Randomly surfing through YouTube I watched a video of a very popular YouTuber who goes by the name sxephil. A very interesting guy who updates us with all kinds of different news. What caught my attention was the site he mentioned, face detection. The creator by the name of Marko Dugonjic came up with this idea, project, experiment “Realtime Responsive Typography” which detects your face and tracks your eyes while you are reading. It tracks your eyes through your webcam on your computer and it adjusts the font based on your distance. Of course it is done with your permission, but people do not always rationalize accurately, do they? This is an article by Eric Limer, “You’ll Never Squint Again With This Automatically Resizing Font”, he is the one who introduces us to this project.
The conception is to make it easier for people to read whatever it is on their screen, without hurting their eyes. Creepy? I think so, but at the same time, the skeptical side of me argues that it is brilliant , mind-blowing and interesting. What do you guys think? Are you comfortable with the idea that while you are working on your computer the camera tracks all of your moves in order to “help” you, or “trail” you?
We discussed in class about web personalization with sites selling your information to advertisement companies, with google personalizing you news, but this may even be crossing the boundaries to our privacy. It is very frightening and exciting to think of the future, of the capability the computer has.
Technology taking over our lives is definitely a double-edged sword: it can be both convenient, while saving time and invasive with the idea of Big Brother watching…in this case, quite literally. I am personally a little frightened by such innovations and I don’t think I’m the only one. I heard about a computer virus that turns on your webcam so that a complete stranger can view your surroundings, and this new invention seems dangerously similar. I do understand the benefits of automatic font adjustment to fit personal requirements, but at the same time I think its not terribly time consuming to do it yourself by simply zooming in without the invasion of a strange website tracking your eyesight.
This idea was bound to happen, many people cant sit in front of a computer screen for more than a couple minutes until their eyes began to hurt from squinting. Although it is controversial because of the aspect of “tracking” facial expressions, I see no harm if the reader is asked before hand.
Since the technology being used is a webcam I do not believe this will have any drawbacks in terms of third parties trying to sell information about you. A program that helps you adjust your computer text resolution is actually fantastic. Now you could sit back further away from the monitor and relax, I know I have spent countless hours reading on the computer screen and after a while it starts to wear my eyes down. But anyhow if this program will be used offline and without the need of an internet connection i think its 99% safe. That 1% is left out there for the most substantial hackers that are able to hack into your computer and steal your information (even worse broadcast your webcam feed). So I think this technology will actually help us rather than trail us
Technology is changing each and every day. At my current internship, I work with many laptops which have facial recognition to log you on into your computer. I also have worked with laptops which contain finger print readers that are you used for employees to clock in and out. As we discussed in class the internet is indeed using our cache and cookies to personalize our news, advertisements, etc. and I feel that is perfectly fine, since we may run in to an ad on Facebook or google search which are interested in.
This facial “screen resizing font” program doesn’t seem so bad, since it is only for the benefit of our eyes. I feel that within this program should also incorporate a feature that adjusts the lighting of the computer/laptop automatically based on the environment surrounding it. All in all as long as this program doesn’t require giving away any personal information and we are able to turn this feature on and off at any time, I feel that it is a safe and unique way of incorporating technology in our every day lives.
I find this technology to be very creepy and I feel like it will probably evolve into something that marketers and who knows who else will be using to track our evry move online. After reading about a man that hacked multiple people’s webcams to spy on them for months and then blackmail them I have a feeling that kind of stuff would happen more frequently.