Been working out of town a lot lately so haven’t gotten to podcast or any posts, but it’s weird that my phone watches for my eyes, and if it starts to dim the screen so it can sleep and I look at it, it comes back to life.
Kind of creepy.
I’ll be back at it in a bit. Lots of stuff going on.
Snapper's Domain 
okay … that is SUPER creepy!
It’s kind of helpful in that, if I need to use my phone for an extended period of time I dont have to keep tapping the screen to keep it from going to sleep, but if I’m driving and it pops on because of a text message or something it wont turn off because its facing me and picks up my eyes. I refused to use the facial recognition unlock, though. Ill stick with my fingerprint.
okay … see … i’m ready to go back to the phone on the wall – even be willing for a rotary dial phone again! facial recognition unlock? fingerprint unlock? picking up the eyes?
i’m sooo lost! lol!
i’d even take just a simple flip phone. 🙂
I’ve been toying with this idea myself. I’ve been watching a mobile phone project by a company called Purism, the Librem 5 ( https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ ) It’s due out late spring next year; but it’s a crowd-funded project (which means there’s a real desire for something like it).
If you’re looking at going to a dumb phone/feature phone/basic phone, here’s a useful link
https://www.lifewire.com/basic-cell-phones-577534
My mom bought my grandma the Jitterbug. The only thing its missing IS a rotary dialer! 😆
“My phone watches me”
This is way more true than you know (well, you might know… the average user doesn’t usually give it much thought).
I think features like this are interesting, but I don’t trust Google and I can only imagine what else your phone is passively doing that it’s collecting and sending back to the mothership. (And I’m not even a paranoid).
Yeah, I saw a few weeks ago that Google admitted that they collect hundreds of percent more data than they original let on to. I don’t much like it, but at the moment I don’t think I need to worry about it being used for some nefarious purpose past advertising. I’ll be ready, though, when some developer writes the app that blocks all that. I understand the aversion to it, but since my job requires that I have a phone with certain capabilities, I sprung for the one that caught my eye (no pun intended) the most.
I get that angle, and I’m not being judgmental… definitely hope I’ve not come across that way. We’re adults and can decide for ourselves what we want out there (where we have any control at all).
Like you, I toyed with the facial recognition elements on my Windows phone (not any better than google, as far as snooping and what not goes; but miles ahead on UI design); but any biometric method of unlocking your phone isn’t secure like a PIN (specifically as it applies to whether or not the police can force you to unlock your device).
This stuff is cool, in theory; but I think Ian Malcolm said it best in the movie Jurassic Park: Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
Ha, ha! No, you didn’t come across as judgmental at all, man! I agree with you with regard to the quote. My son and I were talking last week about AI and we both wondered, given all the fear over it, “Why is it even necessary to create an AI capable of ‘world domination’?” I mean, to what extent to we need to create an artificial intelligence and why? Just because we can doesn’t mean we should, especially if everyone keeps predicting some doomsday scenario. Such is mankind!
True… I think the AI question and reaction is interesting. Everyone brings up Skynet, et al; but I don’t think it ever starts with that in mind. (Okay, it rarely starts with that in mind).
The fear with AI is that eventually it’ll surpass our ability to turn it off — and I don’t think that’s an invalid fear, to be honest. Look at the AI that beats Go players… it’s clearly capable of pruning bad options off the table and learning from opponents.
I have come around to distrusting how people use technology, so I tend to be skeptical of the benefits of AI… and tech in general, to be honest.
There’s a lot of incentive to being the first, so I don’t even fault these people trying to be the first. But they’re definitely ignoring the could/should question.
Yeah, but, that’s the question. Why create something with the capability of becoming a Skeynet? One of my customers is using AI to pre-determine maintenance issues in their well pumps. Cool. Do we need one that will control thousands of connected military devices and hardware? If we think Skynet is the end result why put something in the position that it could become Skynet? Ridiculous.
On the plus side, if you try to unlock my phone with the wrong finger (or if it doesn’t pick up the fingerprint) and get 5 failures it reverts back to entering a pin. If law enforcement thinks they could get me to unlock my phone via my finger they got another thing comin’!