
meh maybe my idea is just as much of a pipe dream
I could see this becoming a really big gimmick for people who have lost an eye. Get a decent amount of storage, a 12-16hr battery life, etc.
Obviously it wouldnt overcome the fact that they are missing an eye, but they would have some cool advantage over the rest of us. They would be able to go back and play anything they saw that day. Imagine the possibilities. Eying that hot chick you saw earlier, having video footage of something amazing or perfectly candid. Not to mention, you would be one of only people to be able to actually have a camera in a strip club.
Damn....Now I want one
a webcam? in her eye? for what? she could just hang a webcam around her neck, like that german cat. and it'd still be less interesting than the german cat's perspective.
why not a laser pointer? a bar-code scanner? infrared / led illumination? why not have your android parts do something interesting. what this world definitely doesn't need is a san franciscan walking around, not just laboring under the delusion that we all care what they're thinking or doing, but actually publishing evidence of that labor.
don't try so hard SF! we don't care!
I can carry nearly eighty gigs of data in my head.
Seven of Nine, my favorite Star Trek: Voyager character. I say good for Tanya Vlach, if she is really crazy enough to get a webcam installed in her eye. Go girl, go!!
She wants a microSD slot? LOL... Oh yeah, that would be really attractive. Nothing gets a guy goin' more than a woman sliding a memory card into her eyeball - hot hot hot! ROTF.
why, isn't that 2 out of 3 from Star Trek??