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> The designers are considering adding facial recognition technology to the design. Um, what > In fitting with the trend towards more personalized, data-drive
by oceliker 7y ago
> The designers are considering adding facial recognition technology to the design.
Um, what
> In fitting with the trend towards more personalized, data-driven flying experiences, New Territory is keen to add facial recognition technology to the mix too.
> The idea is that as the seat wing recognizes that you've fallen asleep, it'll automatically turn off the movie playing on your IFE.
This could be the worst idea ever. Have cameras pointed at every flyer for the duration of the flight, for the incredibly minor benefit of stopping your movie? To me this sounds like they wanted to add facial recognition regardless, so they found a problem to their solution.
- mappu 7y ago> Have cameras pointed at every flyer for the duration of the flight, for the incredibly minor benefit of stopping your movie? I flew on an Emirates A380 recently that had a front-facing camera in the IFE system. I'm not sure what its intended purpose was - perhaps to allow video calls? I had no way to tell if it was in-use during the flight, but i assume there were already other cameras in the main passenger cabin with sufficient resolution to tell whether someone's eyes are open.
- samstave 7y agoEventually AI will be watching your stress level mannerisms and micro-expressions to determine if youre a risk to the flight.
- ddalex 7y agoIn the beginning, yes. But after a short while the AI would carefully watch you while playing non-skippable ads to gauge how to maximize revenue per customer.
- 9HZZRfNlpR 7y agoUnless you're a medieval king with 200 servants it's difficult to imagine yes. Maybe when someone is disabled? But then again sound would be enough.
- samstave 7y ago? What was this supposed to be to?
- epse 7y agoIt is for video calls. Depending on your class, you can video call the flight attendants
- jobigoud 7y agoWhay's the point of video calling someone in the same room a few meters away?
- WalterBright 7y agoWhen my house was built, I considered adding a wired intercom system. I could never think of a reason why it would be better than just yelling.
- AstralStorm 7y agoMany DECT phones have this functionality without being wired. Also there probably is a way to use SIP locally as an intercom between smartphones. Unlike an intercom they're portable. The main thing missing is voice or sound activated pick-up and hang-up, sometimes automatic loudspeaker mode.
- WalterBright 7y agoI rejected wireless intercoms at the time because every wireless thing I bought had horrible sound quality, like the worst walkie-talkie. Even with simple analog electronics, wired had good sound quality. I did install some speaker wires, but the times when I wanted to play music in one room and hear it in another are just about never. Guess I'm just not finding any point to home automation. Even if I had installed a home automation system, the intervening years would have turned it into expensive obsolete junk anyway. I've heard of people, when they try to sell their homes, having to rip it all out and put in conventional wiring. What did pay off was running Cat5 and RG6 cables in a star configuration. Wifi has improved greatly, but it's nothing like a wired connection for smooth, problem free operation.
- blackguardx 7y agoI'm pretty sure many airlines already have cameras looking at your face. The last few international United Airlines flights I was on had IR LEDs just below the seat entertainment screen shining in my face the whole flight. I worked for an 3D camera company at the time and was pretty tuned in to IR (~850 nm) LED's dim red glow. There is no reason for them being there unless there are cameras looking at your face.
- 3JPLW 7y agoBut why?
- blackguardx 7y agoThey probably put it in to do gaze tracking in the hopes of selling that data back to movie studios/advertisers. I'm not sure if they currently sell this data, but I'm sure we will find out when/if some disclaimer flashes on the screen in the beginning of the flight.
- tracer4201 7y agoHopefully it doesn’t catch on too much. I’d boycott any airline that I knew was doing that.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoWould security services pay for good 3D scans of all people taking airline flights. Seems a possibility to me.
