In week 1 of IPC, we were tasked with developing an idea with a team. My team, comprised of Ellie and Rachel, came up with three interesting ideas
– a gel pack, mounted to the back of your neck, that gauges that the environmental temperature and shifts to help bring your body to an acclimatized temperature.
– a machine that helps you sleep by patting your back at night
– a device that helps you remember people’s names
After taking a poll from the ITP students sitting nearby, we decided to go with our third idea.
DESCRIPTION:
Orientation week is challenging; there are so many people to meet and so many names to remember. This device eases this experience by helping you remember the names of the people you’ve met. A wireless bone conductive speaker is mounted to the back of your head, near your ear canal. It’s paired via bluetooth with a necklace adorned with a small microphone and camera. This device is constantly listening for you to say the phrase “hello my name is Ashley”. Once it hears this, it listens for the response of the person your speaking to and takes a photo of their face. It then sends a push notification to your phone asking you to verify that the face it captured matches the name it heard. Once you verify the match, the device adds that information to its database. The next time you speak to that individual, your device will recognize them using facial recognition and send an audio file of their name to your bone conductive speaker. Seamlessly, you will be able to create the illusion that you knew that person’s name all along.
After presenting this work to the class, a very good point was raised in the discussion. What are the ethics of putting this kind of technology in the hands of the population? What are the ways in which a user could utilize this device in an immoral way? What privacy issues does this become complicate in?
We don’t have an answer but, as producers of technological content, it is interesting and important to build a regular habit of asking ourselves these kinds of questions.
ASHLEY JANE LEWIS 