Here’s a story that should help you sleep at night: Intel Corporation is developing 3D tools that will be able to track your movements, gauge your emotions, and, of course, capture 3D models. It is envisioned that his technology, in addition to increasing the intelligence of computers, phones and tablets, will also go some way to aid the home 3D printing market.
What Intel has developed is a sort of modified Kinect camera in that it captures depth information, which can then be combined with eye tracking, movement tracking, emotion deciphering and voice recognition software to create a more integrated human-computer experience. Unlike the Kinect, however, this camera is designed for short range use so that a user’s computer can become their best friend, reading emotions, watching their eyes graze the screen, and responding to their voice commands and gestures as they work or play. Such a close monitoring of eye movements, for instance, could play a role in educational games that would measure the speed at which a student reads and which words s/he gets stuck on, among other things.
With the ability to take 3D snapshots, Anil Nanduri, director of perceptual products and solutions at Intel, imagined that this technology will be integral to consumer 3D printing. By registering the depth information, the colors and the shapes of objects, the camera would be ideal for creating 3D models that could be printed. And, because Nanduri imagines their computers and smart devices will be so smart and in-tune with their users, thanks to the accompanying camera and software, he says, “You are not going to look for a case [for a device] anymore, you’ll just point that device, and the cameras will recognize what you have. It’ll know the model number…and it’ll print [the case] for you, or you go to the store, they will print it for you.”
The first such iteration of the company’s new technology is the Senz3D external webcam, a joint development between Intel and Creative, but the 3D cameras will be gradually rolled out until they are integrated into laptops and ultrabooks in the second half of 2014. This news comes just before the CEO of Skype announced that it had plans to release 3D Skype calls. For an idea of how this technology may soon be used with the Senz3D webcam, click here, or watch the brief video of gesture control below:
I don’t know about you, but I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords. I can’t imagine anything wrong with giving tech companies the ability to track my movements and read my emotions. And, because Intel surely has no other applications for such a technology and would serve no other interests than those of regular Joes like me, I can’t see this technology ever being used to do harm to anyone whatsoever. Incidentally, here is a diagram from Intel’s informational pamphlet describing the use of their computer networks for civilian and defense applications, which eerily resembles the transformation of the former to the latter.
Source: PC World
