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Bill Gates Patents Detecting, Responding To "Glassholes"
theodp (442580) writes "As Google Glass goes on sale [ed: or rather, went on sale] to the general public, GeekWire reports that Bill Gates has already snagged one patent for 'detecting and responding to an intruding camera' and has another in the works. The invention proposes to equip computer and device displays with technology for detecting and responding to any cameras in the vicinity by editing or blurring the content on the screen, or alerting the user to the presence of the camera. Gates and Nathan Myhrvold are among the 16 co-inventors of the so-called Unauthorized Viewer Detection System and Method, which the patent application notes is useful 'while a user is taking public transportation, where intruding cameras are likely to be present.' So, is Bill's patent muse none other than NYC subway rider Sergey Brin?"
A more cynical interpretation: closing the analog hole. Vaguely related, mpicpp pointed out that Google filed a patent for cameras embedded in contact lenses.
So this glasshole walks into a bar. I don't know what happened after that. It was either the intruding camera detection blur or the alcohol but all I then remember is talking about closing the analog hole and I soon realized I might be in a situation not to my liking.
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
The thing that glass advocates don't seem to realise is that people don't like the surveillance potential.
The thing is people don't worry about hidden cameras. We know they exist and anyone can buy them, but frankly most people don't. Mostly people know they aren't interesting enough to be targeted by some private investigator, and most people aren't interested in covertly filming everyone they encounter. We know there's a small risk and so are not worried about covert surveillance. Covert stuff has been available for ages and isn't a problem, in practice.
The thing is glass isn't covert, so clearly the covertness isn't the problem. The problem is that people get irritated when people are casually pointing cameras at them the whole time. They're not interesting enough to be targeted so that's not the problem, the problem is the casualness of the thing. Not the problem with cell phones since its an effort to take photos and obvious when it's happening. It's the causalness where people wind up being photographed and catalogued by one of the world's largest companies where previously there wasa uninteresting enough to be anonymous that bothers people.
This doesn't mean glass is inherently bad, and the HUD has useful applications. But waving a camera in someones face does have a tendency to piss people off.
PS
The other sort of advocates claiming we're "post privacy" can pull their heads out of their asses. Lack of privacy is literally worse than torture for some people: it was reported as being the single hardest thing to cope with long term in concentration camps by some of the surviors.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
the patent is bullshit. it doesn't provide the magical means of how to technically decide that something is a viewer or not and the other stuff is obvious. it doesn't take a genius to come up with that hey it would be nice to detect if someone is viewing while you input your pin. but it would take a genius to sit in the box24 /7 to figure out if there was a camera somewhere or not!
"Intruder analysis module scans the input for viewers, and classifies them as either intruders or safe viewers. Intruder analysis module also scans the input for cameras or camera-equipped devices (e.g., SLR cameras, camera-equipped cellular phones, point-and-shoot cameras, building-mounted camera systems, etc.). Intruder analysis module may classify an object as a viewer or camera using any number of detection algorithms. For example, intruder analysis module may apply motion detection algorithms on the sensor information, and may classify any moving object as a viewer"
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
But people are reacting because the Google glasses bring another dimension to this, when you get a lot of people that are potentially constantly filming you and uploading it to a massive data-aggregator with immense capabilities to correlate data and track people.
that keeps being repeted but it is bullshit, it does not have enough battery life to be constantly filming and the bandwidth requirements needed to upload hd video to google data centers would cost far to much to be doable even if anyone wanted to.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.