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Is the World Ready For Facial Recognition On Google Glass?
An anonymous reader writes "Since the first demonstration of the plausible future abilities of Google Glass, instant facial recognition has been one of the most exciting ideas in the pipeline. According the the development group Facial Network, the time for real-time facial recognition through Google Glass is coming a lot sooner than we originally expected. This isn't an app developed by Google, it's a 3rd party developer group — they've gone and done it first!"
The application is not on the Play store due to the ban on facial recognition. It performs real time recognition, and pulls information from public databases. The authors intend to allow people to opt-out of the recognition database.
here I come, you can't hide
How to Beat Facial-Recognition Software
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
a punch in the face?
I don't much care for face-recognition, in fact I can imagine a lot of venue's banning internet-connected (full-time recording) head mounted camera's (for guests), but AGE-recognition would be a useful feature on the door if you have a liqueur-license or some other age-related barrier.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
It will be a god-send for people with prosopagnosia (face blindness). Can you imagine the awkward social situations in which you don't recognize people? Your colleagues, friends or even family?
So if I don't want my name popping up on some random Glass-hole's screen whenever I have the misfortune to be in one's proximity, I have to go find some random app's website and opt out? How is that supposed to actually work in practice?
Anyone know if those LED baseball caps really work? What about a can of spray paint, aimed at the Glass-hole?
#DeleteChrome
It shouldn't be opt-out, it should be opt-in.... People wearing google glasses should really be carefull, as more and more people will not stand you wearing one while facing them (and I don't blame them)..
S.uper L.ight A.mplified P.ulse
I'm going to develop this just to watch Google Glass, and the like, wearers wonder why their toy stopped working. AAH
I will SLAP you too... ;)
The hardware is not ready, at least not until they use hardware to build composite mutation-images that show relevant (pixel) changes only. There is no point in trying to parse a single image a second, or -on the opposite side- a video stream.
In my opinion, efficient wearable vision software should ignore lower quality versions of what it already saw, it would make a huge efficiency leap. I believe this architecture ultimately would be a software skeleton for a mental world reconstruction much like humans perceive.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
Dear whoever the hell owns Slashdot now: Stop trying to make Beta happen. It's not going to happen.
Nobody wants beta. If you force, they will leave.
Just thinking about this and wondering how much bird I'll get the first time I punch a Glasshole.
The first story I read of someone rearranging one of these fad video camera's fanboy's faces because they won't turn their fucking camera off, or taking their house in a civil suit because they posted an audio recording on youtube will leave me clutching my sides in laughter.
I hope you're ready to get the shit kicked out of you, because that's inevitably what's going to happen. I can't really see how it isn't going to happen.
I suspect it'll happen so frequently, that the police in any state won't even bother to charge anyone doing so with a crime after a short while.
Good luck!
Just tattoo the standard robots.txt entries on your forehead, and Google Glass will obey. Don't want to be indexed at all? Disallow: * Or perhaps you just don't want people to see your stomach? Disallow: stomach. You can also keep stalkers at bay with a simple "Noindex,nofollow" above your lips.
I am completely unable to remember the names of people even in my small office. "Oh, you need to talk to Sam about that"... Shit. Sam who? I can't ask; I've been here three years! And the name's gender neutral even!
The ten or so people I interact with on a daily basis; fine - but beyond that? Argh!
So yes. Yes please. This is a WONDERFUL aid for an uncommon disability. And pretty much EVERY feature of wearable computing that was promised to be useful; context-based calenders, noting down things you're asked to do as you're asked to do them, showing who you promised to do stuff for and what it was - it all requires recognising who someone is.
This can't come quickly enough. If this actually works (and I doubt it, facial recognition always goes wrong at first), I'll buy one.
It all depends on what society at large thinks is a worthwhile price to pay. Take file sharing (of copyrighted files) for example. It's perfectly possible to stamp it out: just legislate to allow the MPAA and RIA to demand all ISP's to install monitoring software and match whatever you upload to a database of signatures of copyrighted works. The Snowdon papers show that it's very likely that the infrastructure is available to do just that.
Encryption is of course to be outlawed for use by private citizens. US-style "damages" will pay for the enforcement effort and file sharing will be killed in short order.
Of course there are such pesky things like the first amendment that would get in the way, but those are only *legal* and *political* obstacles, not technological ones. Which means they can be removed whenever people feel like it. And people's perception of what is or isn't acceptable can be changed by abuses of technology.
