Wearable, Tetherless, Computer-Mediated Reality (with possible future applications to the disabled)

Steve Mann

@techreport{mann260,
  author    = "S. Mann",
  title     = "`Mediated Reality'",
  institution = "M.I.T. Media Lab Perceptual Computing Section",
  type      = "TR",
  number    = "260",
  address   = "Cambridge, Massachusetts, http://wearcam.org/mr.htm",
  year      = 1994
}

Abstract:

`Wearable Wireless Webcam' (`WearCam' for short) is a wearable computer system equipped with head-mounted display, camera(s), and wireless communications [1], enabling the apparatus to be used in ordinary day-to-day situations, not just in a lab. Two applications of the `WearCam' apparatus, that will hopefully someday be of use to the handicapped, are presented: The ` personal visual assistant'; and the ` visual memory prosthetic'. The ` personal visual assistant' embodies a spatial visual filter[2] that reconfigures the human visual system, providing a remapping (coordinate transformation), which might someday be of use to the visually handicapped. The ` visual memory prosthetic' embodies a temporal visual filter that provides computer-induced flashbacks (together with annotation) that might someday be of use to those suffering from a memory disability such as difficulty remembering faces.

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