Reports suggest that Glass may soon be able to use facial recognition technology, and the feature may be offered to developers in the future. More specifically, Lamda Labs developed a facial recognition application for Glass, which they’re going to make available to Glass developers within the next week.
Google decided not to include such technology in early builds of the platform, but they never actually told developers they cannot create or use it. This is pretty big news since the technology would be exceptionally useful for a platform like Glass. Although, I’m not entirely sure why Google didn’t bake the feature in to begin with? Maybe they just didn’t want to cause any excess controversy with the platform, at least not any more than they already have.
According to The Telegraph, the Glass application will “force users to take photographs, tag them with information on who is in them and then compare any subsequent photographs taken to those previously uploaded.” In other words, it’s just like the Facebook photo tagging feature, except it’s used behind the scenes to recognize familiar faces. They also report that future versions of the software “may allow real-time recognition of faces.”
That’s pretty damn interesting. Think of all those times you remembered someone, but couldn’t quite put a name to their face. What if Google Glass could automatically tell you who they are? I hate to say it, but that would be pretty sweet.
People are going to go bonkers over the privacy implications of this technology, but that’s nothing new. Since the early models of Glass shipped, and even before that people have been worried about what the platform means for personal privacy.
Lamda Labs makes alternate facial recognition software which is generally used for digital photography. According to the company, more than 1,000 developers use their unique software which generates about 5 million identity recognition attempts per month.
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