Remember the Sensecam from Microsoft Research a couple years ago? While the guys at Redmond never really made anything of it, somebody else thought it was a viable enough product idea that they bought a license and produced this: the Vicon Revue.
Released by UK-based Vicon Motion Systems, the neck-worn camera (it hangs around a necklace like a pendant) will snap random moments in your day, giving you snapshots to remember life’s little moments. They’re marketing it as a way to help people with memory impairment problems, giving them a visual timeline to help recall their day.
The Vicon Revue measures 2.55 x 2.75 x 0.66-inches and weighs 3.31 oz., which should be compact and light enough to wear without causing any discomfort. Fitted with a bunch of onboard sensors (temperature, light color and intensity, infrared motion, a multi-axis accelerometer and a 3-axis magnetic compass), it makes informed decisions about good times to automatically shoot photographs, which it then stores on the built-in 2GB of memory. There’s a privacy button, too, in case you’d rather have it stop shooting (you know, when you’re doing things you’d probably like to forget).
It comes with a software component which runs on a PC, where you can view, organize and annotate photos. The camera tethers to the computer via mini-USB, which will also replenish its battery’s charge (a full charge gets it 12 hours of continuous use).
While the Vicon Revue sounds like a fun gadget even for those not suffering from memory problems, the price is likely to put a lot of casual users off. At £500 (US$775), they’re obviously treating it as a medical apparatus, rather than a regular consumer toy.