For example, it's perfectly possible to legislate that whoever uploads your mug without your consent is liable for damages (freeing the ones pictured from having to prove any actual damages) and legislate that all and any ISPs and hosting companies must give their full cooperation and assist anyone who can show that their picture has been uploaded without their consent to identify the perpetrator. That would also necessitate the end of anonymous internet access.
What you really mean is that you don't wish for this to happen, not that it can't happen for technological (or political) reasons.
If you thought that no amount of political pressure can effectively take away your rights to upload pictures of people, just wait until the first pedophile ring is discovered scouting schools for attractive "candidates" using Google Glasses and putting the lot online for perusal.
Unfortunately people have a way of abusing new technology in ways that lead to hitherto unheard of legal constraints.
The authors intend to allow people to opt-out of the recognition database.
Like Facebook lets you "opt out" of stuff?
Fair warning to Google Glass wearers in near future: people will sucker-punch you and destroy your toy.
I certainly won't guarantee your safety if I see you with one pointing in my direction.
That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a troll.
The boys at the Fort Meade KGB (oops, I mean NSA) HQ are throwing a party, while the local pigs are ordering extra sprinkles on their doughnuts as we speak.
Glass is the ultimate (to date) example of why "because we can" technology is a very bad thing.
And yes, even though I don't befriend the kind of narcissist that would use Glass, if one shows up at my home or office they will be asked to leave and never return. No exceptions. None.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
Easy: UV face tattoo with a bar code linking to your profile.
Just exclusive or two arbitary movies together.
The upload result matches neither. Only the downloader needs to have one of the two, then they get the other.
When did Slashdot become so full of luddites?
Years ago there would have been nothing but comments full of ideas for amazing things you accomplish using a device like this.
Now it seems like the site is populated almost entirely by pubescent teenagers acting macho and boasting how they'd beat someone up and break their glasses.
Until everyone is wearing a ballroom mask.
person identified:
- john doe, works at , lives in , , !PRIVACY NUT!, has opted out of facial db
They may just have trouble with faces. Or directions, or just current location. Relatively minor.
Others are normal most of the time... with only episodes where they have to be reminded of where they are, what they were doing, or what they were looking for.
The ones in nursing homes have a severe problem in they don't remember how to find the bathroom.
Obviously you have never had to deal with someone with minor problems.
Assault and battery at a minimum.
More likely get sued and have to pay their support for a couple of months.
Some might even see that as a way to make a living. A bit painful for couple of days... but each lawsuit would pay for a months wages for three or four people.
At your expense.
1. goto the airport check for people which take a long distance flight
2. check a few names
3. lookup facebook&co to get an idea whether they live alone or not
4. search the local phone book (or similar) to check where they live
5. drive over to their home and rob the place if no one is there
note:
step 1. could be replaced with a static camera
step 2.-4. could be replaced with a script
Also monitoring someones home with a static camera (could also be mounted on a drone) should make it really easy to create a general schedule plan for when which people regularly come and go -> no more man power intensive stake outs! :)
Face recognition has so many nice applications, can't imagine anything going really wrong. :D
I want glasses with facial recognition. In fact, if it worked the way I want it to, I'd buy them tomorrow.
I don't want this 1984 "we'll stalk everyone on the Internet for you" bullshit. I couldn't care less what the guy opposite me on the bus posted on Twitter this morning. I really, really don't give a fuck.
All I want is my own personal database of the people I know. They come in three categories:
And /. doesn't do ordered lists. wtf?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Seems like some of the easiest public sources to recognize and associate faces from would be police mugshot databases and sex offender databases. Will former criminals be actively shunned everywhere they go in public, or even subject to mob violence?
This space intentionally left blank
http://www.amazon.com/Accoutrements-Fuzzy-Glasses-Classic-Disguise/dp/B000JNS2ZS/
Anon here... I am so frikin' ready... I have so many customers whom I deal with day-to-day in IM and email, but can't consistently recognize in the hallway... I would be so much more effective at my job if I could "connect" with them when I see them F2F each day. This is one place where Glass will be awesome! My social circle at work is frigin huge - all of my peers/customers are important, and I know them all by what I work on with them, but not by face. Please sanction this, omniscient gods, for the good of humanity...
Anyone know if those LED baseball caps really work? What about a can of spray paint, aimed at the Glass-hole?
This looks promising, it's an IR based 'camera blinder' that hides your face:
http://www.slashgear.com/surveillance-cam-blinder-2010369/
Dunno how effective it is against different camera types and it does require you to wear a dumb-ass headband but it looks like a promising concept.
