Page 14 - EE Times Europe Magazine | April2019

14 EE|Times EUROPE

SPECIAL REPORT: AUGMENTED/VIRTUAL/MIXED REALITY
VR Could Be the Last Nail in Privacy’s

Coffin. Unless…

By Peter Hartwell

mergence is one of the most interest-
ing concepts in the study of complex
systems. Emergence occurs when an
Eentity is observed to have proper-
ties that its parts do not have on their own.
Experts in cyber-physical systems study these
unintended consequences, often trying to
predict failure points in fields as diverse as
global electronic banking and air traffic con-
trol. But emergence can also describe cultural
shifts caused by widespread adoption of a
new technology.
One of the unexpected consequences I
have come across in my creation of 360°
video content for consumption in a VR head-
set is that nothing escapes the camera lens. I learned this lesson early have done. There is no discussion, no he said/she said, just the data.
on as I was viewing a clip for the 10th time, at yet another angle, and And maybe this will make us better people.
noticed someone (who thought no one was looking) trying to remove The 360° camera also has the potential to expand journalism. A
something from between their scoop will be the person with a 360° camera who is at the right place
teeth. It’s such a common at the right time, so we can all share the experience. No more dispute
thing, but something we about how many people were at the U.S. presidential inauguration;
reserve for a private moment. just pop on your glasses, stand on the National Mall, and experience as
And yet there it was, pre- little or as much of it as you like for yourself.
served forever, and it got me Today, we are at the technology maturity point at which we can
thinking. use computers to alter or create realistic video images to entertain us
The 360° camera is the last with exotic stories. The potential also exists to create new or differ-
step in the loss of our privacy. ent versions of the news — the deep fake. But a 360° video, with the
From the first time we went studio, production crew, or other reporters who are all clearly visible,
online to the first time we is much harder to recreate. Therefore, 360° cameras add a much higher
carried a device that pinged barrier to the integrity of the digital media, one that may be too hard to
a fine-grained network of overcome, as humans are actually really good at being bothered when
Peter Hartwell towers for connectivity, we something doesn’t look quite right.
have slowly given ourselves So maybe the emergence of capturing our full experiences for VR is
The 360° camera is the away for the convenience of the beginning of the end of the loss of our privacy.
being in touch and accessing
last step in the loss of information. So now, with the
our privacy, but it makes possibility of these cameras
anywhere and everywhere in
the deep fake harder public, we will always be on
to pull off. That could stage, with the chance to be
viewed by others.
make us better people. Spooky? Perhaps.
Yet emergence is about
unintended consequences.
For example, the cellphone network has the “correct time,” so it’s easy
to keep phone clocks synchronized to the world’s definition of now. If
you are late to a meeting, you can no longer blame the clock for being
slow or having stopped. Being late is now, at its simplest, a demonstra- InvenSense’s MEMS solution, ICM-42605 (Image: InvenSense)
tion that something else was more important. However, I do believe IMAGES: UNSPLASH (TOP RIGHT); INVENSENSE
people today are more on time than they were in the past. Or maybe — just maybe — it’s the dawning of a new era, one in which
Now, imagine that we have extended our cars’ dashcams to 360°. It’s we take responsibility for our actions, knowing there’s the potential for
no longer a matter of catching the right angle for a traffic collision; the anyone and everyone to see what we’re doing. If that happens, we may
dashcam will capture all angles — your camera and mine. If I was dis- emerge as kinder, gentler neighbors, treating others as we would have
tracted and caused that minor fender bender, I won’t be able to jump out them treat us. ■
of the car and start ranting about you this and you that. Rather, because
it’s captured as it happened, I will have no choice but to own up to what I Peter Hartwell is CTO of InvenSense Inc., a TDK group company.

APRIL 2020 | www.eetimes.eu