Total Recall

The trends within technology adoptance are starting to map out a very interesting future possibility: The possibility to record life, TiVo (PVR technology) style. The technology to produce miniature video cameras and recording devices are not new. The way that we apply these are. The latest to be every new mobile phone that hits the market. We’ve gone AV mad. Take this camera away from the phone, put it on a broach, badge, tie-pin or a pair of glasses, add a bluetooth connection. Hook this up to a GPRS/WiFi network via your mobile phone and top it off with unlimited file storage and a search engine that can be invoked by voice. And there you have it. Life on the mini-screen.

Lost your keys? Simply by discussing your keys… “I’ve gone and lost my keys again…”, your mobile phone picks up the keyword “keys”, server-side, your personal search engine is analysing all of today’s files, matching today’s events by audio (keywords “keys”, or key-sounds “jingle-of-keys”), image (key-images “picture of keys”), data (such as contact details – not necessary in this example) or by ‘tag’ (such as RFID or Bluetooth). On matching results, a list of recently spoken keywords are displayed on your mobile phone. By selecting one of these words, lists of captioned images are displayed, along with a timestamp. Select the one most appropriate (or play all) and review where you last left your keys in colour and with sound.

Take this possibility and apply it to contact names, recalling details within a meeting, remembering a date or other details within a conversation, replaying a crash as it was witnessed, or showing your mates a beautiful bird you saw last night (an owl of course) and so on.

Increase the video quality and integrate screens in to the lens of your glasses or on a wrist watch, add 360° capabilities and your mind can simply turn to mush whilst the computer remembers everything for you.