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What Are You Looking At?
Ensign Stinky writes "The NYTimes has a story, with some spooky-cool pictures, about software to extract exactly what image a person is seeing with their eyes, just from the reflection on their cornea. You can see even a wider image than the subject and tell what they're specifically focusing on. It's too bad the coolest tech is immediately subverted for evil. The possible applications listed include 'surveillance cameras that spot suspicious behavior.' Remind anyone of that scene in the movie 'Wild Wild West' where they extract the last thing the dead guy saw?"
So people like me, who are inherently paranoid, are at higher risk?
:)
Great...I knew this would happen.
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Very cool! Seems like this might be used to help spot Photoshop modifications -- for example, in a group picture, just compare the reflections in each person's eyes.
There is a lot of good research out there on how to use the data gathered form eye tracking. You can test web site designs and expose weaknesses in design, for example. You can also use eye tracking as an input device (PDF). I like that it can tell you what people read on the internet.
Just remember, what matters is how the technology is applied, not the technology itself. Without users, you just have slabs of technology sitting there. People make this stuff interesting.
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....was a military targeting device. If you could calibrate a device to fire a computer-controlled gun at whatever the operator was looking directly at... well, that's kind of scary.
Although the author of the article declares that "the system can automatically recover wide-angle views of what people are looking at" (emphasis mine), to me one of the most exciting potential applications is to further human understanding of what animals choose to look at.
With our current knowledge of ocular biology we can make some assertions about what color ranges different species can see, but being able to study more precisely what they choose to focus on and what conditions attract their attention would advance our understanding of other species tremendously.
Talk about seeing a glass half empty - did the poster just ignore the second half of that paragraph:
Because the algorithms can track exactly where a person is looking, the system may one day find use in surveillance cameras that spot suspicious behavior or in interfaces for quadriplegics who use their gaze to operate a computer.
Which do you think is more likley to make it into use first? Do you know how tight most exisitng cameras would have to be zoomed in to get any kind of detail from a reflection in the eye or to be able to determine focus? The focus thing might be easier, but even so we'll probably see accisable interfaces from this before spooky security cams that can tell what everyone in a crowd of hundreds is looking at.
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it was being developed with the US air force. to help train pilots and to investigate causes of crashes. the goal was to use the technology along with the black box so that they could tell how long the pilot was looking at each gauge. possibly allowing a bit more insight early on, like he was checking the fuel gauge more often. maybe it was going down to quickly. also to help pilots more efficiently scan their gauges. they found they could shave off a few seconds every minute if they adjusted the order they scan the gauges, that wasn't very long but found inefficiencies and were able to shave precious seconds off seconds that if were spent looking in the right places they could save lives... that sounds like a benevolent use of the technology to me...
I got the directions and was ticketed for parking in the customer garage. Mind you, I wasn't IN the garage yet (it has a long driveway leading to it), and I never exited my car. In fact, the first thing I did when I saw the guard was to ask for the directions.
He gave me the directions, a ticket, and turned me around. His rationale? He knows how employees like to take advantage...
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Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
While I also believe that is is worthless to distinguish "hate crimes" from "ordinary crimes," we still prosecute based on "thoughts." Pre-meditated murder is an example. The *intent* of a criminal is nothing more than what they were thinking. And that plays a major role in the punishment.
Would be cool if this could work with a computer. Instead of "focus-follows-mouse", I'd like to have "focus-follows-eyes". Lots of times, I'll look at a window and start to type in it, then realize that I hadn't moved the mouse over it to get focus.
I was trained to use my peripheral vision - exercises like counting fingers further and further out from the target you're looking at progressively increase your ability first to discriminate detail that you usually don't process, and progressively widen the field of view so that you take in more at a glance.
In martial arts sparring, it is very useful to see something coming, essentially, to see it early. There is plenty of reinforcement, both positive and negative, in that environment. Learning this well pays numerous dividends in the arts. It is an interesting general ability as well.
At this point in my life, I can "look" right at you in the sense that a centered axis out of my pupil draws a line to one of your eyes. At the same time, I can actively study something I can see very clearly that is considerably off that axis, behind you, somewhat off to your side, and way out of the same focus plane your face is in. You won't know, and gear like this wouldn't know either. I'm "looking right at you" as far as any observer is concerned.
I learned to do this - I certainly couldn't do it at all before actively training to do it. I teach my students to do it. The initial level of ability varies from person to person, but I've yet to encounter anyone who couldn't improve markedly over six months or so of daily exercises. I suspect that if the technology being discussed here comes into any kind of use where it is actually a social/legal issue, others will learn it just as well. You could probably detect the focal plane being different (the eye's physical configuration after all does change based on the focal plane) but this whole center of attention thing is absolutely defeatable.
I have high confidence that until or unless you can actually read minds and determine cognitive intent, this kind of technology will be very limited in application and reliability. We should ask, who will be motivated to learn to defeat such a mechanism by it becoming a law enforcement tool? It seems to me that the most obvious answer is those who have some kind of subversive orientation. Criminals, to put it more bluntly.
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