(London Tech Week) Distinguished Lecture by Steve Hodges: Making new devices real

In the first part of this talk I will describe SenseCam, one of the first wearable cameras to be developed, and its application in support of patients with memory impairments. As a researcher who aims to seed new types of hardware device in the market and change people's perceptions of how they can use technology, in many ways SenseCam was the perfect project. The device was adopted enthusiastically, both by memory-impaired patients wishing to improve their recall, and by researchers and clinicians as a tool to support their work.

Unfortunately, SenseCam has not (yet) proven to be a viable commercial product in the long-term. In fact, despite advances in tools, processes and resources in support of hardware design and prototyping, it's as hard as ever to make the transition from research prototype to commercially viable product. In the second part of the talk I will present my perspectives on why this is, along with ideas about how the research community can address this. My aim is to enable a 'long tail' of hardware products, which fuel innovation in the device space whilst simultaneously providing greater customer choice.