Big Blue's Big Brother Lab
By Elisa Batista
2:00 a.m. Apr. 24, 2001 PDT
SAN JOSE, California -- Viewing the future through the eyes of IBM scientists at the Almaden Research Center is both awesome and unnerving.
Imagine living in a world with sensors inserted everywhere, including sunglasses, so any time you meet new people their names appear before your eyes.
If you're blind their names could be whispered to you through earplugs, thanks to voice-enabling software. Even if you don't speak the same language as the people you encounter, you'll have their words translated for you in real time.
No one would remain anonymous -- you'd know the name of anyone you encountered in the world.
To the chagrin of privacy-minded people, crossing that fine line into someone else's space is part of IBM's job -- especially in the field of pervasive computing.
Perched on top of rolling green hills that resemble a golf course without the carts or people, the Almaden Research Center stands alone in a secluded section in the southeast portion of Silicon Valley. There isn't even cell phone coverage out here, which is a sharp contrast to the saturated technology hub just to the north.
But this hive of activity, IBM's second-largest lab and the one that in 1956 developed "magnetic storage" -- what eventually became the hard drive, is abuzz with curiosity. The IBM scientists cooped up in the building are working on projects they believe will revolutionize the universe.
IBM touted 2,886 patents last year, of which a third -- 962 concepts -- shipped in the form of products. IBM raked in $1.6 billion in intellectual property license fees last year, according to company spokesman Tim Blair.
Blair said the scientists' work underwent a series of "complex reviews" by the business development office to determine which of their ideas would become products. Blair emphasized that the business department doesn't give the inventors a quota or tell them what to make in the labs.
"You can't tell a painter what to paint," he said.
However, even if a product doesn't make it into the hands of the public, the concept for the invention could survive. Daniel Russell, the senior manager at the Almaden Research Center, draws an oft-repeated analogy with how wireless evangelists predict that streaming video over mobile devices will become a hit.
"Video streaming on mobile devices is oversold," he said. "(The killer application for wireless devices) will be something other than you thought."
Still, after spending an afternoon perusing the wacky ideas of scientists in a lab -- which is filled with cameras and sensors -- it's easy (and fun) to slip into their psyches and dream how the inventions could be used someday.
The scenario of everyone in the world knowing each other's names would be possible if everyone's face were scanned into a database. Then a camera with gaze-tracking technology -- which IBM calls the "Vision Pad Identifier" -– would identify the face and display the name of the person in a device, such as sunglasses.
IBM showed off the technology, or what exactly would appear in the sunglasses, with a photograph of actress Alyssa Milano and her name displayed. Another photograph showed a police officer wearing headgear with a camera. To demonstrate how the camera would adjust itself to identify a person or object, a robot named Pong noisily adjusted his ping-pong eyes to gaze at someone in the room.
It was creepy.
M. "Flick" Flickner, a manager at the lab, said IBM doesn't plan to get into the business of selling robots. An IBM spokeswoman later said she doesn't expect the technology to be used to track everyone in the world.
"Gosh, I hope not," she said. "You couldn't stalk the person. I don't think that would be possible -- you would need to know that person and need to program the technology. That's why we're not researching for face recognition. We're trying to use it more for sign translation."
She envisions something more like the technology being used at a home or a business to remind people whose faces are scanned of appointments, or even a co-worker's birthday. IBM expects the technology to be available to the public in a couple of years.
Russell said it could help police officers find suspects, or aid tourists visiting museums and buildings in foreign countries. For example, if you are an American and wanted to translate the name of a restaurant in Chinese characters, you'd wear these camera-enabled sunglasses to view the name of the building in English.
"It may make a difference to you whether you're eating salmon or flying fish eggs," Russell said.
The scientists at the lab live what they create. The company has a chalkboard-sized screen, called the BlueBoard, which is an electronic communal bulletin board that gives everyone whose personal information is in a database access to their desktop computer applications by simply looking at the screen. The screen, if you haven't guessed already, has gaze-tracking technology.
Every office in the Almaden Research Center has a miniature electronic board outside the door, which contains schedules and even the names of websites visited by the people in that office. The screens, which are powered by the wireless Ethernet standard 802.11b, can flash at any moment to give people messages or let them know someone is looking for them.
Russell said there are no cameras in the bathroom.
Not all the technology had Big Brother written all over it. Most of the demonstrations, Flickner pointed out, were possible with existing equipment and were even being used -- like surfing the Web with voice-recognition software.
Users could also input data into a personal computer or handheld device with their hands -- or their eyes.
With a camera and tracking system embedded in the computer -- IBM calls the product Magic Point -- users look at a certain spot on the screen, their eyes are measured up and the screen's cursor follows their gaze.
"Clicking" a choice with your eyes is still not possible with IBM's software, but you can use your voice or lightly touch a mouse embedded with sensors to make a selection on the screen.
For the early adopters of wireless devices, which require arduous typing, IBM touted a virtual "Hooke's keyboard," which lays out the letter keys in a circular form. The location of the keys is different from your typical keyboard or phone keypad. An algorithm determined the most popular order of typing letters.
"The layout of the keyboard allows you to type 41 words per minute, which is a lot faster than graffiti," Russell said.
This technology may work on cell phones, if there's coverage.
