Microsoft SenseCam

Microsoft's SenseCam is a lifelogging camera with a fisheye lens and trigger sensors, such as accelerometers, heat sensing, and audio, invented by Lyndsay Williams, a patent^[1] granted in 2009. Usually worn around the neck, Sensecam is used for the MyLifeBits project, a lifetime storage database. Early developers were James Srinivasan and Trevor Taylor.

Earlier work on neck-worn sensor cameras with fisheye lenses was done by Steve Mann, and published in 2001.^[2][3]

Microsoft Sensecam, Mann's earlier sensor cameras, and subsequent similar products like Autographer, Glogger and the Narrative Clip are all examples of Wearable Computing.^[4]

Wearable neck-worn cameras contribute to an easier way of collecting and indexing one's daily experiences by unobtrusively taking photographs whenever a change in temperature, movement, or lighting triggers the internal sensor. The Sensecam^[5] is also equipped with an accelerometer, which is used to trigger images and can also stabilise images so as to reduce blurriness. The camera is usually worn around the neck via a lanyard.

The photos represent almost every experience of its wearer's day. They are taken via a wide-angle lens to capture an image likely to contain most of what the wearer can see. The SenseCam uses a flash memory, which has the means to store upwards of 2,000 photos per day as .jpg files, though more recent models with larger and faster memory cards mean a wearer typically stores up to 4,000 images per day. These files can then be uploaded and automatically viewed as a daily movie, which can be easily reviewed and indexed using a custom viewer application running on a PC. It is possible to replay the images from a single day in a few minutes.^[5] An alternative way of viewing images is to have a day's worth of data automatically segmented into 'events' and to use an event-based browser which can view each event (of 50, 100 or more individual SenseCam images) using a keyframe chosen as a representative of that event.

SenseCams have mostly been used in medical applications, particularly to aid those with poor memory as a result of disease or brain trauma. Several studies have been published by Chris Moulin, Aiden R. Doherty and Alan F. Smeaton^[6] showing how reviewing one's SenseCam images can lead to what Martin A. Conway, a memory researcher from the University of Leeds, calls "Proustian moments",^[7] characterised as floods of recalled details of some event in the past. SenseCams have also been used in lifelogging, and Cathal Gurrin at Dublin City University, Ireland, has been wearing a SenseCam for most of his waking hours since 2006 and has generated over 13 million SenseCam images of his life.^[8]

In October 2009, SenseCam technology was adopted by Vicon Revue and is now available as a product.^[9]

There is a wiki dedicated to SenseCam technical issues, software, news, and various research activities and publications about, and using, SenseCam.^[10]