A little more research this week, pondering on Augmented Reality.
I seem to still be in Fuerteventura. Part of my daily routine is to walk up to the old town, and watch the sunset. The skies have been clear and some of the planets were visible near the moon, but I didn’t know which was which. SkyView Lite app enlightened me, but also allowed for a little creativity with it’s augmented reality function. Bringing close things that are far away and cannot be seen.
Couple of interesting stories in the media this week too.
China introducing face scans for new mobile clients, mainly they say to protect people in cyberspace. I’m not too certain how new this is as a story. Certainly whenever I have registered with some Chinese services I’ve had to submit my face and ID.
But there was another story in September which was about a university in China which was pulling back from scanning faces due to complaints. So clearly the authorties are aware of the discontent.
But it is now taken for granted that if you walk down the street in Beijing, your movements will be monitored by face recognition software and cross checked against your social profile (in China if you are good, you get extra points. If you are bad, then you are barred from some things like housing, credit and entertainment).
Such a suggestion would probably go down badly in the UK, although when you start to consider the amount of information we as individuals input into websites, apps, social media… can’t help thinking there’s a bit of doublethink going on.
So… what are we afraid of? The application of such techniqes or the way the data could be used in the future. Once everything about us is chronicalled and coordinated - what we look like, what we do, what we prefer, what we buy, where we go, who we see - what then?
Orwell’s 1984 is freely available in Chinese bookshops. In fact I have a copy in Chinese. I often wondered whether they saw it as dystopian, or an ideal?