Filmmaker Rob Spence, who damaged one of his eyes as a child, is planning to install a tiny camera into the socket where the eye used to be. Then, he plans to record conversations with people about privacy, surveillance, and how we may be "sleepwalking into an Orwellian society." From the Associated Press:
A fan of the 1970s televsion series "The Six Million Dollar Man" (still at left -ed.), Spence said he had an epiphany when looking at his cell phone camera and realizing something that small could fit into his empty eye socket…He said his subjects won't know he's filming until afterward but he will have to receive permission from them before including them in his film.
His special equipment will consist of a camera, originally designed for colonoscopies, a battery and a wireless transmitter. It's a challenge to get everything to fit inside the prosthetic eye, but Spence has had help from top engineers, including Steve Mann, who co-founded the wearable computers research group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts…
"As a documentary maker, you're trying to make a connection with a person," he says, "and the best way to make a connection is through eye contact."
"One-eyed filmmaker conceals camera in prosthetic" (via Boing Boing Gadgets)
UPDATE: Learn more about the Eyeborg project here!
UPDATE: Wired.com's managing editor Marty Cortinas points to this much deeper story on Spence at Gadget Lab.