- bhaile 7y ago"As with many other airlines, some of our premium seats have in-flight entertainment systems that came with cameras installed by the manufacturer," a United Airlines spokesperson said. "None of these cameras were ever activated and we had no plans to use them in the future, however, we took the additional step to cover the cameras." https://www.zdnet.com/article/united-airlines-covers-up-infotainment-seat-camera-following-passenger-outrage/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/united-airlines-covers-up-info...
- gowld 7y agoThe camera will be used to automatically pause the ads when your eyes are closed.
- applecrazy 7y agoHighly reminiscent of "Fifteen Million Merits" from Black Mirror.
- abhchand 7y agowell that's scary
- ddalex 7y agoDrink a verification can to continue.
- palimpsests 7y agoOne minute of complementary breathable air is provided in exchange for each minute of advertisements viewed.
- elgenie 7y ago“eyes open” vs “eyes closed” is a face detection problem, not a recognition one.
- cryptozeus 7y agoCan’t they just put “are you still there” button like Netflix? Would be cheaper and less creepy.
- eps 7y ago... coupled with a movement sensor built into the sitting surface.
- jobigoud 7y agoIt would also have less false positives. I sometimes close my eyes and just listen to the audio, for TV documentaries for ex. and there are also radio programs.
- cryptozeus 7y agoYeh and what about listening to tv while trying to fall a sleep ?
- greglindahl 7y agoAs someone who doesn't sleep much on planes, the benefit of turning off all of the video that my sleeping neighbors are playing is significant.
- randomsearch 7y agoGood point, but do you need facial recognition to do that?
- glangdale 7y ago+1 to this. I don't love trying to sleep on planes at the best of times, but when you're surrounded by people who have happily fallen asleep in front of some bright flashing screen it drives me out of my mind. Flight attendants will usually switch them off if you ask, though.
- dgemm 7y agoTwo years ago they would have been finding a way to add blockchain.
- ddalex 7y agoHow else do you keep track of who slept and how much as to bill for the enhanced usage of your seat? /s
- dvirsky 7y ago"With our advanced Proof of Sleep algorithm... In the cloud..."
- have_faith 7y agoI think you mean Earth Computing. Your data stored and analysed in the ground.
- microtherion 7y ago… using Deep Learning and NoSQL …
- frockington1 7y agomy new favorite MBA tech word is "serverless"
- walrus01 7y agoThis is particularly funny for me as a person who works for an ISP at layers 1 to 4 on the OSI model. There's always some real hardware somewhere running it. Can't escape from the bare metal, only abstract it away behind layers of obfuscation.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- walrus01 7y agoI'm sure somewhere on Earth right now there is already a startup based on block chain storage of convolutional neural network learning face recognition.
- Gustomaximus 7y agoI specifically put on mediocre movies to help me sleep on flights. I often wake up when they finish. I can't be alone here.
- drpgq 7y agoUsing this method has greatly increased my sleeping on trans-Atlantic flights.
- ddsea 7y agoBoring meetings have the same effect on me. The main challenge is, not to snore.
- awesomepeter 7y agoI think the sleepiness in meetings is mostly related to lack of fresh air. I remember reading some articles that the air during meetings (talking about physical meetings in rooms here) has a very high CO2 count.
- WalterBright 7y agoIn my senior year at Caltech, I flew out with some others to interview at HP. HP made a group presentation to us. I fell asleep halfway through the presentation and woke up halfway to the floor, and hit the floor with quite a crash. I inspired quite a bit of laughter with that. I didn't get the job offer :-)
- Roark66 7y agoThis is why you always bring a coffee to presentations/meetings. Even if caffeine is not strong enough to stop you from falling asleep the activity of picking up a cup and taking a sip every few minutes will do.
- WalterBright 7y agoI didn't get hooked on coffee until I started at Boeing. There's nothing like Boeing MIL-STD coffee. It was years before I realized that my Sunday morning headaches were caffeine withdrawal (I'm really not very smart). I still like my coffee black and tasting like industrial waste.
- dilyevsky 7y agoIf that face recognition software is of the same quality as usual flight infotainment systems I think we are pretty safe.