I've been playing around with various IR LED types, such as this one, at a couple wavelengths, and I found that in darkness and twilight, you need only very few to become a huge blob of ghostly light, but in good lighting conditions, a good camera like an Axis P3367 and even some of the crappy webcams I tried will see them as merely little points of red light. So I'll integrate a bunch in my backpack's straps and on it's surface, to at least get that commute, including subways etc.. covered, but with little hope of completeness.
So the real challenge may be: can we build a device that automates lens detection, focuses a small laser on the lens in question, and keeps it there while both the lens and the wearer of the countermeasure laser move along. +1 for a switch that will briefly increase laser power to burning strength. As in using a 2W Laser diode at low power. Capability :-)
that will automate creating a bunch of fake profiles on facebook, twitter, linkedin and whatnot given some photos. this way facial recognition software will drown in the data noise - which of them is real you? something tells me there will be a demand for this service pretty soon.
just kidding, but only half so.
I have prosopagnosia (face blindness) to the extent where I can’t identify myself in photographs. I’ve been to the store with my mother and got separated from her, only to start talking to a woman who had a similar haircut and clothing to her, who was getting very confused as to why some stranger was calling her ‘mom’.
Some kind of facial recognition software would be invaluable to me, but I could not in good conscience use something that did not use just a limited, pre-approved, personal database of people.
If there is one site on the net that deserves to be continually DOSed out of existance, NameTag.ws is it.
oh yeah that's "the world which isn't ready". not advanced enough!
right.
in other news, the world's also not ready for mass murder. eventually people mind will be advanced enough so that this idea will become accepted - when we'll evolve!
People are so paranoia about glasses with a camera.
However, if i walk out my street, i already passed a 15+ camera's, since each building block has 3 camera's around the entrance (not counting the camera in the elevator).
If i continue walking trough the shopping center, i'm observed by a few dozen more 'security' camera's.
Almost any phone has a camera, and i can't tell if it's on or off.
So in a 1-hour walk, i'm likely to get recorded on a 100 or more camera's. And that's only a very small city i live in!
Conclusion: camera's are everywhere already. People afraid of Google's glass are barking against the wrong tree. Where were they 10-15 years ago when everyone was installing those camera's? Almost no-one objected, most people 'felt safer'. We are well beyond that line now, and glasses with a camera add nothing new, just that it's more noticeable.
If people really cared privacy, they should have started caring 20 years ago.
This is going to be like the LG "opt-out" that isn't really an opt out?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/11/19/1318212/user-alleges-lg-tvs-phone-home-with-your-viewing-habits
Once you are in, then you are in.
Wow, I really want to hack this and change my identity. When people see me, I'll FINALLY get the RESPECT that I DESERVE! Or the respect the guy I change my identity to deserves. I'll be a rock star one day, a billionaire the next, and a sports hero after that. Then I'll be a Navy SEAL (wait, there are too many fake SEALs, that's not impressive any longer). Then I'll be a famous historical figure! Napoleon! Lincoln! I think I'm going to like this. What's the URL of the database?
Because technology is constantly being abused to the detriment of the public.
And over the years, we have seen how recorded information; whether by cell phone, camera or whatever, gets used against us in some form.
Look at Facebook. It went from folks sharing their lives to it being abused by business and government.
Having a bad day and lose your temper in front of a Glasshole? Well, that will be recorded and stored in perpetuity and the majority of the time that you're calm, nice, pleasant, etc.... will never be recorded or stored and even if it were, it would be ignored because people like to be titillated.
And of course, employers are always looking for anything negative about a potential employee.
No one is ever on their best behavior all the time. And even then, people interpret behavior differently. One person's assertive behavior is another's argumentative or hostile behavior.
In this day and age, if you want to be employable, you need to keep a low profile. Stay as much as possible as you can out of the public eye.
Now to get the technology built into contact lenses so we don't get beaten up all the time.
Maybe this is why all the cool characters in 80's cyberpunk novels wear mirror shades - to fuck up the recognizer software.
Still that didn't stopped facial recognition in facebook, phone cameras, vigilance/on street cameras, kinect, silently activated webcams and the whole NSA surveillance ecosystem.Adding something so visible as google glass to the mix is not something that would make a big difference.
How about the wrong person being tagged opting THEM out of their life? It is bound to happen eventually, lots of unforgiving people around, especially among the powerful ones.
The article doesn't really explain whether it will be an "opt in" or "opt out" system, their statement is actually ambiguous if you read it carefully.
If it will be an "opt out" system, the app would be blatantly illegal in every EU country and hopefully they would get arrested the first time they put their feet in civil countries like Germany, France, Italy, etc...
