Eye-tap for electronic newsgathering, documentary video, photojournalism, and personal safety

• US 6,614,408 B1
• Filed: 03/25/1999
• Issued: 09/02/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/25/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: W. Stephen G. Mann
• Original Assignee: W. Stephen G. Mann
• Inventors: Mann, W. Stephen G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shankar, Vijay
• Application Number:
  US09/275,775
• Time in Patent Office: 1,622 Days
• Field of Search: 348/333-1-3, 348/115, 348/207, 348/211, 348/335, 348/341, 345/7, 345/8, 345/9
• US Class Current: 345/8
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 2027/0138 comprising image capture systems, e.g. camera
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 2027/014 comprising information/image processing systems
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 27/017 Head mounted
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 2380/02 Flexible displays
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/50 Constructional details
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/63 by using electronic viewfinders
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/661 Transmitting camera control signals through networks, e.g. control via the Internet

Abstract

A novel system for a new kind of electronic news gathering and videography is described. In particular, a camera that captures light passing through the center of a lens of an eye of the user is described. Such an electronic newsgathering system allows the eye itself to, in effect, function as a camera. In wearable embodiments of the invention, a journalist wearing the apparatus becomes, after adaptation, an entity that seeks, without conscious thought or effort, an optimal point of vantage and camera orientation. Moreover, the journalist can easily become part of a human intelligence network, and draw upon the intellectual resources and technical photographic skills of a large community. Because of the journalist'"'"'s ability to constantly see the world through the apparatus of the invention, which may also function as an image enhancement device, the apparatus behaves as a true extension of the journalist'"'"'s mind and body, giving rise to a new genre of documentary video. In this way, it functions as a seamless communications medium that uses a reality-based user-interface.

Claims

1. A portable electronic camera device including an electronic camera and an electronic display, said electronic display responsive to an output from said electronic camera, said electronic display being, in use, viewable by an eye of a user of said portable electronic camera device, and reflective optics arranged for reflecting light such that at least a portion of a first set of converging rays of light which would, absent said reflective optics, converge at said eye is reflected to a second set of converging rays directed at the center of projection of said camera, wherein said reflective optics is further for reflecting light from said electronic display such that said reflected light from said electronic display forms a third set of converging rays approximating said first set of converging rays, in order to provide substantial exact registration of what would have been seen by said eye, in the absence of said portable electronic camera device, with what, in the presence of said portable electronic camera device, is seen at said eye.

2. The camera device as described in claim 1, where at least a portion of said camera device is wearable.

3. The camera device as described in claim 2, where said electronic display is visible to said eye, and subtends a visual field of view that is equal to the visual field of view of said electronic camera.

4. The camera device as described in claim 2, where said electronic display is an aremac, and where a given ray of light from said aremac is an output ray, said output ray being from an element of said aremac primarily responsive to a corresponding element of said camera that is primarily responsive to a particular input ray of light, said output ray and said input ray being approximately collinear.

5. The camera device as described in claim 2, wherein said third set of converging rays converge at a point which, in use, is at said eye and wherein said electronic camera is a real camera responsive to real rays of light going towards said point and collinear with lines passing through said point, and further including a virtual camera, said virtual camera responsive to virtual rays of light going away from said point and collinear with lines passing through said point.

6. The camera device as described in claim 5, where said virtual camera is responsive to at least one aspect of an eye of a wearer of said camera device.

7. The camera device as described in claim 6, where said at least one aspect includes the direction of gaze of said eye.

8. The camera device as described in claim 6, further comprising a wearable processor responsive to an output of said real camera and responsive to an output of said virtual camera and where said at least one aspect includes the amount of pupil dilation of said eye, where said wearable processor determines from said electronic camera an amount of light present in subject matter in view of said eye, and where said virtual camera is responsive to pupil dilation, such that pupil dilation in excess of that which would normally accompany said amount of light present, causes images to be captured, stored, or transmitted at greater frequency, or flagged as images having greater importance than would be the case with pupil dilation not in excess of that which would normally accompany said amount of light present.

