Google and Carnegie Mellon University have created a system capable of alarming invasions of privacy
The application's name is PittPatt and it allows a complete stranger to find your identity -- your real identity -- in under 60 seconds. Here's how it works. A client code calls the PittPatt interface with a picture it's taken. PittPatt jumps online and compares that picture to millions of images in Facebook and in Google Inc.'s (GOOG) image search, using advanced facial recognition technology. And within 60 seconds, it can identify an individual.
The technology is more than a little creepy. It seems straight out of futurist thriller flick The Minority Report, where Tom Cruise's character is assailed by advertising billboards that ID him by retinal scans. In the movie Cruise solves this problem by replacing his eyeballs. In real life it won't be that simple (hint: you might need facial modification).
PittPatt was a Carnegie Mellon University research project, which spun off into a company post 9/11. At the time, U.S. intelligence was obsessed with using advanced facial recognition to identify terrorists. So the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) poured millions into PittPatt. D...more
