On Kickstarter started collecting orders for a video surveillance camera that uses facial recognition technology and scares away intruders with paintballs. When PaintCam notices someone it doesn’t know, it advises them through the speaker to get out. If the intruder decides to stay, a countdown starts and then the camera shoots paintballs. Particularly humanitarian owners can load the camera with tear gas projectiles.
The creators are guys from Slovenia with a mentality that is, let’s say, almost Eastern European. Therefore, sentimentality is not characteristic of them. It’s funny that the camera has a manual mode, when the camera sends a signal to the owner’s smartphone, and then he decides whether to switch to shooting mode. Like Doom on minimum wage with neighbors :). It’s also interesting that on Kickstarter there is no instruction about tear gas, but on the manufacturer’s landing page there is. Apparently, they don’t want to scare them off with a controversial decision.
DThe video accompanying the advertisement (which, by the way, was created with humor) examines a situation where the camera recognizes the face of the owner’s daughter, but her boyfriend does not. While the daughter covers the groom’s body, the father is wondering whether to add him to the database of familiar faces.
The camera works autonomously, that is, an already trained model running on the internal hardware is triggered. Interestingly, in addition to people, the camera can distinguish between pets.
Why is this interesting?: the example of PaintCam clearly shows that in the likely future we will see a boom in cameras, “understanding” the meaning of certain actions. Those. home surveillance will be able to tell where we put the remote control, where we put the keys, how many times we went to the refrigerator after 24:00. The neurons have learned to recognize images well, all that remains is to train them in certain scenarios and pump up the hardware so that the model works without contacting service.
In order not to be unfounded, I will give another example: a camera tracking drowning people in home pools. Last year, Coral introduced the Mylo camera with AI on board, which detects that someone is about to choke in the pool.
The camera consists of two modules installed above and below water. Both cameras constantly scan the poses of swimmers and compare them with the patterns of drowning people (they write that the definition also works on animals).
As soon as the camera thinks that someone is about to drown or is injured, it immediately sends a message to the phone and turns on a loud notification on a special “beacon” that can be placed in the house.
I wonder what function the cameras will take on next?
About the author: I periodically write about industrial design and concepts oné:
6 wonderful and 6 stubborn ideas in industrial design: what was interesting about 2023
It’s the idea that counts: 10 great industrial design projects for 2022
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