The EyeTap
Wikipedia is running Transhumanism as their featured article today; and, rereading it, I got sidetracked seeing if there was anything new in the Sousveillance article. There wasn't really, but I did get sidetracked once again on the EyeTap article (above).
My god. I can't believe that for one moment, let alone the six or so months since I last viewed this article, that I forgot how much I wanted this device. Hell, I've wasted six months not building/acquiring it.
For those of you who cannot tell from the picture, the EyeTap is something akin to an head-up display (HUD), but so much more. It features a beam splitter which not only sends the information (wow, I'm such a geek that I just referred to visual imagery as information) to the eye as would normally occur with regular vision, but also to a computer. The computer then sends the data back to the eye, as would typically occur with an HUD (that's right, an HUD, not a HUD). This is important because you now have, at least partially, a computer-mediated reality. You could, say, use a blank wall to display an incoming email, or block out billboard ads, or become a pawn of SkyNet when it comes online (critics fear).
But the greatest benefit of this, in my opinion, has nothing to do with the HUD abilities, but instead the constant recording of your every visual experience. For a hierarchal sousveillance nerd like myself, this has a lot of practical application. And as shown in the above picture, the devices needn't be extremely obtrusive, and can be removed at least as easily as one takes off a pair of eyeglasses.
Indeed, the visibility of the device is directly related to how much you are trying to make a point with the sousveillance. It surprises no one that the technology to walk around filming everything without revealing that you are doing so has long been available to the everyday citizen, but then it's not really sousveillance, is it?
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