There are quite a few eerie similarities between Rob Spence and Tanya Vlach. For starters, they're both artists, and secondly, they both currently have one prosthetic eye. The real kicker? Each of 'em wants
a camera stuck in there instead. In what we can only hope is (or isn't?) a freakishly growing trend, Mr. Spence has reportedly sought consultation from the University of Toronto's Steve Mann, a self-proclaimed expert in the field of wearable computing and cyborgs. Essentially, Rob is hoping to install a webcam in his eye socket in order to become a so-called "lifecaster." The camera wouldn't actually be wired to his brain, thus his level of vision would remain subpar, but it would make him a living science experiment that would surely prove insightful to an array of others. As of now, it sounds like the road to installation is long, but we get the impression that this guy isn't apt to give up until the proverbial fat lady begins to bellow.
posted December 5th 2008 9:34AM
"It was literally the size of a deck of cards without the box." Are you implying that the difference in space occupied by a deck of cards within its box is so significantly larger than a boxless deck of cards that it warrented this extra bit of information or do you live in a land where cards come in excessively wastefull space occupying packaging?
"...a camera stuck in there instead. "
Oh, come on Engadget!
You should know better than to mix up your "there/their"s.
If they all had robotic/webcam eyes, this would no longer be a problem with a spell checker plug-in...
Forget the camera gag... Dexter's Lab already covered that one.
What they should go for is the much cooler Goku: Midnight Eye approach, stuffing an entire computer in there capable of instantly hacking into any machine on earth. Then all they'd need are antenna-like extending poles they can use to pole vault across the city and kill people with.
Heck, I'd trade my both eyes with a pair of WHUXGA cameras streaming at 128bit directly to my brain! Add night vision, cloth-thru-vision and concrete-thru-vision and I'd throw in a kidney!
Cool! They should use their PDA and QIK.com account to broadcast their entire live 24/7 sort of like a real-life version of The Truman Show, the 1998 fantasy comedy-drama film
I'm going to win the lottery then pay them to have freaky cyborg sex.
????
Profit!
We are moving into a world that is completely open, completely transparent, where nothing is private. Good or bad? I don't know yet.
Actually, the "killer app" for augmenting humans with today's electronic technology is how to generate power from the blood stream without danger to the user. Do we store and use ATP? Do we borrow some blood pressure to drive a tiny turbine? Or could it use a Stirling engine with good blood flow along the back of it? Or a Peltier effect device, but running backwards (heat differential generates a tiny current)?
I always wondered why we can't modify animal cells to accept Chloroplasts so that we can photosynthesise. Then we would breathe out CO2 from the lungs but would then also be able to release oxygen from our pores. Yeah, we'll probably get dehydrated (Transpiration?) but I'm sure we'll deal with it.
Or make solar-powered skin... Then there is a reason for public nudity. LA, here I come!
Because just having chlorophyll-ized skin won't give us enough energy. Plants are all about surface area higher Animals are all about density. For us to be able to gather enough sunlight to make it worthwhile... we'd look like walking trees... or flatworms.
oooh.. entmoot time...
Don't do it!! Lifecasting sucks!!!!
Oscar Goldman on line 2
Hello, possible cancer starter.
I'm for using webcams as a means for people to see (so it is actually connected to the brain in some way), but I'm opposed to people weaing a webcam for recording.. So I hope they will make a law or something like it, because if you've lost an eye it doesn't give you the right to start 'videotaping' everybody where you are walking/looking...
It's a lawsuit waiting to happen...