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Next: Introduction

Wearable, Tetherless, Computer-Mediated Reality (with possible future applications to the disabled)

Steve Mann, N1NLF
steve@media.mit.edu
MIT Media Lab, Building E15-389, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA02139
Tel. (617) 253-9610; Fax. (617) 253-8874

Abstract:

`Wearable Wireless Webcam' (`WearCam' for short) is a wearable computer system equipped with head-mounted display, camera(s), and wireless communications [1], enabling the apparatus to be used in ordinary day-to-day situations, not just in a lab. Two applications of the `WearCam' apparatus, that will hopefully someday be of use to the handicapped, are presented: The ` personal visual assistant'; and the ` visual memory prosthetic'. The ` personal visual assistant' embodies a spatial visual filter[2] that reconfigures the human visual system, providing a remapping (coordinate transformation), which might someday be of use to the visually handicapped. The ` visual memory prosthetic' embodies a temporal visual filter that provides computer-induced flashbacks (together with annotation) that might someday be of use to those suffering from a memory disability such as difficulty remembering faces.





Steve Mann
Wed Feb 14 01:19:59 EST 1996