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Google Can Tell if Someone Is Looking at Your Phone Over Your Shoulder (qz.com)
Dave Gershgorn, writing for Quartz: At the Neural Information Processing Systems conference in Long Beach, California, next week, Google researchers Hee Jung Ryu and Florian Schroff will present a project they're calling an electronic screen protector, where a Google Pixel phone uses its front-facing camera and eye-detecting artificial intelligence to detect whether more than one person is looking at the screen. An unlisted, but public video by Ryu shows the software interrupting a Google messaging app to display a camera view, with the peeking perpetrator identified and given a Snapchat-esque vomit rainbow. Ryu and Schroff claim the system works with different lighting conditions and poses, and can recognize a person's gaze in 2 milliseconds. Ostensibly, this AI software is able to work so quickly because it's being run on the phone, rather than sent for processing on the company's powerful cloud servers.
Wow that was hard.
Seems like you can easily circumvent this detection by wearing sunglasses. TFA makes no mention either way.
if you stare into the phone, the phone stares back
1) to charge extra when more than one person watches netflix?
2) to do targeted advertising based on who is looking?
3) to pause commercials if I look away until I face the screen again?
4) to pause ads if the other person looks away, to make sure they see the ads too?
5) to pause the video if I look away.
6) to black out your screen any time someone else happens to look at it. great if you to don't want your bf/gf/wife/husband to see the text messages your sending... not so great if you are trying to *show* him/her the text messages your sending. And truly annoying the moment your kids and friends figure out they can black your phone out by glancing at the screen, and start doing it just to mess with you.
Why is the camera even on? Camera should only be on, when I turn it on. Yet another feature from google I don't want.
Meanwhile, it won't tell if I'm being recorded by 40 other cameras. So its a false sense of security at best.
So, what they're really saying is what we already suspected - google devices are always spying on you, now it's visual and they are identifying what's happening in the background.
The Pixel phone is watching you at all times.
Creepy.
Maybe blurring the screen? The example in the TFA isn't great and it implies when there is an eavesdropper, a view of the user and the highlighted image of the person looking over their shoulder comes into view.
I'm thinking that if the display is truly horrific and/or ruins the user experience, the phone's owner will probably disable the feature.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Ostensibly, this AI software is able to work so quickly because it's being run on the phone, rather than sent for processing on the company's powerful cloud servers.
How does this help Google in its relentless quest to slurp ever more data about everyone on the planet? If this ever sees the light of day as more than a tech demo, I think we can guarantee that, well, let's just say it'll be running a bit slower.
Like we need more facial recognition in the world... Just wait until people realize that devices like this involuntarily collect biometrics on everyone in things like group selfies and family photos. No fancy Facebook code required this time, just a new smart phone. It's not coincidence that Apple made a new video and image format. They'll have facial recognition exif data in key frames inside videos based on what it knows from your photos. Then, your YouTube and Facebook uploads get to collect that data.
Great, I can't wait until this is used to enforce viewer counts for DRM. No more sharing Netflix and HBO!
Another problem that 1% had, and that no one wanted solved, especially by a solution with a huge cost: no one will be looking over my shoulder when my battery is dead.
This is a lie only PlayStation fanboys repeat because PlayStation is too shitty to have cloud processing in their games! Xbox One runs games in the cloud to provide faster gaming!
Just plaster faces all over the ceiling or glare over someone's shoulder.
Come to think of it, that's pretty darn creepy.
I can think of several low-tech approaches that will accomplish the same thing, just as fast, as probably more reliably. This is mostly one of that we-are-doing-it-because-we-can kind of things.
How did we get here, I wonder?
I can remember when GMail first came out and they were scanning the messages for spam. Everyone thought it was creepy, and an invasion of privacy, and maybe we shouldn't be using GMail for our personal messages...
Fast forward and we have Twitter and Facebook reading our feeds and automatically banning people. With no warnings, no explanation or identification of what caused the ban, just "you were saying inappropriate things, you're gone".
And of course their system can't be everywhere all the time, so they have "report this post" links where people can helpfully alert the companies about posts that should be examined.
(This, of course, gets abused in so many ways for political spite.)
Google is now scanning peoples' documents stored online, and simply banning access to the docs if the topics are deemed "unnecessary " (as in: "needlessly graphic or violent content". You didn't *need* to have that, so we're banning your short story.)
They don't give warnings or even explanation of what was detected, simply remove the person's 1st amendment right: you can't share the document with others. Or, apparently, copy it back to your local system.
Now they look over your shoulder, helpfully telling you that someone is snooping on your video chat.
Great. Wonderful. Completely useful feature, helps us keep our privacy. It's creepy, but for a good cause.
How did we get here again?
How's this for a screen protection idea:
When you're around other people you could be interacting with, you PUT THE GODDAMN PHONE AWAY and TALK to other human beings...
There, I said it.
