Why Google Wants to Surgically Plant a Camera in Your Eye

The Daily Sheeple

It wasn’t that long ago when Google’s motto “don’t be evil” was taken seriously by the general public.

Nowadays we all know that Google has about as many scruples (or lack thereof) as any other major corporation. Their bottom line depends on targeted advertising, and that means that every product or service they provide is given to their customers with the sole intent of invading their privacy.

Which is why the public should be thoroughly alarmed by some of the products that Google plans to roll out in the future. If you thought Google Glass would present plenty of opportunities to invade the privacy of both the user and the bystanders who are caught on camera, then you should be a little freaked out by a patent Google filed two years ago, which was first publicized last week.

The patent is for an optical implant that would place a camera inside your eyeball. Just imagine a world where you have zero chance of knowing if someone is filming you. After every interaction with a stranger, you’d be left wondering if your conversation is about to wind up on Youtube. You might even start censoring your thoughts and conversations when in public.

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Google Glass given 'mind control' powers

The Independent

New technology that lets wearers control Google Glass using brainwaves could let people snap a photo and upload to the internet just by thinking about it.

Created by London user experience company This Place, the MindRDR app uses a third-party EEG headband (electroencephalography) to measure electrical activity in the brain and convert these signals into instructions for Glass.

Google Glass, which launched in the UK last month, is usually controlled by voice commands or via a touchpad located on the arm of the device.

Although the MindRDR technology might appear frivolous at first glance, its creators hope technology like it could one day help individuals suffering from locked-in syndrome or quadriplegia the opportunity to use technology like Glass to interact with the world.

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How Google Glass and smartphones can decipher your PIN code from across the room – even if your screen is facing away

The Independent

Security researchers from the US have shown that gadgets such as Google Glass can be used to covertly record PIN codes from distances of 10 feet – even if the target display is hidden from view.

Wired reports that the research team led by Professor Xinwen Fu of the University of Massachusetts Lowell used software that analysed the shadows and movements of peoples’ fingers in order to decipher PIN codes entered into tablets and smartphones.

A range of devices were tested including Google Glass (which recently went on sale in the UK), an iPhone 5, a Samsung smartwatch and a Logitech webcam. Video captured by Glass produced a correct four digit PIN from three metres away with 83 per cent accuracy (this was improved to more than 90 per cent with manual corrections) while the webcam was accurate 92 per cent of the time.

Similar software has been created in the past (including an iOS app) but this is the first instance of technology that can decipher PINS even when the display is unreadable. Fu explains that it does this by creating a reference image of the iPad’s screen and mapping the target’s finger movements onto this.

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The Internet of Bodies Is Coming, and You Could Get Hacked

Motherboard/Vice

The 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web came and went yesterday, along with the requisite retrospectives and predictions for the next quarter-century of innovation. But few reports forecasting the future of the web pointed out that in the future, there may not be a web. At least not as we know it now, as place you “go” or “visit,” because the next generation of the internet could be people themselves.

The "Internet of X" is a buzzphrase we're starting to hear a lot: Beyond the much-discussed Internet of Things, there's now the Internet of Pets, the Internet of Plants, and, most interestingly, the nascent Internet of Bodies.

In other words, 25 years from now gadgets like smartphones, smartwatches, augmented glasses, virtual reality headgear, and the myriad other devices merging humans and the internet may be laughably antiquated. Computers will become so tiny they can be embedded under the skin, implanted inside the body, or integrated into a contact lens and stuck on top of your eyeball.

Naturally, those machines will be wifi-enabled, so it’s feasible that anything you can do with your phone now you could do with your gaze or gestures in a few decades. And maybe even more, as augmented reality and virtual reality come out of infancy and proliferate beyond awkward and cumbersome devices like Google Glass or the Oculus Rift.

Imagine an implantable sensor in your arm that can display a person's contact information when you shake their hand, or an augmented contact lens that projects a map in front of your eyes as you walk around. It's not that crazy; smart and augmented contacts are already in development, people are getting digital tattoos, biohackers are sticking computer chips under their skin, and there are several startups selling technology to annotate the world.

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Is the NYPD Really Testing Google Glass for Cops on Patrol?

Susan Posel

Anonymous claiming to be from law enforcement have been quoted in media reports as warning that the New York Police Department (NYPD) have purchased Google Glass and are testing them for department applications.

The person said: “It’s in the early stages. A handful of people are testing it out. If it works, it could be very beneficial for a cop on patrol who walks into a building with these glasses on. It would be like the Terminator. You walk past somebody and you get his pedigree info if he’s wanted for a warrant right on your eye screen. You can identify the bad guys immediately within seconds.”

Another media outlet claims to have received information from an anonymous “ranking New York City law enforcement official” that told them: “We signed up, got a few pairs of the Google glasses, and we’re trying them out, seeing if they have any value in investigations, mostly for patrol purposes. We’re looking at them, you know, seeing how they work.”

CopTrax, a surveillance tech corporation, has reported to have worked with law enforcement on a “new ground-breaking in-car video system from Stalker, in conjunction with the Byron, Ga., Police Department, performed the first successful field trail of Google Glass by law enforcement officials.”

Applied Concepts is the corporation that owns Stalker Radar which was first introduced to “the law enforcement industry in 1989.”

This company prides themselves as the ‘auto industry’s authority for phone skills training and development.”

According to CopTrax, Stalker Radar “is the dominant Doppler radar system and continues to lead the industry in technology breakthroughs and product innovations.”

According to CopTrax, Operation Police Officer (OPO) was a beta-testing trial wherein “actual law enforcement situations and environments” were predisposed to participants in order “to test Glass’s compatibility with CopTrax’s innovative real-time video streaming, high-resolution video capture and cloud storage, and live GPS tracking from any Internet-connected computer.”

The OPO trial also evaluated “the increased situational awareness and capture of high-quality audio and video evidence from the officer’s perspective.”

The activities tested by OPO included:

• Patrol with Radar and Laser – Each of the officers participated in vehicle patrol using the Google Glass device running with the CopTrax application.
• Traffic Stop – Both officers performed several traffic stops while using the Google Glass device running with the CopTrax application.
• Arrest – Officers performed one arrest while using the Google Glass device running the CopTrax app.
• Firing Service Weapons – Both officers fired their service pistols and patrol rifles to check video stability, device retention, and effects of recoil.