By this point, we're all familiar with augmented reality, but Swedish mobile software firm The Astonishing Tribe is taking information overload to the next logical step: augmented identity. Mashing up face recognition technology, computer vision, cloud computing, and augmented reality with the complex digital lives many of us lead on the Internet, TAT has created an app that allows you to gather information on a person and their social networking life simply by pointing your camera phone at their face.
Dubbed Recognizr, the app essentially works like this: the user points the camera at a person across the room. Face recognition software creates a 3-D model of the person's mug and sends it across a server where it's matched with an identity in the database. A cloud server conducts the facial recognition since and sends back the subject's name as well as links to any social networking sites the person has provided access to.
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Technology, Clay Dillow, apps, augmented identity, augmented reality, cell phones, facial recognition, mobile apps, social networkingGiven the vast catalog of photos already posted to more social corners of the Web like Twitter and Facebook, the software opens up our social networks to some unique possibilities. And though it may seem counter-intuitive, the face recognition aspect of this particular brand of AR apparently works better than some other apps that simply gather information on places or objects, because its easy for the software to figure out exactly what you want to search for -- the human face (as opposed to a particular building on a block with many other buildings, edifices, and other objects).
Of course, where social networks go, advertisers and other more invasive data mining schemes are sure to follow. But privacy geeks can take a pre-emptive pipe-down; you have to opt into the service and upload a photo and profile in order to be ID'd by the system. The recognition algorithms are compatible with the iPhone as well as newer Android phones, though it seems the current demo only runs on phones with at least a five-megapixel camera and the Android OS.
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While I note the opt in feature of the service, it does seem possible that people might be "slammed" into something like this through their membership in a social network. I suppose that most networks are smarter than this, but they've done foolish things to their members before.
Anyone wanna place a bet that governments already have a pretty good database of photos to use this tech with? For example, your driver's license. Ahh, how quickly privacy is disappearing.
Pretty cool app. (: Nice way to stalk a stranger, maybe.
Recognizr, hell, it should be called Creepr
________
-Cliff
Yea - I am pretty sure if a stranger was holding a video camera to me I would not just smile.
Not at all cool. Just what we need - strangers knowing our identity, address, etc.! Hell we mines well give them a house key and bank account information too.
Maybe it should be called Stalker. Pick up your phone, find out the info on the object of your twisted desire. Flip over to G Earth and scope out the homefront.
Opt in -- didn't myspace or facebook flip on that one -- giving out private info. And how about that Google Buzz.
I oredict that the market for masks and anonymizers will become huge.
Peter Schaar, the German Bundesdatenschutzbeauftragte (German federal privacy officer), told me in a talk he gave 4 weeks ago:
There are press releases that Google Goggles is capable of doing the same. (as in presenting the name, not the twitter profile)
But Google denies such statements.
I guess in Germany a person wanting to use this service is forbidden to take a picture of yours in order to identify you, without your prior consent. But I assume there is no real ramification if you just trample on someone's rights.
(I don't know whether the service per se is unlawful, as it encourages you to take someone's picture without consent. .... if you asked for the right to take the picture you could just ask for the name, so practically speaking the service wants you to use it in a forbidden fashion.)
Next up: some enterprising journalists will put together a high-def camera that will get a picture of everyone in a large room simultaneously, then they can do the automated recognition all at once, and look for interesting correlations. There's two people sitting together, they're married but not to each other! There's a fat cat banker meeting with your favorite political leader! Secret merger negotiations between two CEO's! Once something interesting is found, shoot some video of the subjects and put it on YouTube. The opportunities (including blackmail) are endless. The whole system could even be automated and hidden.
This is amazing! We built a prototype for such an app in 2004 at the University of Bremen...great to see it in reality!!!
goods and bads:
good: police can use facial recognition with their cell phone instead of transmitting the pic to the lab and having the lab call back saying who it is.
bad: all mentioned above.
Pretty scary stuff. I'm not one of those privacy-geeks mentioned above as I have only benefited from getting involved in the social cloud. But for me this is a step too far. Ironically this technology may lead to us to sensor our information available rather than share.
Yeah, I'll opt in. However don't be surprised at any phonetic spellings of a name I choose to register. ;)
Hello, my Name is Mark A. Gonsalves and I was looking at the Popular Science Magazine website(www.popsci.com) and I found this article which focuses on identity. I did get a chance to read some of the article and figured that I would add a comment to it. I am a frequent user of www.MYSPACE.com and www.FACEBOOK.com and I did encounter a problem while using www.FACEBOOK.com. Someone was able to use my full Name to create a profile of themself on www.FACEBOOK.com. I contacted the Person and the Employees who worked for www.FACEBOOK.com via email to let them know about this issue. However, I did not receive a response from the Employees who work for www.FACEBOOK.com. The Person is still using my full Name on www.FACEBOOK.com for the profile that they created. I did let the Person know this is a form of identity theft, however he seemed to not care about what I was talking about. Another issue that I noticed while using www.MYSPACE.com is that they allow People to edit other People's profiles, such as removal of videos that the Person uploads to their profile and editing of the information that the Person posts to their Profile. Again, I did notify the Employees who work for www.MYSPACE.com of the problem, however they did not answer the questions that I asked them. If anyone wants to look at my profile on www.MYSPACE.com, the website address is www.MYSPACE.com/hotsteppermark. Anyway, today is Saturday, July 3, 2010 and the current time on this desktop Computer is 2:55 P. M., Pacific Standard Time and the current season on Earth is Summer.