Today was the MacWorld Keynote address. If you want to know what good stuff was announced then click here. If you want me to eat your brain then click here.
National Geographic informs me that my image may now identify me on the internets:
A new type of search engine using facial recognition technology could soon be able to pinpoint images of a person among the billions of photos posted online—even if their name does not appear.
A Swedish company named Polar Rose plans to launch its service for facial searches tied to the photo-sharing site Flickr within a couple weeks.
In the next few months the firm hopes to expand the service to search images across the entire Web.
The technology promises enhanced photo finding that would make it easier to find people on the Internet.
But privacy advocates are concerned that Polar Rose and similar facial-mapping search engines will violate people's rights and potentially aid criminals.
Lee Tien is an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet watchdog group that focuses on privacy and civil liberties.
"Photos [posted online] are effectively anonymous now," Tien said, unless they are labeled with some sort if identifying text. "But if Polar Rose works the way they say it will, that's all going to change."
Tien said that this kind of technology could aid stalkers in tracking down their victims, or it could allow employers, insurance companies, and the government to pry into people's lives more than some of us would like. (continued)
I'm so excited that there is yet another way to invade my privacy. I know some folks who read my blog (I'm thinking of you fondly) are going to challenge that everything about me is already known through other electronic means, and why am I being so private in the first place, blah blah blah. Too much is too much sometimes, though. This. This is too much.
Did you see up at the top, where I changed my tag line to π ρ? Do you get it? It's funny! It's a Campus Ladies joke. :)
