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iGuard

Peace of mind for the road-weary 'Baker.
 
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I often find myself tired and in want of a nap when I happen to be in a public place, such as a library or laundromat. Being the slightly paranoid survivalist that I am, however, I find myself unable to relax enough to allow myself to drift off into oblivion. What if somebody tries to pull a fast one while I'm out? When I have my trusted companion Corona with me (my dog, not the beer), however, I don't have that problem because I know she'll alert me if someone gets too close for comfort. Even when I'm in a deep, sound slumber, there are three things that are sure to wake me: my dog growling, the click of a doorknob turning open, and my phone going off. I don't always have my dog with me, and not all public places have doors with knobs. But I *always* have my trusty phone.

Now, there are lots of apps out there that take advantage of a smartphone's camera. There are apps for scanning barcodes, and apps for orienteering by comparing what the camera sees with photos of landmarks stored in a database. There's some really wicked sh** out there for smartphones! In my personal and professional opinion, my app is the wickedest of 'em all: iGuard.

iGuard utilizes a smartphone's camera to run the video recorder, without actually storing the images, and detect motion while you sleep. Simply plant yourself against a wall or large tree, tuck the phone in your shirt pocket with the camera aiming out, or stand it up on a stable surface a foot or two in front of you aimed at yourself, and drift off into dreamland. If motion is detected, it beeps at you to wake you up. If the phone itself is moved, it will also beep at you, triggered by the internal accelerometer that every decent smartphone has. That part is Baked already, but I would incorporate it into this app's design as well for the total security package. The only part I haven't figured out yet is how to preselect a desired distance range in which to detect the motion and alert you. I originally was thinking that a phone's camera would be blurry enough that it couldn't detect motion beyond a short distance, but I put it to the test, and my phone's camera seems to see an awfully long way... looking through it I can see almost as far as with my naked eye. Maybe it detects moving objects that fill a certain percentage of the screen?

Note: when searching for prior art, I noticed an idea in the same category called i-Witness that seems to use similar technology. They are not the same thing. i-Witness is a good idea, however, and I give it my full blessing, and a warm bun.

21 Quest, Nov 29 2009

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       Lordy, no other comments, you must have sneaked this one on at midnight..
  

       Hmm, you could just the same things with PIR, and it'd be a bit more 360 degrees horizontally. Also wouldn't work in the vertical, so trained monkeys (or even self-taught monkeys), rain, bird crap, snakes..depends how much wildlife you have in your area.
  

       Me, I'd just go for concentric claymores, with tripwires. with some ritzy hazard cones, "Extreme danger of death. Concealed landmines" so no one could complain afterwards.
  

       Anyway, give it a go. When you're rich you'll remember your old mates on half-bakery, won't you?   

       If I ever become rich, so will the 'Bakery. This is my vow.
  

       Anyway, I do appreciate the buns, but some explanation for the negative votes would be equally appreciated. Why the bones?
21 Quest, Nov 30 2009
  

       "Why the bones?" Not me, mate. Could I suggest a slight variation on a theme? IGuard cultural plug-in. It's already got GPS, so it know which country it's in. So loud beeping if you're getting too close to walking on that green rug in an office in an Islamic country, about to walk into a (ahem) barbershop in South Korea, about to try tipping a taxi driver in Japan, trying to show something to someone in your backyard in Thailand that involves them walking under a washing line, that kind of stuff, I'm sure you can think of a few more. Been there, had that red face.   

       Running the camera costs battery life; running the camera and the processor costs even more. [-]
AbsintheWithoutLeave, Dec 01 2009
  

       Better; get your canine companion registered as an assistance dog. There are seeing dogs for the blind, hearing dogs for the deaf, why should you not have a watching-my-back dog for the mildly (and quite justifiably) paranoid ?
  

       Humans have been selectively breeding dogs as companions, trackers, hunters and lookouts for over 8000 of your Earth years. It's going to take a while for your pitifully primitive technology to catch up.
8th of 7, Dec 01 2009
  

       Back when I was an inventor one of my crazy ideas was to have a personal CCTV camera in the form of a shoulder dragon, parrot or owl. Essentially such a thing would need to be articulated, to cover blind spots, and be sensitive to noise. Sending out an automatic "rescue me" signal makes sense too.
Aristotle, Dec 01 2009
  

       Absinthe, if you haven't seen solar-powered cellphone chargers, look them up. They even fit in a pocket alongside a normal travel charger, so you need never be without power.
21 Quest, Dec 01 2009
  

       8th of 7, I presume you have seen Boston Dynamics Big Dog, I admit it's probably not up to "fetch the stick" quite yet, but still oddly impressive.   

       [+] I like, but would recommend adding a fish-eye lens attachment to the camera.
  

       That would decrease the distance the camera could see (reducing false alarms from motion that's too far away to be important) while at the same time increasing the viewing angle, so that it could see (important) things that would otherwise be off to the side.
goldbb, Dec 01 2009
  

       BB, that's awesome. The fish-eye lens could even be incorporated into a protective case without having to modify the phone at all.
21 Quest, Dec 01 2009
  


 

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