A start-up company in Sweden has created a clip-on camera that takes a picture every 30 seconds, capturing anything the person is facing toward, and then applies algorithms to the images to find the most interesting selections. The company launched the camera as part of a Kickstarter campaign in the fall of 2012, where with its set goal of $50,000, it raised $550,189.
The 36 × 36 × 9 mm camera has a 5Mpixel image sensor that was originally designed for mobile phones. Using an ARM 9 processor running Linux, the Memoto (Linköping, Sweden; www.memoto.com) camera is powered to wake the device every 30s to capture images.
The camera also logs GPS data with timestamps. As many as 2,000 images can be captured and stored per day on the device's 8GB flash memory, and when the user plugs the camera in using a micro-USB port, it automatically charges the device and moves the photos to the "Lifelogging Cloud," which stores the photos.
The cloud will store all of the photos and allow a user to download or delete them, or sort the photos into "moments," or groups of similar images. This is achieved by sorting events by predominant colors, which produce a diagram of how varied the colors are over the day. Between 30 and 35 "moments" are generated in a given day.
Memoto cameras also ensure that images are correctly oriented regardless of how the camera is worn. Sensors in the camera cause it to stop taking pictures if it is taken off, placed on a flat surface or put into a dark place.
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