I know a lot of us joke about this kind of tech being used/misused, whatever, but this is just creepy. We all seem to have a "well, WTF am I going to do about it?" attitude and just shrug it off. Seriously, how long before we start seeing crap ads like in Minority Report, or even worse. We willingly walk around with electronic leashes and think the trade off is worth it. I just paid off my Verizon iPhone 7 Plus. I'm seriously considering a flip phone. Yes, you can still be tracked, but there is 99% less telemetry with a flip phone. The one thing that keeps me from doing it is texting. I loathe T9 and any variant thereof. I choose Apple because I believe they are the lesser of the two evils. I won't touch a Google device or use any of their service.
Verizon's shenanigans of late and their connection to Ajit Pai, which I was unaware of until recently, has led me to consider going over to T-Mobile. Yes, I realize I would only be trading one master for another, but isn't that what this has become? You (metaphorically) pick a vassal lord, be that Google or Apple, and you live within their walled-in kingdom. Sure, you may have something in the other kingdom, but the binary choice of control is disheartening.
This is the sort of thing you would want to have included with encrypted messaging apps like Signal. Of course, it should be a configurable option, and when it detects other eyes on the screen, it should display an option to override the privacy (perhaps you want to show a message to a friend). But for reading possibly sensitive messages in a public place, this is a great idea.
Though I agree that there are a lot of cases where you don't want this, and it could be used to your disadvantage. That's why I want to see a phone where access to any given hardware can be controlled, with the option to provide simulated hardware in cases where you want the app to think it's using the real camera, GPS, motion sensor, or whatever. And that should include the network (which happens to be down all the time for certain apps, or only up when I'm viewing them).
That guy looking over your shoulder just got targeted ads -
ACME shoulder pads... not just a fashion statement but a thing of comfort, get a pair for someone you're close with for this holiday season.
good thing for them people are only able to see other people's phone screens when standing directly behind them, and not when standing to the side, out of view of the camera (and don't worry google, even if people could still see at other angles, this never happens on elevators or trains -- people never stand next to and slightly behind each other; you see clear evidence of this by the fact that when people get out of an elevator, for example, it's one by one, because they were definitely standing in a single line in there). this is also perfect because most people tend to hold their phones out, and at chest height or above, because we're all extremely fat or have huge boobs and only know how to hold our phone as if we're taking a selfie, because let's be honest ... that's all we actually do with our phones; also, being uncomfortable when typing encourages you to hurry the fuck up and type faster so you can return to a more natural and relaxed position sooner -- the speed gained is a huge boost in productivity. and on crowded trains, it's the suggested way everyone use their phone as it helps ensure optimal spacing (need more space? just shove your phone into someone else's face and they'll kindly make room). all that coupled with the fact that people lack the basic situational awareness to recognize that there's a person behind them and that person is probably looking at their phone, intentionally or not, makes this a wonderful idea and i have no idea how we'd live without it. i personally would love a feature on my phone that reminds me to breathe as well.
seriously what the fuck is the point of this? you'd have to be deaf and dumber than trump (possibly even dumber than ivanka ... if that's possible) for this to provide any actual value (and at that level of stupid, i question whether the user would understand the warning, or just go "ohhh, pretty colorssss"). as others have mentioned, this is just going to be an annoyance likely. it will be disabled by pretty much everyone.
does anyone else sometimes feel like google just hires people and has them work on crap like this to prevent them from working at a potential competitor, regardless of what they actually do at google?
[ Oh wait, that's basically always. ]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Because in Russia phone looks over your shoulder.
What kind of emoji do they get?
Corporatism != Free Market
Because billions of devices with always-on cameras is good. In case someone doesn't respect your privacy and peeks over your shoulder.
Real lawyers write in C++
Artificial Intelligence isn't the correct term for the thing they mean.
Problem solved.
Would the phone identify cameras as well? What if someone is looking at my screen with a zoom lens?
There is a great "Black Mirror" episode that does exactly that.
Take a look ;-)
Maybe that's still working today. But if the progresses of Facebook's face recognition is used as a benchmark, very soon, the only way to escape google's detection would be to wear dazzle make-up.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Google
It is always the Google that is looking over your shoulder.
Or is blocked..by...blutack
And that someone is:
A: Google
B: Your Carrier
C: Your Asshole Government
D: Pretty much EVERYBODY!
If you chose D, you are correct.
Use a mirror. #REKT
Phone notices extra eyeballs, sends a pic back home to identify the person, checks the NSA's Person Of Interest list for a match, triggers an alert.
Do your part for national security, breach everyone's privacy everywhere you go.
Its not that far fetched right? I mean if there is a high-profile event, the NSA could say "right, better switch on the google eyeball scanner in that area. We'll let GladOS profile these pricks before they get a chance to make a move." Then they leave a hard drive full of that data on the counter in a cafe.
Wow, can you imagine being in witness protection these days with all of the different ways to be identified.