Watch Dogs-Like Smart Glasses Let You Track Anyone Instantly

In Ubisoft’s open-world game Watch dogs (and its sequels)you can quickly scan any NPC you encounter and find out facts about them, including their name, address, criminal record, and more. And now two people have essentially created this technology in real life using Meta’s smart glasses and mostly off-the-shelf technology and software, providing a frightening glimpse into our future.

As reported by 404 Mediatwo Harvard students have built functional smart glasses that use facial recognition technology to automatically identify someone via their face. Not only that, but the glasses then use this information to find other details about the stranger including their address, phone number, old photos and family members. According to the two students, AnhPhu Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, they did this to raise awareness of the possibilities of current technology and they do not intend to disclose it to the public.

Nguyen and Ardayfio called the project I-XRAY and showed a demonstration of it in action earlier this week on social media. In the video posted to Twitter, the couple were able to identify several strangers without asking them for details, although some data turned out to be inaccurate when the duo spoke to the people.

“The main motivation was that we thought it was interesting, it was cool,” Nguyen said 404 Media. Apparently the other people they showed it to also thought it was “really cool” and some suggested it could be used for “networking” or “making funny videos.” However, luckily someone also mentioned to them something incredibly dangerous that this technology could be in the wrong hands. “A guy could at least find a girl’s home address on the train and follow her home,” Nguyen said.

As pointed out 404 Mediathis type of smart glasses facial scanning technology has been around for a few years now. But Google and Facebook, two companies that were working on this subject, finally decided not to publish their software.

But you don’t need technology resources or money to build your own system. Watch dogs super glasses that can instantly dox anyone you meet on the street. Nguyen and Ardayfio’s I-XRAY uses Meta’s Ray Bans and facial recognition service accessible to the public Pimeyes to scan someone’s face with cameras hidden in glasses and then identify them. This information is then used to search the web for phone numbers, other photos, family information and addresses.

“We were showing people pictures of them in kindergarten, and they had never even seen the picture before,” Ardayfio said. “Most people were surprised by the amount of data they have online. » Once, they were able to show their mother’s phone number to a stranger after simply scanning their face.

“I think people could definitely embrace [l’idée d’I-XRAY] and use it,” Ardayfio said. “If people adopt this idea, I think it will be really bad. I hope that the awareness we have spread about how to protect your data will outweigh the negative impacts this could have. » The duo included information on how to protect yourself in a large document on the project which is freely available online.

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