Meta To Add Facial Recognition To Glasses After All (404media.co) 22
According to The Information (paywalled), Meta is reportedly developing facial recognition capabilities for its Ray-Ban smart glasses -- technology it previously avoided due to privacy concerns. 404 Media's Joseph Cox writes: The move is an obvious about-face from Meta. It's also interesting to me because Meta's PR chewed my ass off when I dared to report in October that a pair of students took Meta's Ray-Ban glasses and combined them with off-the-shelf facial recognition technology. That tool, which the students called I-XRAY, captured a person's face, ran it through an easy to access facial recognition service called Pimeyes, then went a step further and pulled up information about the subject from across the web, including their home address and phone number.
When I contacted Meta for comment for that story, Dave Arnold, a spokesperson for the company, said in an email he had one question for me. "That Pimeyes facial recognition technology could be used with ANY camera, correct? In other words, this isn't something that only is possible because of Meta Ray-Bans? If so, I think that's an important point to note in the piece," he wrote. This is true. But entirely misses the point of why the students created the tool with Meta's Ray-Ban glasses. They said themselves in a demonstration video they identified dozens of people without their knowledge. You do that by wearing a pair of glasses that look like any other. Meta's Ray-Ban's do have a light that turns on when it's recording, but according to the new report, Meta is questioning whether new versions of its glasses need this.
When I contacted Meta for comment for that story, Dave Arnold, a spokesperson for the company, said in an email he had one question for me. "That Pimeyes facial recognition technology could be used with ANY camera, correct? In other words, this isn't something that only is possible because of Meta Ray-Bans? If so, I think that's an important point to note in the piece," he wrote. This is true. But entirely misses the point of why the students created the tool with Meta's Ray-Ban glasses. They said themselves in a demonstration video they identified dozens of people without their knowledge. You do that by wearing a pair of glasses that look like any other. Meta's Ray-Ban's do have a light that turns on when it's recording, but according to the new report, Meta is questioning whether new versions of its glasses need this.
You know I can actually think of a legitimate use (Score:3)
For anyone with that problem It would be very useful to be able to put on a pair of augmented reality glasses that basically tell you who a person is assuming the accuracy was pretty high.
On the other hand there is no way in hell the data doesn't make it to Facebook and get abused.
Re: (Score:3)
@lookup(client, credit score, marital status, testosterone prescription);
@lookup(sex_right_now_potential, );
@lookup(crowd, enemies(possible armament));
The list goes on almost infinitely. Use JSON, YAML, whatever, and your favorite allied new friend, AI.
Zuck is desperate.
Re:You know I can actually think of a legitimate u (Score:5, Funny)
Now that you mention it, being able to unfollow people in real life might be useful. Without these glasses, I'm stuck just doing it the old-fashioned way by looking for a MAGA hat.
And losing the Confederate flag will be a tragedy (Score:1)
Besides I think we still have truck nuts. Except in Texas they're now a sex toy so they're highly illegal.
Re: (Score:2)
Certain types of autism cause you to be unable to recognize faces. I might be using the word autism incorrectly here though but you get the point.
Same for those of us who have hit the limit for how many names our brains can store, and end up with high latency recall (especially when encountering people out of context).
Re: (Score:1)
ChatGPT says:
Face blindness, or prosopagnosia, is not inherently indicative of autism. It can occur:
1. Independently (Developmental Prosopagnosia)
Many people are born with prosopagnosia without any neurological injury or co-occurring developmental disorders.
These individuals often have no other signs of autism or cognitive differences.
This condition is sometimes hereditary and can affect otherwise neurotypical people.
2. More Frequently in Autistic Individuals
People on the autism spectrum are more likely to experience face recognition difficulties than the general population.
However, in autism, face blindness may stem more from differences in social attention and processing, rather than pure perceptual impairment.
It can be one aspect of broader differences in how autistic individuals process social information, including facial expressions and eye contact.
Okay, so it's a bit "toe-may-toe" vs "toe-mah-toe" with the end symptom being similar enough, but the underlying cause is different. At any rate, we're not living in a Star Trek reality where suddenly a pair of computerized glasses can cure all of someone's social awkwardness. If anything, wearing a dorky pair of glasses probably comes off as being more socially tone-deaf than simply saying "Hey, sorry, but I'm terrible with names, could I get yours again?"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
"... a dorky pair of glasses": The Meta AI Ray-Ban glasses look like Ray-Ban glasses in like a hundred styles including Wayfarer.
The embedded cameras give off creepy vibes, at least once you're close enough to make them out. There's just a nagging feeling of "are they recording me?" which is always going to make you wonder a bit about why the person you're interacting with made the conscious decision to wear them. Certainly, there are legitimate reasons where it might come in handy to have them help the wearer recognize people or perform various tasks of a similar nature, but it's unavoidable that others are going to come up with t
Re: (Score:2)
No but they could help you with summaries of recent conversations upon recognizing a friend... reminding you of things like their daughter being in the hospital so that you can follow up on that. Some of us would prefer that instead of remembering 20 minutes after a conversation with 20 missed references they decided mean you don't care about them. But really you do care, it's just your brain was hyper focused on some new piece of tech you saw that day and really just focused on them for the first time now,
Re: (Score:2)
So they can provide the wearer with the illusion of being a friend without them actually having to give a shit about you - cool.
Re: (Score:2)
People remembering details like this about you is entirely about them trying to provide you with the illusion of being a friend without them actually giving a shit about you. Remembering faces, names of spouses, etc that people talk about is a trick for anyone who wants to *appear to care* regardless of whether it is genuine. Succeeding is about having a good memory and really caring about appearances, caring isn't even part of it.
All this does is level the playing field.
Re: (Score:2)
Certain types of autism cause you to be unable to recognize faces.
People with autism are generally OK with the general pattern recognition. It's very typical to not be able to subsconsciously read _emotions_ from facial expressions.
Re: (Score:2)
Certain types of autism cause you to be unable to recognize faces. I might be using the word autism incorrectly here though but you get the point.
Some studies found about 2-3% of the general population have prosopagnosia (face blindness) compared to some 30-40% of people with autism, but a lot depends on where the lines are drawn, since there's wide variability in degrees of both conditions. Neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote that he had such severe face blindness that he couldn't even recognize himself in a mirror, leading to occasional embarrassing incidents.
Re: (Score:2)
It's pretty much all legitimate use and a dose of paranoia and I say that as a paranoid security nut. And it really sucks because AR with HUD glasses... now with AI capabilities is actually a really cool lane of assistive technology and being able to remind you of everyone names, spouses names, important personal things they mentioned about their lives when you were distracted... all the stuff you'd pay attention to if your brain let you. Yeah, that would be fantastic. But no, they'll spin this as a creeper
Re: (Score:3)
I'd certainly want to identify serial killers as soon as I saw them.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup... the ability to remember your wife's birthday and horoscope, two things you ignored and opened the door for the predator to steal your life. ;)
a whole new business... (Score:2)
so there's a need for individuals to be able to block the recognition of their face.
Sounds like more extortion money to me.
Better title: (Score:3)
Privacy Rapist To Add Privacy Raping Features To Glasses After All
There FTFY.