3D camera that reads your mood developed by Intel Israel

Intel Israel’s research and development (R&D) center in Haifa is currently developing a camera that pushes the boundaries of user interactivity.

Anil Nanduri, the director of Perceptual Products & Solutions at Intel, told the International Data Group (IDG) that this new device can track a user’s eye movement, perceive the size, depth and color of items in view, and process a user’s emotions through various algorithms. Customers should be able to buy it as part of tablets and other mobile devices as early as next year.

It bears some similarities to Microsoft's Kinect for the Xbox, which can be operated through voice command and can read the user’s reference points on his skeleton as well as his heart beat. But Intel is confident that their ambitious initiative, undertaken by more than 150 Israeli engineers in collaboration with American ones, is one step ahead of everybody else's.

“Kinect was a good initial version of a depth-sensing camera, especially from a long-range perspective. However, when Intel started looking at it, we were primarily interested in personal interaction at a closer range, of up to 1 meter or a meter and a half,” Nanduri told Calcalist news.

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Beyond your usual gaming purposes, the camera has many more useful applications. The eye tracking ability could help the field of literacy by analyzing reading statistics of users, including identifying which words they struggle with. The camera would also certainly accommodate the booming 3-D printing technology.

“You are not going to look for a case for a [mobile] device anymore. You will just point that device at the camera, and the camera will recognize what you have. It will know the model number, and it will print the case for you, or you can go to the store and they will print it for you there,” Nanduri also told Calcalist.

The chip giant hopes its latest move will “bridge the gap between the real and virtual world,” but that is not without its share of consequences in the “real” world.

According to Calcalist, the project was introduced to Intel employees in the industrial city of Qiryat Gat, where Intel has two of its manufacturing plants, Fab18 and Fab28.

Those plants have been the source of much controversy ever since their creation in 1999 and 2009 respectively, because Palestinians and Americans have historical and legal claims to the land that now constitutes a major center for Israel’s foreign direct investment. Henry Norr reviews those less-known facts in an article examining the history of the city, the advent of Intel in the late 1990s, and the obstacles this corporate adventure pose for international law.

Those logistical details rarely make the headlines, and make you wonder, technological advances in the virtual world, but at what costs in the real world?

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