9. The camera device as described in claim 5, where said virtual camera is responsive to at least one identifying attribute of an eye of a wear of said camera device.

10. The camera device as described in claim 5, where said virtual camera is a virtual retinal camera.

11. The camera device as described in claim 1, where said eye is a first eye, and where said electronic display is arranged so as to be observable by a second eye of a wearer of said camera device.

12. The camera device as described in claim 11, where said electronic display subtends the same angle of field of view as the angle of field of view of said electronic camera.

13. The camera device as described in claim 11, where said electronic display is arranged so as not to be seen by said first eye.

14. The camera device as described in claim 13, where at least an active portion of said electronic display and at least a sensor array of said electronic camera are both mounted in a rotatable housing, so that they can both be rotated together in unison.

15. The camera device as described in claim 14, where said rotatable housing is a first housing, where said first housing is mounted inside a second housing, said second housing being wearable, and said first housing being rotatable around an axis of rotation parallel to a line going through both eyes of a wearer of said second housing.

16. The camera device as described in claim 13, where said electronic display is part of a device comprising a scanner displaying display information to said second eye and also deriving derived information from said second eye, said derived information being conveyed to said wearable processor, along with picture information from light diverted from said first eye, and further including a processor responsive to attributes of said second eye and a scene in view of said first eye.

17. The camera device as described in claim 2, housed within a unit that also functions as a telephone, and said telephone providing means of wirelessly sending pictures acquired by said electronic camera to a remote location.

18. The camera device as described in claim 17, said telephone including two folding and unfolding arms, one of which is a mouthpiece, and another of which is an eyepiece, and further including a main body to be held over an ear of said user, and where said mouthpiece flips out over said user'"'"'s mouth, as with a conventional folding cellular telephone, and where said third arm flips out over an eye of said user of said telephone, said eyepiece containing said electronic camera and said aremac.

19. The camera device as described in claim 2, further including a bidirectional data communications link to at least one remote site, said bidirectional data communications link providing means for images to be simultaneously sent from said electronic camera to said at least one remote site and also further including means for images to be received from said at least one remote site and displayed to said user by way of said aremac.

20. The system as described in claim 19, further including image processing means for images received at said remote site, to produce modified images at said remote site, and means of sending said modified images from said remote site to said electronic display.

21. The camera device as described in claim 1, where said camera device may be held up to a face of said user where said eye is a first eye, and where said electronic display is arranged so as to be observable by a second eye of said user when said camera device is held up to both eyes of said user, and where said electronic display is arranged so as not to be seen by said first eye when said device is held up to both eyes of said user.

22. The camera device as described in claim 1, where said electronic camera is a scene camera, and further including a contact lens camera, said contact lens camera comprising:

a second camera;

optics comprising a mirrored or reflective contact lens, said optics providing said second camera with a reflected view of subject matter in view of an eye of a wearer of said mirrored or reflective contact lens.

23. The camera device as described in claim 1, further including a contact-lens to be worn on said eye, said contact lens comprising:

a central portion, said central portion having at least one of;

a lens of focal length less than 3 centimeters;

a diffraction grating embedded within said contact-lens;

a lens of focal length less than 5 centimeters, said lens containing markings;

an inductive pickup coil around the periphery of said contact-lens and a light source responsive to said inductive pickup coil,

a peripheral portion, said peripheral portion not appreciably affecting rays of light passing through it.

24. The camera device as described in claim 1, further including a contact-lens to be worn on said eye, said contact lens comprising:

an inductive pickup coil around the periphery of said contact-lens;

a light source responsive to said inductive pickup coil;

a spatial light modulator, said spatial light modulator embedded in said contact-lens between an eye of a wearer of said contact-lens and said light source, said spatial light modulator responsive to said inductive pickup coil.

