Google Glass Will Identify People By Clothing 115
recoiledsnake writes "This article notes, 'A new technology built into Google Glass, dug up by New Scientist, takes Google Glass from interesting to down right creepy. Google Glass can now pick a person out of crowd based on their fashion style. The system, InSight, developed in partnership with Google, will take a nice little moment to assess the clothing in frame, and then point out exactly where your friends are in busy settings like a bar, concert, or sporting event. It could probably point you out in a protest, or shopping mall too.' We previously discussed the disorienting effects on the wearer of the device."
Does no one actually read the articles? (Score:5, Informative)
The article explains that the application works like this: you have to start off by IDing your friend to it. It then analyzes the clothing they're wearing and their dimensions. When you want to look for them, it scans for a match, and picks out the person (or what could potentially be the person) for you.
The article goes on to mention a couple of reasons that they chose to do it this way: one is to protect privacy! By not using facial recognition, they make sure that the app can't easily be pre-loaded with a database of people and look for them all the time. For another, humans are already good at facial recognition. If you can see your friend's face, there's a good chance that you'll recognize them. This, however, helps when you're scanning the crowd and their back might be to you.
Honestly, it sounds like a good idea to me. Sure, it's going to have problems if you're surrounded by identically-dressed people, but you're not left any worse off by that than you were without it. Since it uses their bodily dimensions as well, it may still be of some use. And I know from times that I've been shopping with my wife and was looking for her that I, personally, have a horrible memory for what people are wearing. If I see her face, sure, I'll recognize her - but I often find myself remembering not the outfit she was wearing today, but the one she was wearing yesterday, or the one she was wearing when I met her for lunch.....