SenseCam Video Diary Aid for Memory

This amazing little camera that you wear and take pictures automatically of your day is improving the lives of patience with memory lost. I first read about this in a New Yorker article about Gordan Bell in 2007 and now it is available. By watching the photo record, people are able to remember what happened to them. It must have something to do with seeing the images again that cements it in the brain.

Originally a Microsoft Research project designed to help those with Alzheimer’s disease, the small camera created by researchers at the Cambridge Lab is worn on a lanyard around the neck and takes photos whenever movement is spotted or a person approaches.

A company called Vicon had licensed the production rights from Microsoft in order to launch the camera as the “Vicon Revue.” And now it’s available for purchase.

According the product’s website, the Revue contains a color VGA resolution sensor (640 x 480 pixels), temperature sensor, light color and intensity sensor, passive infra-red motion detector, multi-axis accelerometer, 3-axis magnetometer (compass), battery and flash memory. And it’s fitted with a fish-eye lens to provide a full 130 degree field of view.Also, the battery lasts for 24 hours between charges, the website claims. It can hold a shocking number of images – around 30,000 or 6 days worth of capture.

Here is a little video about the Sensecam and then a video movie of activities by someone reviewing the system.