25. A personal safety device, including the camera device described in claim 1, further including an implantable computer, implanted within said user'"'"'s body, said implantable computer deriving its power source from said camera device, where said camera device is not implanted within said user'"'"'s body, said implantable computer having a bidirectional data communications link with said camera device, said camera device including means for providing at least one of the following functions:

becoming inoperable without being in close proximity to said implantable computer;

self-destruction if separated from said implantable computer in an unauthorized manner;

erasure of at least some of the data contained therein if separated from said implantable computer in an unathorized manner.

26. The camera device as described in claim 1, further including a strong conductive cable incorporated in clothing, and further including control circuits responsive to electricity flowing through said strong conductive cable, such that severing said strong conductive cable will result in at least one of the following:

self-destruction of at least some portions of said camera device;

erasure of at least some of the data contained within said camera device;

release of chemicals which can be used to aid in the capture of perpetrators of a crime.

27. The camera device as described in claim 1, housed within a unit that also functions as a telephone, and said telephone providing means of wirelessly sending pictures acquired by said electronic camera to a remote location.

28. The camera device as described in claim 1 further including a wireless communications link to at least one remote site.

29. The camera device as described in claim 28, where said wireless communications link is a video communications link.

30. The camera device as described in claim 29, said video communications link providing means for sending images from said electronic camera to at least one remote site.

31. The camera device as described in claim 1 further including a wireless communications link to at least one remote computer.

32. A personal imaging system including the camera device of claim 1 further comprising image capture means, where an image produced by said image capture means is responsive to subject matter in front of a user of said personal imaging system, and where said image is also responsive to an attribute of an eye of said user, said personal imaging system being worn by said user such that it may be aimed at said subject matter without use of a hand of said user to hold said personal imaging system.

33. A personal imaging system, as described in claim 32, where said image is responsive to an attribute which is sufficient to uniquely identify said user.

34. A personal imaging system including the camera device of claim 1 and further comprising a light-tight housing containing a sensor array and having a first opening to admit light from subject matter and a second opening for an eye opposite said first opening, such that light passing through said first opening emerges through said second opening and passes into said eye, and then said light emerges from said eye and enters said second opening and then forms an image responsive to said eye and said subject matter.

35. A personal imaging system including the camera device of claim 1 and comprising at least one camera display, and optics arranged for producing two simultaneous pictures comprising a first picture of subject matter in front of a user of said personal imaging system, and a second picture of an aspect of an eye of said user.

36. A hand-held device said hand-held device including the camera device of claim 1 and including an opening for an eye, and means for capture of at least one picture responsive to rays of light coming toward a point approximately located at the center of a lens of said eye, such that during capture of said at least one picture by said means for capture, said eye is afforded with a natural undistorted view of the same rays of light to which said picture is responsive, and in which said eye is also afforded with means of determining the spatial extent of said picture.

37. A hand-held device as described in claim 36, where said hand-held device further includes the functionality of a telephone, operable while holding said opening to said eye.

38. A personal camera system including the camera device of claim 1 and further comprising:

a first camera and optics arranged for imaging light collinear with light entering an eye of a user;

a second camera and optics arranged for receiving light reflected from one of;

(a) an internal feature of said eye; and

(b) a contact lens worn by said eye.

39. The camera system of claim 38 further comprising said contact lens and wherein said second camera and optics is arranged for receiving light reflected from said contact lens when worn by said eye of said user and wherein said contact lens includes a reflective feature whereby a position of said contact lens, and therefore said eye, may be determined by a position of said feature.

40. The camera system of claim 38 including a source of light for illuminating said eye.

41. The camera system of claim 38 further comprising said contact lens and a display wherein said second camera and optics is arranged for receiving light reflected from said contact lens when worn by said eye and wherein said contact lens includes a first portion with a different magnification than a second, remaining, portion of said contact lens, said first portion for imaging onto a retina of said eye.

42. The portable electronic camera device of claim 1, further comprising a processor or computer, said electronic display being responsive to an output of said processor or computer, said processor or computer being responsive to said electronic camera.

43. The portable electronic camera device as described in claim 1, further including a processor or computer, where said electronic display may be made responsive to an output of said processor or computer, and where said processor or computer is responsive to said electronic camera.