A “computer-human interaction” researcher has invented this “creepy” webcam that looks just like a real, blinking human eye – with red veins and a glossy stare to boot – to help people rethink the way they use technology.
Dr Marc Teyssier is the Lead Researcher of the Resilient Futures group at the De Vinci Innovation Center, a think tank in the French capital Paris, and he told Real Press in an exclusive interview that he created the “eyecam” device “because we are surrounded by sensing devices” and he wants people to think about “the implications of the presence of these devices on our behaviour.”
After earning a PhD from the Sorbonne, Dr Teyssier conducted postdoctoral research at Saarland University, in Saarbruecken in Germany, which is where he came up with the idea of the “eyecam.”
Smiling, he said he was quite sure some people must think he is “crazy” but he did not seem too bothered by that. He said: “We are surrounded by Alexa, we are surrounded by surveillance cameras in the street and the issue with that is that those devices are constantly looking at us.
“They are constantly listening to us but we don’t know that because they are hidden and they blend into our everyday lives and they are almost invisible.”
He says that as a result, “we have stopped questioning the way they look, the way they sense, and the way they act.”
He added: “We have forgotten about the implications of the presence of these devices on our behaviour and we have forgotten about the potential risks to privacy, the risk of hiding those devices.”
He explained that lots of people currently rely on videoconferencing software and on webcams, adding: “The webcam is in front of us, looking at us, but during face-to-face communication, when you talk to someone, when you talk to a human being, you can see their eyes.
“The eyes are really expressive, and they convey lots of non-verbal emotions, like facial expressions.”
Dr Teyssier explained: “What I wanted to do is to bring back all those non-verbal queues, all the expressiveness of the eye, into the webcam.”
He added: “This device is a WebCam that looks like a human eye. It can look around. It can blink. It can move its eyebrows and it is also visually really close to a human eye. And with that I wanted to be transparent in the way the webcam sees us.”
He explained that he put the project together purely from a research point of view and has no plans to commercialise his device, opting instead to make all of the plans available online for free. Anyone who downloads them only needs a 3D printer and a few small, readily available items, to build their own “eyecam”.
Dr Teyssier said: “The eyecam is what we call a speculative design prototype. The goal of the device is to spark speculation about the device’s function.” He explained that he was more interested in the “scientific outcome” of the project than in making money.
He said: “I made all of the sources open source so that people can replicate it and so they can build one themselves and even improve it, eventually, and they can also try to have this device in their house.”
He said that he was surprised that having the device in front of him changed the way that he behaved towards webcams.
He explained how to make one, saying: “There are several key components: some 3D printed parts, some mechanical parts, some tiny screws and rods, and some electronics with the motors and a Raspberry Pi [miniature computer].”
He added that “the webcam runs on the Raspberry Pi” and all it requires are a few servo motors that can be bought anywhere, “along with the 3D-printed parts.”
A specialist in “computer science and computer-human interaction”, Dr Teyssier said that the trickiest part was to make the “flesh” look “realistic”. He said that he sculpted the eye on top of the 3D-printed parts and then used it as a mould to cast the skin using silicone.
He added: “That is something that is quite commonly used in the movie FX industry.”
Dr Teyssier said that he is currently working on a tutorial video that he is planning to put on his website soon.
He explained that an interesting bug that had happened while he was programming the eye, which he said was coated in transparent nail polish over some red-coloured wool threads so that it would have blood vessels, was when part of the code was the wrong way round. Instead of following his every move, the eye averted its gaze at all times, never looking at him, something he described as rather infuriating.
He said: “I made this device to really critique the state of technology. We are building this really intense relationship of technology. The smartphone in our pocket is like a comfort of object now.”
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, he has not been able to do a widespread study to see how people react to the device but he said that he is planning to do one as soon as possible.
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