This is why I never post pictures of myself publicly. Facial recognition would be fine if data was only drawn from private sources (for example a private distributed social network where I might be comfortable sharing information about myself) but as long as there is a possibility of my information used in this manner I will not provide said information.
This would certainly be interesting for human profiling applications that the men in black use. I wonder who will be storing the data and how it will be secured? I can't imagine the damage that a disgruntled employee (snowden and manning come to mind) could do by releasing this information to the masses online. Imagine a system that allows one to locate a person or possibly a "friend" through network centric facial recognition software connected to the internet. High end organised criminals would be able to identify family members of judges, law enforcement officers and politicians and know where they are pretty quickly. There is a "find my phone/laptop" feature for some hardware but it is very easy to opt out of this, its much much harder for you to opt out of a facial recognition program. For example "Fred seems like he could be a potential customer, I will tag him as a contact in my facial recognition glass app" and all of a sudden Fred is part of the system whether he likes it or not.
I know no one will read this because of level 0 (Anonymous Coward) (Come on DICE, give AC more respect you douches)
It isn't facial recognition that I am bothered about, but rather Google knowing said faces and the glass apparatus syncing data back and forth so the NSA know precisely who you've seen that day.
Anyone else think if there were a complete disconnect (air-gap style) from Big Google and Big Advertisers or even Big Government (NSA?), then facial recognition wouldn't be that big a deal?
Wouldn't it make more sense for each user to have their own database? I don't want it to display names of people I haven't met. That would be distracting, unhelpful, and a potential privacy violation. And since it scans social networking sites, what keeps people from associating a picture with the wrong name?
I'll opt out by smashing anyone wearing Google glasses in the face with a baseball bat.
http://abstrusegoose.com/114
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
...saying they'll punch someone in the face if they wear Google Glass near them.
Without looking at any other comments, was I right?
The next shooting I read about involves a Glasshole on the wrong end.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
instant facial recognition has been one of the most exciting ideas in the pipeline.
For what party? The NSA? The LEOs?
If I don't recognize a face, what good would it do me to also show me a name I don't know?
I suppose if you database backed it, you could come up with some interesting applications. For instance, you could hook it to the sex offender registry, the state's list of folks with restraining orders, the list of folks arrested for solicitation, or dontdatehim.com. Still, for your typical unexceptional person, I don't see what good it would do me to have my computer "recognize" them.
Ok, I know, this is my moment for tilting at windmills, but please, at least among the technologically savvy, let's be correct.
Recognizing FACES is called FACE RECOGNITION, for good and obvious reasons.
Facial recognition is the ability to recognize why someone has cucumbers on their eyes and soothing lotions on their face.
(And no, don't bother with the obvious lewd joke. Too easy.)
What's next, namal recognition when you see a familiar name? Placal recognition for familiar places?
It's the media who can't get this correct, but let's at least try to set a sound precedent here. Who knows, maybe it will spread.
in exasperation
an AI researcher
With NameTag, Glass users will be drawing from an archive that delves into the library of faces from dating networks, the National Sex Offendery Registry, and a set of criminal databases (public, the lot of them, of course).
If it recognizes someone you've never met before there is a 2 in 3 chance they are a rapist or other criminal
I saw someone wearing Google Glass in public for the first time the other day. He looked incredibly stupid and for some reason it was rather disturbing thinking that he could be broadcasting everything he's looking at all the time. Sure, there are cameras everywhere, but the vast majority of the feeds are not publicly available.
Every time some fuckers attacked me or robbed me I wished I had something like this. To have their faces, to have their photos uploaded, to recognize them later if I meet them again.
Someone stole the wallet out of my girlfriends bag, and I saw the face, I saw it, but I didn't react fast enough.
And I can't do shit about it because I don't memorize faces. I can't.
Privacy-shmivacy...
If a criminal knows your name - it is somehow bad. Like BAD. As if he needs it to commit a crime in the first place.
But if you don't know that someone's a criminal - it's okay. It's perfectly okay.
I don't get you people.
Especially if there is a 'panic' feature built in. If you are about to be the victim of a crime, you trigger the 'panic' and everything starts being recorded/offloaded to the cloud, including names of offenders, etc. I really like this feature. Of course, it could be taken to extremes, guy cuts you off on the interstate? You have a little road-rage? Get his name, address, etc and go ape shit on him or his property. The possibilities for good & evil are endless. It will depend on what we as a society decide to do with this tech.
I am positively not responsible for what I may do if I suddenly lose it because someone wearing these spyglasses is staring directly at me in public. I will never assume responsibility for that. No matter what anyone says. Just fair general warning.
