Google has reportedly developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered technology that alerts users in real time when someone looks at their phone over the shoulder.
Dubbed as ‘electronic screen protector,’ the mobile app, when it catches a culprit, interrupts its owner and flashes live video of the unwelcome spy using the front-facing camera, framing their face in a red box, according to a demo posted on YouTube.
In addition, for good measure, the excitable app projects Snapchat-style rainbow vomit coming out of the onlooker’s mouth with the warning “A [sic] stranger is looking alert!!!”
The app can help users protect their privacy “from onlookers in a crowded space such as the subway or an elevator,” according to Google researchers See Jung Ryu and Florian Schroff.
According to reports, the software which appears to be just an academic project at this stage rather than an upcoming feature – will be presented at the 4th to 9th December Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference in California, the report said.
Google’s electronic screen protector, however, identifies the snooper. And it works quite fast.
It takes two milliseconds to detect each person’s gaze, 47 milliseconds for each face recognition operation, and an average of 115 milliseconds per frame for face detection — not enough time for a human to steal much of a glance, let alone to read private messages, the report said.
It’s not clear exactly how the programme works, although it appears to make use of machine learning and technology similar to the Face ID system that secures Apple’s new iPhone X.
