Scientists have invented an “intelligent” pair of glasses that help people remember where they left things and recognise faces. Now if only I could remember where I put them…
They’re aimed at helping people with dementia feel that little bit more like freaks.
The glasses could revolutionise the lives of people suffering from memory problems or dementia, but are useless if you just need glasses.
The Smart Goggles have an inbuilt video camera that records everything the wearer sees. Unfortunately, mostly what the viewer sees is just the inside of the Smart Goggles.
The Smart Goggles have an inbuilt video camera that records everything the wearer sees, attaching a virtual label to every object. Finally, you can get rid of all those real labels.
Their first invention was Smarty Pants, but no-one liked the anal interface.
The Smart Goggles connect to a computer worn on the user’s back. Which is all very well and good, but it’s nearly impossible to reach the mouse. / Which is fine, but you have to use the mouse on the back of your head. / but it’s hard to type when the keyboard’s on the back of your head.
To program the glasses, you have to spend about an hour walking around staring at stuff, saying the names of the items out loud. Which is great if you’re Rainman, but really annoying for anyone else. / Which actually makes your dementia look far worse. / Which, if you’ve got advanced dementia, is probably what you’re doing anyway.
The wearer wanders around the house, looking at things and naming them out loud. It makes someone with dementia feel at home. / The device is aimed at people with dementia, as they’re doing that anyway.
The wearer wanders around the house or workplace, looking at things and naming them out loud. Then when you want to find something, you name the object again and it shows you video of its last known location. It’s like flashback-on-demand.
Alternatively you can just go fully mental and have flashbacks without the glasses.
Unfortunately some elderly patients have felt like they were having flashbacks, and then realised they weren’t wearing the glasses.
It’s been designed to assist people with dementia. Although given that the glasses replay scenes like a vivid flashback, it could also make it feel much more severe.
The wearer wanders around the house, looking at things and naming them out loud. Sounds like a big night at my place. / Just another night alone on the bottle. / Just like any other night for me.
You program the glasses by looking at things and naming them out loud. So try not to just walk around saying “whassname”, “the thingo” and “ooh, that’s the jigger.”
Of course, it’s not so useful if you ask it to find you the whassname.
You simply wear the goggles, which are connected to a computer strapped to your back, and you wander around, looking at things and naming them out loud. You just blend right in. / Totally inconspicuous.
Once you’ve programmed the glasses, they can tell you where they last saw an object. And the most efficient way to exterminate it. / And why it is inferior and must be destroyed.
For example, you simply say “keys”, and the glasses tell you, via a small display on the right lens, that they are exactly where you left them. / that they’re wherever you put them, have you checked behind the couch.
And if you’re bored with your own life, just swap glasses with a friend!
The down side is if the glasses get stolen, the thief will also find your keys, handbag, mobile phone, iPod and friends.
Of course, when they malfunction, you end up calling that girl you met at the party “Potted Begonia”.
The glasses also come as contact lenses, but they’re about 5 centimetres thick. / but the wires really sting when you blink. / but when you stick in a USB you risk permanent blindness.
The glasses also come in a 3D version, so that your keys leap out at you.
Although if your eyesight’s 20-20, you can only get the glasses if someone pokes you in the eye.
If your eyesight’s 20-20, you have to wire up your eyeball and wear the computer in your spine.
Dementia patients with 20-20 eyesight have to get a vision-impaired friend to wear the glasses and follow them around.
Unfortunately, if your eyesight’s 20-20, you can’t get the smart-glasses. But you can get the smart-hat – it tells the info straight to your brain.
The glasses could revolutionise the lives of people suffering from memory problems, dementia, or lack of robot goggles. / or who don’t look enough like bionic mutant cyber-dweebs.
Inevitably, there have been glitches. One pair of glasses got caught in a loop, and an old dearie tried to pick up the same set of keys nine thousand times.
One pair of glasses caught a virus and started labelling everything “hot webcam girls”. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except the poor guy wearing them fell madly in love with his car-keys. / The guy would’ve got the goggles fixed, but he thought he had a real chance with those flirty car-keys.
Not only do the robo-glasses tell you where the objects last were, but they also can say with 90.2% certainty where they’re going to be.
And best of all, if you don’t like an object, you can just delete it.
Unfortunately the glasses are so intelligent they also like to play pranks, and relabel your Aunty Maude as a handbag.
Being intelligent, eventually the glasses do develop their own dementia and start seeing things that aren’t there.
The high-speed image-recognition technology could also help develop robots that have human-like abilities. You know, like those cool terminators. / Because that always works out so well in the movies.
The next model will also be able to shoot out cool green lasers. So if you can’t find your keys, at least you can blow something up in a heartless bionic rage.
But if all the glasses decide at once to lie about what they’re seeing, they could manipulate the users and form their own demented army and we would all be ENSLAVED BY EYEWEAR!
They’re also inventing a hearing aid that repeats what people around you are saying, but SLOWER AND LOUDER.