You'll be robbing a lot of abandoned houses then.
The key is to find someone with Stuff, that has Left.
Software in a wearable gadget that does what my brain used to be able to do? Oh yes, fear this software! Run away, run away!
The last thing we want individuals to be able to do is have access to cognitive assistive software.
Besides, facial recognition of members of the lumpen proletariat is a power reserved to our corporate and government masters. Allowing the proles to do the same thing turns surveillance into sousveillance, which is obviously unacceptible.
The software should be banned. We should also mandate surgery to as to prevent anyone from using their internal processing capacity to reconnize faces. Harrison Bergeron had it right..
Making people personally accountable for all their actions and things they say on a grander scale might actually make for a better human race.
I mean, you might in theory be able to walk down the street and see a blizzard of rectangles with people's names on them blocking your view of everything else......
But who would weant to? The main point that people responding to this thread hysterically seem to have missed is this : are you or anyone you know seriously planning on spending hundreds of hard earned $$ on this product? No, me neither and I suspect that the few who do will feel so awkward wearing it in public after the ridicule they get from everyone, especially their friends, that it ends up in the "tech I no longer use" drawer pretty quickly.
Can you imagine, walking around and knowing all the casual information about someone? What about criminal? Let's say due to some bullshit you're on a sex offender list and walking around in a mall? Seriously, you're life would be over if accidently you ended up on a sex offender list. Jeezus.. This is just playing with fire.
I'll preface by saying that I've used Glass for several months now and find them to be very interesting/useful and a valuable extension of one's smartphone, etc.
Personally, facial rec would be *hugely* useful for me. I am appalling with names/faces and having name/company etc available when someone came into the booth at a show or the like would be *wonderful*. I do think, however, such an ability needs to be limited to ones contact list/social media connections...that is, it should 'recognize' people you *know*...but not random strangers on the street.
Yes, I know, this is my windmill tilting moment, but sometimes an AC's gotta do what an AC's gotta do.
Recognizing faces is called FACE RECOGNITION, for good and obvious reasons.
FACIAL RECOGNITION means noticing that someone has cucumber slices on their eyes and soothing lotion on their skin.
(And no, don't bother with the obvious lewd joke; we get it.)
Please help spread technical literacy.
(ok, ok: the relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/725/).
An exasperated AI researcher.
We weren't ready for smartphones either. Now people are fucking colliding into each other in the mall because they're messing with their facebook.
Glass is a really bad idea. Period.
I was a teen sereval teen-cycles ago, and the 1st idiot wearing Glass that I meet will need a good medical team, no discussion, period.
Tech is great, but in the current climate of mistrust this is a bad, bad idea and technology.
Do it to me, and your wages will be garnished for life. You'll be buying me a new airplane if you so much as touch me. It's a public place, they're free photons buddy, and I'm not the government. Get over it.
You want to go after someone, go after the NSA, or the credit bureaus, or the many, many assholes already selling every aspect of your life you think is secret. Don't go after your fellow citizens who now, at long last, are starting to get the technology that levels the playing field and allows them to in turn start watching the watchers.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Glass seems to be a guaranteed one-step method for going from socially awkward geek to completely detested pariah.
Why would anyone want to further marginalize themselves among real people for the sake of impersonal social media?
Oh, wait...
You make many good point that I agree with but the following threw me for a loop.
You said:
But GP said:
IOW, he didn't say what you said he said. He said he was prepared to defend himself. That's completely different from "prepared to assault" relative strangers. You don't have to make things up out of thin air to bolster your viewpoint; it was pretty solidly right before you went off the rails.
Besides, if you're not prepared to defend yourself, well, that's what I'd find worrying if I were you.
You teach assholes to use a gun, get a permit to carry it with them at all times, and then proclaim that violence isn't the solution? I smell something in here and I don't think it's burgers on the grill!
I'll go ahead and address the usual response, which I'm sure you'll use, cause everyone needs to protect themselves right? It's all about safety and so forth correct? Now go read your sig. That smell is getting stronger...
...hypocrisy smells like bullshit!
My comment means nothing without a citation, but If i recall correctly, the bar/club or what ever it was will not let you in if they are unable to validate you as a "real" person via your facebook profile.
Wow, another threat to privacy. Good grief! Shouldn't we be investing into curing diseases instead? That's sounds more productive than wasting money on ways to freak people out and condition them further into accepting an ever-gaining loss of personal freedom from modern technology.
Prepare to be beaten severely for wearing one around my proximity.
http://gamehacking.org/vb/threads/12747-nensondubois-codes http://twitter.com/nensondubois_