- gitanovic 7y agoI'll just take care to bring either chewing gums or tape. Problem solved
- beefield 7y agoI'm convinced they will be declared dangerous goods in no time and allowed only in checked in luggage...
- manigandham 7y agoThis isn't recognizing your specific face, it's about watching your general expressions. Many modern cars already have something like this to see if you're falling sleeping while behind the wheel and will start vibrating the seats and steering while sounding alarms to get you alert again. That being said, it's definitely over engineered compared to a "are you still active" button on the screen.
- stedaniels 7y agoYou are ignoring the argument. You are in fact building the strawman for an excuse to point cameras at everyone for the duration of the flight.
- manigandham 7y agoClarification of the difference between recognition and general detection is not an argument for or against, though perhaps you should re-read my last sentence for my position.
- simonh 7y agoYour post is making the mistake that, just because all this function needs is detection, that therefore this is the only thing it's actually doing. "What this is about is..." This isn't about detection and isn't about triggering a sleep mode at all. It's not even about over-engineering for this particular function, because this particular function is not the point. What it's actually about is doing everything they can conceivably think of to monetize engagement tracking, while continuously pointing a camera at your face as you watch movies and adds.
- manigandham 7y agoThose are some wild assumptions. You're discussing an entirely different topic about cameras and privacy that I never mentioned. It doesn't make my post a mistake for not accounting for every last thought you had about a different conversation. And if you need it to be clear, by over-engineered I do consider these unnecessary and unwanted.
- synaesthesisx 7y agoThe other intended function is to measure & monetize viewer engagement and sentiment, so that IFE can offer personalized ads as an additional revenue stream for the airlines.
- ehnto 7y agoI was in a taxi in Japan with a TV screen in the headrests. It started with a message saying it uses facial recognition to tell if you are male or female, in order to provide you with the most relevant content, where the content was entirely advertising. Your future is now.
- lgeorget 7y agoSo a camera records your face to send the pictures to God knows whose server and your preferences are dictated based on your assumed gender instead of being asked for...
- ehnto 7y agoYep! You don't get asked or consent to anything either, it just happens. Pretty untoward.
- dvcrn 7y agoDo you remember which taxi group that was? I live in Japan and haven’t noticed that yet
- ninjin 7y agoAt the very least Nihon Koutsuu (日本交通) [1] does this. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Kotsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Kotsu
- bamboozled 7y agoI also a similar message in a Koutsuu but it was something about "Watching you face to see if you find the content engaging". I guess they think they can keep tailing the information to you until you can't seem to look away? Very creepy.
- Angostura 7y agoThe whole point of inflight movies is to fall asleep in front of them.
- hathym 7y agoit a very good idea.. for advertisers. because likes are a thing of the past, now we will display ads and collect facial expressions and emotions in real time :D
- puranjay 7y ago> This could be the worst idea ever. Have cameras pointed at every flyer for the duration of the flight, for the incredibly minor benefit of stopping your movie This seems to be uniform across all surveillance technology. The purported convenience is so laughably minor that it's almost a parody. Like Alexa - people are willing to have a Big Brother-esque speaker inside their homes for the convenience of playing some music? Is that all it takes?
- toxicFork 7y agoPretty much.
- chki 7y agoTo be fair, everybody who has Alexa already has a phone constantly with them everywhere. So it's just one extra microphone, not something completely different.
- kumarvvr 7y agoHowever, a smartphone is more transparent, relatively, over what it does. Not so much with Alexa.
- resfirestar 7y agoNot sure what specifically you mean. Most smartphones today come with one of the assistants (Google, Siri, Alexa, or Bixby) turned on by default.
- pnutjam 7y agoNot sure if these are just uneducated posts or astro-turfing...
- resfirestar 7y agoAstro-turfing for what? I guess this falls into the "uneducated" category. From my apparently uneducated perspective, phones need to be a concern if you're worried about your voice and activities being recorded. Most users have no idea that, for example, Google Assistant is always listening on Pixel.
