In summary,
- Iris takes pictures, applies AI to captions, and arranges them.
- Device inspired by the evil eye sign, worn around the neck
- can be utilized by employers, physicians, and caregivers to increase productivity
A San Francisco-based businessman of Indian descent has created the ground-breaking wearable gadget known as Iris, which is intended to take a picture of a person’s life once per minute.
Using artificial intelligence (AI) to annotate and arrange the images, Advait Paliwal said that Iris does more than just take pictures of “your infinite memory of your life”—it also helps users recall specifics they may have forgotten. Images can be uploaded to the cloud or kept on the device.
Iris is a circular device that resembles a pendant with an evil eye embedded in the center of it. One wears the device around their neck.
In his blog post from Tuesday, Paliwal stated that Iris has a focus mode that recognizes when a user is sidetracked and sends out proactive reminders to keep moving forward in order to accomplish a specific objective.
Doctors can use the device to learn about their patients’ daily routines; companies can use it to make sure safety procedures are followed; and caretakers can use it to keep an eye on older patients without getting too close.
In a blog post, Paliwal claimed that the evil eye symbol—which has been utilized for hundreds of years to ward off bad luck in various Latin American and Indian countries—was the source of inspiration for the Iris design.
Over the summer, he worked on the device at Cambridge’s Augmentation Lab, a two-month hacker accelerator residency program for talented AI and hardware developers. At the MIT Media Lab, he showed the gadget to more than 250 people, and it sparked a great deal of attention and excitement.
Paliwal responded, “You can capture only a user’s unique moments instead of saving every minute,” in response to a user’s question over the device’s storage capacity.
Despite the fact that Iris has significant advantages for concentration and memory, Paliwal admitted that privacy issues can arise. Nonetheless, he emphasized that the user ultimately has the final say over how to utilize the device.
“This has both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, Iris might actually be able to assist those who struggle with memory issues or keep us goal-focused. However, it also brings up issues with privacy and potential uses for these recordings,” he stated.
He claimed that Iris represents a new frontier in the “lifelogging” space and gave instances of earlier efforts by Google Clips, Microsoft Research, and Narrative.
“A camera developed by Microsoft Research can help people with Alzheimer’s disease. Users developed strong attachments to the memories they had recorded. The company closed as a result of narrative’s lack of direction despite its rise in popularity. He continued, saying that data management was a problem shared by these businesses. “Google Clips attempted to autonomously capture important moments but struggled with accurate detection, resulting in discontinuation,” he added.