Recognizr, Augmented ID - APP OF THE WEEK

We've been gaga over augmented reality over the last year or so…And it's been so much fun tracking the ways developers have been making use of the technology. The latest app prototype (which runs on Android), Recognizr, is pretty gosh darn brilliant…and beyond creepy.

Dubbed Recognizr, the app essentially works like this: the user points the camera at a person across the room. Face recognition software creates a 3-D model of the person's mug and sends it across a server where it's matched with an identity in the database. A cloud server conducts the facial recognition since and sends back the subject's name as well as links to any social networking sites the person has provided access to.
[via Popsci.com]

While the Recognizr software seems to only search people who have actively registered with the service, we should all maybe think about stepping it up on some tighter privacy settings on your social networking sites…because there's certainly more like this to come…and it won't be long before all it takes is one snapshot on an iPhone, and a total stranger can get the goods on you.

All that said, we're constantly shifting our privacy boundaries when it comes to technology…The cyber-stalking capabilities social networking sites provide today would've scared us silly ten years ago. In another ten, it will likely be totally acceptable (and expected) that someone can get basic personal info about you from a simple snapshot on their phone..and life/culture without that technology will be nothing but a vague memory -- Let's not forget, just ten years ago, most people didn't even have cell phones!

And just think about all the amazing implications this technology might have….i.e. scanning celebrity faces during a television show and automatically connect to their IMDB profiles... Just sayin'.

-jmd