In order to monitor his child's early language development, researcher Deb Roy has wired his house with 11 cameras and 14 microphones. The baby will be monitored for 14 hours per day in order to watch his development over time. Roy and his wife can erase recordings or turn off the cameras if they need to get intimate or cuss each other out, but at the end of the day the video is sent to MIT for computerized processing.
Computer algorithms identify activity in specific sections of each room and collect these into so-called "behaviour fragments". Human analysts then classify specific acts, such as making coffee or doing the dishes.
Roy hopes to discover how babies learn language and, as an added bonus, gets to feel like the NSA for at least half the day.
Watch language grow in the 'Baby Brother' house [NewScientist]