- chooseaname 7y agoGreat, now I have to travel with sticky notes.
- air7 7y agoWhy is it so hard to believe that that is the intended purpose? The feature is small yet a nice touch and I can't think of any sinister usage of adding this technology (I'm sure they have hidden cameras/microphones/facial recognition at the gate for security, anyway).
- nickthemagicman 7y agoAre you serious? So now private entities have your facial information?
- air7 7y agoYou do remember you've been showing your passport to these "private entitites" with your photo and personal details for decades?
- nickthemagicman 7y agoApples and oranges
- tootie 7y agoIt sounds like the author is misunderstanding a bit. This isn't facial recognition, it's facial detection. Distinguishing a sleeping face and an awake face doesn't require the face to be identified. Also, I'd be shocked if there aren't already cameras covering every square inch of modern airplane cabins. Also also, you can't get on a plane without showing ID and boarding pass with a seat number, so it's not like they don't already know exactly who is sitting where.
- avian 7y ago> I'd be shocked if there aren't already cameras covering every square inch of modern airplane cabins Now that you mention it, I don’t recall ever seeing a camera on an airplane before. I see them on busses and trains, airports and stations. But not in aircraft cabins. If they’re there, they must be better hidden than in other places.
- Pigo 7y agoYeah it seems like one of the few places people would be willing to trade some privacy for security, and they aren't doing it. Maybe because they don't want to end the mile high club. It's probably a financial decision, everything about modern commercial aircraft is designed around getting the cheapest tickets possible.
- aasasd 7y agoIIRC some dude found a camera right next to the screen before him. Apparently those cams are pretty well known—just search for ‘plane seat camera’. E.g. cams being tested, from eleven years ago: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/more_on_airplan.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/more_on_airpl...
- sean-duffy 7y agoI believe they're included as standard in the infotainment systems on modern aircraft. It's up to the airline if they decide to use it or not.
- deleted 7y ago
- yodsanklai 7y ago> Have cameras pointed at every flyer for the duration of the flight, for the incredibly minor benefit of stopping your movie Besides, all these electronic devices have a high environmental impact, for virtually no benefits. It makes you wonder how we're going to decrease our CO2 emissions...
- yellowapple 7y agoI'm pretty sure the cost of even manufacturing (let alone just operating) these screens pales in comparison to the cost of, you know, igniting hydrocarbons to make a giant airplane fly in the air at hundreds of miles an hour.
- yodsanklai 7y agoyes, but at least travelling by plane serves some purpose, compared to let say, having a camera checking whether i'm sleeping or not.
- teddyuk 7y agoIt sounds like they were asked to invent a way to record passengers
- technofiend 7y agoFinally! A use for all those free webcam covers I keep getting at trade shows. You're welcome, fellow passengers. Or failing that there's always duct tape.
- goda90 7y agoWhat would be far more helpful is to just turn off screens that the person hasn't interacted with. I've been on too many late night flights where the screens for empty seats, or for people who are staring at their iPad have made it really hard to sleep(eye masks are uncomfortable for me). I've even seen people actively trying to sleep with the full brightness screen right in front of them because it's not obvious at all how to turn them off(usually you have to find the brightness menu and press the down button a dozen times).
- robmiller 7y agoThere are already cameras in some seatback systems although airlines have denied using them. https://www.flyertalk.com/articles/seatback-cameras-designed-for-enhancing-passenger-experience.html https://www.flyertalk.com/articles/seatback-cameras-designed...
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoSince I know nothing about airline electrical systems, movie deals the airline might have made etc. I wonder if it might not be beneficial to the airline if it manages to turn off a small number of unused movies during a flight.
- hanniabu 7y agoJust wait until they lobby the FAA to make this mandatory in all flights for your safety and make it a federal crime ti block the camera.