T3 Walking barcodes T3 Walking barcodes Inevitably, such developments are raising privacy concerns and, in some cases, innovations can’t even get off the ground. In May 2019, San Francisco banned facial recognition technology in response to civil rights advocates. Vimeo’s alleged collection and storage of thousands of people’s facial biometrics without their knowledge recently prompted a US lawsuit. Meanwhile, concerns raised by an art project critique of ImageNet, (a database of 12 million images and 22,000 visual categories publicly available for research and educational use), forced the firm to remove more than half a million images. Amazon smart products Echo Frames (smart glasses) and Echo Loop (a smart ring to be carried with you at all times that even makes phone calls for you) have also sparked privacy debates. Amid recent political protests, Hong Kong’s government decided to invoke a colonial era emergency law to ban face masks, which would make facial recognition of protesters easier. The decision caused an outcry, as did testing by Chinese schools of headbands designed to monitor pupils’ attention levels and feed performance data directly to teachers and parents. Facebook AI Research has now even created the first “de-identification” program for video to make people invisible to facial identification software. Amazon has added to its Echo range with It’s not all negative, though. Facial and body language recognition Echo Loop (a ring) and Echo Frames (glasses), can deliver invaluable new and enhanced services. UK health raising privacy concerns. start-up Babylon combines AI with people’s medical expertise to deliver improved access to healthcare – AI initially helps to identify a patient’s condition, then assesses their reaction to help gauge whether they fully understand the advice they receive. Recent Facebook acquisition CTRL-Labs is a New York start-up that specializes in allowing people to control computers using their brains. 5G mobile internet is set to go mainstream in 2020 and generate the majority of global mobile media revenues by 2025. Its impact isn’t just about faster data connection – while 4G transformed our communication options, 5G’s biggest influence will be on how machines function, and that effect “5G mobile internet is set to go mainstream will ripple through every facet of modern life. in 2020 and generate the majority of global A drop in delays between devices and networks will create a — Fjord Trends 2020 host of new possibilities. For example, it could enable physical mobile media revenues by 2025.” spaces to be augmented with a personalized layer in real time – even incorporating feel or touch – allowing each individual to have their own experience of the same space. A new hospital in Yongin, South Korea, plans to test an AR navigation system and holograms of patients in isolation, to give them a better way to interact with their visitors. 39 40