There are two problems I'm trying to solve

1. I often forget to bring my camera to things, and regret it when I see a really interesting person or thing worth taking a picture of. Sometimes I am going somewhere where a camera just isn't usable, like driving along a motorway.
2. I have a video camera, but I rarely use it. I seldom remember to bring it with me when I go to important places, and if I do, I can never be bothered to set it up when I think something interesting or funny is about to happen. If I do set it up, what ensues isn't necessarily all that interesting or funny after all. The interesting or funny things happen when I am not with video camera.

So, what I want to do is record everything I'm looking at, 24/7, and then keep the interesting bits. Then I can extract the best bits as photos or videos, and put them on Flickr, GooTube or a DVD.

As I wear glasses, I guess a glasses-mounted camera (or two) would be the best solution. To cope with the data storage, I would probably need to carry part of the device in my pocket, which would communicate with the spexcam with bluetooth or something.

The main problem will be finding the best bits of the video. I don't want to spend every evening searching through the whole day to find where I saw Ian Hislop getting on a train, so I need to tag that moment in time so I can find it later. I would like to tag this by speaking. I would like to take photos by speaking too. Or by clicking my fingers, or some other gesture.

When I have "taken" a photo, it needs to be geo-tagged, so a GPS thing needs to be integrated into the pocket thing. I also need to be able to search the audio, so when my wife asks me what somebody said, I can then replay a part of the conversation. The pocket bit of the device will have voice recognition so the video can be searched and transcribed.

The device will also have OCR so any signs or documents I glance at will be fully converted to text for easy searching.

I obviously need the ultimate security, ooh, and something that detects when I unzip my flies, so it stops recording. I don't want it recording me on the loo, or when I go to bed.

I need it to integrate with my mobile, so it can record my calls too. And sync with my PC. And be always connected to the internet somehow.

I'd like to be able to replay sections of the video on one of the lenses of the glasses, and edit it using voice commands. For example, when I saw Ian Hislop get on a train, I would have tagged it by saying "Video Ian". So, to edit it, I would navigate to the tagged point, rewind by 30 seconds to get the build up, play it for a minute, and then send it to YouTube, and to my wife, who would be slightly impressed. I'd send it to her glasses, so she could watch it on her lens.

I'm fairly sure most of the technology to do this has already been invented. The outstanding problems are:

1. Size - disk space for recording a day's worth of video probably won't fit in my pocket.


2. Battery life. Probably a subset of size, but getting a battery to do all this is for a day isn't going to fit in my pocket.


3. OK, so it might all be possible, but I wouldn't be able to afford it yet.

Still, they must be solvable soon, right? Make it so, let me know.

My chum Dave McMahon has asked me to let you know about NxtGenUG's latest land-grab:

The Boyz from NxtGenUG are really excited to announce the opening of a brand new NxtGenUG region - this time in Cambridge. So now Developers from the flatlands of East Anglia can gather together to learn, chat, eat Pizza and get 'swagged' in the 'NxtGenUG Way' along with their counterparts in Birmingham, Coventry and Oxford. The region will be run by Chris Hay and Allister Frost who live and work in the area. Chris and Allister have put in a great deal of effort to get the region off of the ground including securing a fantastic venue, courtesy of non-other than Microsoft Research Cambridge!

The 'Launch' meeting will be held at Microsoft Research on Tuesday 18th September 2007 and will feature Mike Ormond speaking on Silverlight Microsoft's new Rich Web Application Development Platform. They'll also have a speaker from Microsoft Research covering the fascinating new subject of F#, watch out for details! Finally Rich, Dave and John will be there to do something or other, probably involving 'swag' (tut). Anybody is welcome to attend the meeting whether they are a NxtGenUG member or not. Just go to the NxtGenUG site at http://www.nxtgenug.net, register for FREE and book your place! The evening starts at 06.30pm and ends at 09.00pm.

As with other NxtGenUG regions details of events at Cambridge will be available at http://www.nxtgenug.net/EventList.aspx, and we know that Chris and Allister have a bunch of great sessions planned for Cambridge over the coming months.

Also check out the NxtGenUG site for Articles, 'Radio Style' Podcasts, Interviews, News Items, Competitions, details of membership and much more at http://www.nxtgenug.net

[Tags: nxtgenug]

I've just had the following comment on my blog post about a Visual Studio Installer bug:

Simon, these sort of pages are what makes the Web so fantastic. I've also been mucking around for hours on exactly the same problem, and this seems to be the only site that makes the problem & its solution clear. Thanks again!

More and more of my posts are taking the this form; I have a problem, I can't find the solution by googling, I eventually work out the solution, I blog it for the benefit of others who will google in the future.

I find it so gratifying when someone leaves a comment some months later to say that my post solved the same problem they were having. Firstly, I'm glad that I have actually saved a few hours of somebody's time, and secondly, I get to feel all nice and fluffy and warm inside.

So it's only my third day, but I'm having a ball! I've got three weeks of freelance work, and I'm working from a spare room in our church office in Uckfield. Well, what do I love about it so far?

1. Walking to work. Never done that before
2. Working in the town centre. Not done that before either.
3. Choosing my hours to suit my mood.
4. Having a customer, not a boss.

Number 3 is probably the best one. I went to visit my client yesterday, which involved a couple of hours each way on the train. On the way back I got so much coding done. I was in the zone. When I got off the train, I popped into a restaurant for an hour and had a coffee and carried on coding. I did another hour after my wife had gone to bed. As I'd racked up so many hours and so much code yesterday, I felt no pressure to get up early to meet an arbitrary start time, so I didn't start until 10am today.

[Tags: freelance uckfield]