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Google Glass Will Identify People By Clothing
recoiledsnake writes "This article notes, 'A new technology built into Google Glass, dug up by New Scientist, takes Google Glass from interesting to down right creepy. Google Glass can now pick a person out of crowd based on their fashion style. The system, InSight, developed in partnership with Google, will take a nice little moment to assess the clothing in frame, and then point out exactly where your friends are in busy settings like a bar, concert, or sporting event. It could probably point you out in a protest, or shopping mall too.' We previously discussed the disorienting effects on the wearer of the device."
Lets face it, very soon everyone is going to know where everyone else is all the time. Unless you wear some sort of Scanner Darkly blur suit.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
first foursquare told me where all my friends are
now google tells me who my friends are and i don't have to look at their face
If it can't detect facecrime, I'm just not interested.
i don't have to look at their faces when i see them
This is a great read: http://creativegood.com/blog/the-google-glass-feature-no-one-is-talking-about/
From the article:
...when the malware hits these things.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I really think we need a different word for "people's desire for public interactions to be mostly ephemeral" than "privacy".
I'm not saying its not an increasingly important concern (a fairly novel one raised by the increased ease of recording, analyzing, storing, and indexing information about public interactions), its just not the same thing as the traditional notion of "privacy", because it largely rests in things that are deliberately exposed publicly.
I've seen a bit of mention of this, but not much.
Anyone remember a furor not too long ago about assorted "creepershot" forums on Reddit? Google Glass will make creepershots trivial - at least now it's (generally) obvious if you're following people around photographing them.
fencepost
just a little off
As long as people are either metallers or candy ravers.
I have a doubt or two about the efficacy of this technology.
Finally, an excuse for me to pull out the old disco era mirror-ball suit! And the matching tin-foil hat accessory.
Do not track option for clothing. Coming soon
This is very useful to me; I often have trouble picking my wife out of a crowd. Mom, who has prosopagnosia (unable to identify faces) will also appreciate it. This kind of task, supplementing human failings, is exactly what we need. Many people don't need it; I'm sure most people will be as good or better than Glass at seeing friends in a crowd. But for those of us who are not? Useful!
I don't need a calculator to figure out which package of rice is the best-per-pound at the supermarket (when it is not labeled clearly), while my wife does. Should I say calculators are useless or stupid, just because I don't need them for that use case?
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
The article explains that the application works like this: you have to start off by IDing your friend to it. It then analyzes the clothing they're wearing and their dimensions. When you want to look for them, it scans for a match, and picks out the person (or what could potentially be the person) for you.
The article goes on to mention a couple of reasons that they chose to do it this way: one is to protect privacy! By not using facial recognition, they make sure that the app can't easily be pre-loaded with a database of people and look for them all the time. For another, humans are already good at facial recognition. If you can see your friend's face, there's a good chance that you'll recognize them. This, however, helps when you're scanning the crowd and their back might be to you.
Honestly, it sounds like a good idea to me. Sure, it's going to have problems if you're surrounded by identically-dressed people, but you're not left any worse off by that than you were without it. Since it uses their bodily dimensions as well, it may still be of some use. And I know from times that I've been shopping with my wife and was looking for her that I, personally, have a horrible memory for what people are wearing. If I see her face, sure, I'll recognize her - but I often find myself remembering not the outfit she was wearing today, but the one she was wearing yesterday, or the one she was wearing when I met her for lunch.....
...It's technology that Google has had a hand in funding. The Project Glass connection is because the researchers used Project Glass as an example in their paper. Google may be able to use the technology, but it has not been included in the Glass software.
Google Funds Fashion Recognition Research
http://www.informationweek.com/security/privacy/google-funds-fashion-recognition-researc/240150399
Finally ... Anonymous Coward revealed!!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Actually, this is not quite as far fetched as it sounds.
I have partial facial blindness, and over the years I have gotten better at identifying people based off their cloths and hair style. Even when people do not intend it, many people stick to certain colour types and cuts, and it is not unusual to pick people out based off those patterns, or be really confused when they do something out of character. I have never really been sure _what_ the patterns are, but something in the back of my brain has built up some rules that work better then pure chance.
I can't wait to earn free money by wearing by my Google Glass. Collect bounties just by having them turned on. If someone with a warrent is spotted the app will send your location and a photo to the goverment. The app splits the reward with you 50/50. I am sure there will also be an auto census application that gives you money. Turn it on and the application counts the number of people in your location, includes stats on gender and wealth. Free money.