Capturing, storage and retrieval of personal memory

• Main Author: Saloni Gupta Ajay Kumar
• Other Authors: Tan Ah Hwee
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70510
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Social media has changed the way we look at memory. With the advent of numerous social media platforms, supported on various devices, even a non-tech savvy person finds the thought of using these platforms to interact with the world, and to capture, store and view their memories, has become alluring. However, technology is not just beneficial to the millennials. Technology is capable of not only serving as a great bridge to close the gap between the younger generation and the senior citizens, it can keep them engaged in meaningful activities, thus keeping them away from the feelings of boredom and anxiety. An application allowing both photo and video storage and retrieval can provide great relief by paving a way to relive memories of the past. Although there are many social media platforms which are highly popular and in use currently, none of them have the provision of relating both photos and videos together as episodes of a person’s life and provide a playback, other than in a chronological order based on date. SnapMemory application is an existing android application which previously provided a simple and efficient way of annotating photos captured or chosen from the user’s smartphone. This project builds on SnapMemory to allow the effective capture, annotation and upload of memories in the form of photos and videos. The second part of the project, builds on an existing prototype web application, MyLife. The new MyLife web application retrieves and plays back these photo and video memories based on the search cues provided by the user. SnapMemory android app now allows users to capture or choose existing photos or videos from their handphone, annotate them and upload the annotations along with the photos or videos into a server, which are then played back in MyLife. MyLife simulates the autobiographical memory in humans using the Autobiographical Memory-Adaptive Resonance Theory network (AM-ART) network. AM-ART allows MyLife to handle noisy or imperfect queries, which most existing applications cannot handle. It also supports memory wandering, which is the retrieval of a set of seemingly random, but contextually related memory. The photos and videos are displayed in the form of a slideshow. Music accompanies the display of the photos and is determined by the mood that is depicted in the photos and videos. Transition effects added between photos and videos while displaying each of them, will also enhance the users’ experience while using MyLife.