They created a webcam with a human eye

How would you feel if your webcam wasn’t just a tiny hole in the computer, but a big human eye? The same researcher Marc Teyssier wondered and to answer this question he decided to design Eyecam, a camera in the shape of an eyeball, eyelashes and eyelids that moves and looks around to remind you that I see and records everything. Like Big Brother.

The researcher, who is part of the human-machine interaction laboratory at the University of Saarland in Germany, explains in the released clip that it is a prototype that seeks to explore the designs that sensing devices could adopt.

Eyecam reproduces the movements of the ocular eye with great precision and is able to see and recognize the environment as well as the people in front of it. Can a link be established with this device? How would you feel if you were able to express emotions?

Cameras and other sensors that monitor our movements are present in our daily life, both in homes and offices and on public roads. We are so immersed in this technology that it has become a part of us and we don’t even notice it. Through this work, the researchers seek to analyze the designs that could be applied in the future for this type of device as well as to rethink what other functions or aesthetics could have.

Inside the artificial eyeball is a sensor and webcam lens, which are surrounded by a silicone skull that allows the system to flash. The eye also has an eyebrow powered by six electrical circuits that give it movement, to make the eye “more human”.

The circuit is controlled by an Arduino board and a Raspberry Pi Zero. It is an open source project, the instructions of which can be downloaded from GitHub.

The research will be presented at the upcoming ACM CHI 2021 conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems. This webcam can be a bit strange and even dark but without a doubt it focuses on an interesting aspect which is the impact of these technologies in our daily life and what we want to do in the future.

A few months ago, a humanoid robot was surprised by Disney Research, the Disney division that works on the development of innovative technologies. It is a system based on an animatronic bust that seeks to reproduce human interactions, based on gaze.

It is an architecture which seeks not only to produce an exchange of glances but also to reflect the intention to give the greatest credibility and fidelity to the movements in order to create “the illusion of life”.

The system perceives people in its environment, selects appropriate gazing behavior based on the context, and performs movements to respond to these stimuli.

This project, as well as Eyecam, raises many questions that deserve to be analyzed: do we want electronic devices to have a more human aesthetic? Would that help us to be more aware that we are constantly crossed by technology? Or would it just be a good idea to give them humanoid movements in order to bond emotionally with the devices?

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