17 ms·

MaskerAid iOS App

273 points by ilarum 5y ago

sschueller 5y ago
I wish the makers of live video apps would add an AI feature to auto blur unknown faces, car plates and mask unknown voices. This would make it possible to legally live stream in countries with strict privacy laws like Switzerland or Germany.
- abrichr 5y ago
  Can you please give some examples of live video apps you are referring to?
  - sschueller 5y ago
    Instagram, TikTok etc.
thomasjudge 5y ago
As seen on the "Accidental Tech Podcast" atp.fm
Grustaf 5y ago
I heard him say on some podcast that he thinks there is a possibility for him to make real money on this, but I would say there isn't. Very few people care about this, and almost none of that already small group will have heard of the app. Plus I can't even see how this simplifies anything, if you're posting to instagram it's surely simpler to skip the extra step and just use instagram's built in editor, even if you have to place the emojis yourself? Or you could just not post those photos. What's even the point of posting a photo of your child, with the face hidden? Seems very niche. Just post another photo. Casey Liss is a very anxious person, there is nothing wrong with that but if you make apps for people like yourself, it's an advantage to be more mainstream!
- eddieroger 5y ago
  Heard the same, thought the same. Casey succumbed to the struggle I find myself dealing with all the time - he found a problem with a technological solve and solved it with technology, which is only something other technologists do or want. Like you said, Instagram has a facility to already put stickers on images for people who wish to censor their pics. If they're not using Instagram, maybe the other program can do the same, if they user even cares at all. How do you convince someone with an existing workflow to change? "Why do I need another app," they will ask you. I wish him luck and applaud the nerve to go it alone in the tech world, but I'm not sure this is a diamond waiting to be found.
  - samhw 5y ago
    As one of our VCs once wisely said to us: "The hardest thing is to get a consumer to install a new app. Deliver your solution any way other than its own app."
    - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
      Yes and no; there are a few handfuls of apps that Made It in that they are only viable as apps, the ones that people will cycle through and open up multiple times a day. It is really hard to get to that point though. I mean the last ones I can think of that people installed were TikTok (similar appeal as Instagram, maybe Snapchat) and FaceApp (short lived gimmick).
      - reaperducer 5y ago
        I think the app gold rush is over. We've passed the time when every company "needs" an app. Even marketing managers can look at their phones and realize, "Why do I have all of these apps? I don't even know what half of these things are for anymore?" I recently moved, and my new building has separate apps for: Package notifications, dry cleaning pick up/drop off, paying rent, the speakers in the ceilings, building bulletin board, reserving a common space, reserving the freight elevators, maintenance requests, pet care service, doorman notifications, self-parking, valet parking, and probably a bunch more that I've forgotten because I'd rather let my wife deal with that stuff than overwhelm myself with apps. And that's just the building. Nevermind grocery delivery, each individual utility, food delivery, restaurants, and on and on and on. My wife is a big app person. Hates using mobile web sites. She has at least 200 apps on her phone, all obsessively organized in tiny folders. But even she has started using the web versions of things, just because having so many apps has finally become harder than clicking a bookmark in Safari.
deanc 5y ago
This is such an obvious thing now that I see it. Great idea and execution. One might argue this should be a feature available natively, and a valid use-case for face-detection other than identification and tagging.
sdimitris 5y ago
Nice implementation! We made a similar app a couple of years ago as part of a hackathon project but we never really polished it to submit to an app store Description: https://devpost.com/software/patronus-k61iv4 https://devpost.com/software/patronus-k61iv4 Code: https://github.com/parasmehta/patronus https://github.com/parasmehta/patronus Unlike this app, we also used age and emotion detection on top of face recognition.
samwestdev 5y ago
App has already 317 ratings on the App Store. Crazy what the power of hosting a popular tech podcast can do for you.
FirstLvR 5y ago
the app is simple and clever... tho, you should NOT post personnal stuff on social platforms, do NOT post pictures of your kids ... the internet has become a dreamland for pedos and psychos
- rchaud 5y ago
  I agree, but only a small % of parents are going to refrain from the temptation to share pics widely, and that means online. So this app has a very beneficial use case.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  So you're saying pedos are going to be jerking off to the image of two kids standing with their mother, possibly on their first day of school?
minton 5y ago
It seems like a significant investment to spend six months developing an iOS app solo, knowing it will likely be cloned and copied within a month.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  First mover advantage, but it'll only take off if you work really hard in the first month or so to get the word out and become a 'household name'. That said, yeah it's likely there will be competitors springing up left and right if it becomes popular (recent example is this "unpacking" game, the app store was flooded with clones within a month). For apps like this, your best hope is probably that a bigger party like Instagram knocks on your door and offers to buy you out to integrate the feature into their own apps. It's cynical, but this is where we find ourselves; I don't believe single feature apps have much of a future. A photo manipulation app (generally speaking) is great, but unless you add a social network to it like Instagram did it's not going to go far.
- scarface74 5y ago
  “Investment in what?” It just took some time working on a hobby and “sharpening the ax”. I waste more time watching Netflix. If he had wanted to make serious money as an app developer, he wouldn’t have quit his day job.
nbzso 5y ago
I don't get the use case at all. Just stop sharing images of people. We are living in backward times indeed. What is next? The social app that makes you anonymous?
- mjlee 5y ago
  Have you heard of 4chan?
wronglebowski 5y ago
Where I struggle with this is on the basis of the idea. At this point why not turn everyone into a Holo Live character or some other metaverse style creation? Our face is part of who we are and removing that feels very unnatural to me.
- ethanbond 5y ago
  I think the point is in fact to obscure the subjects' identity.
xcambar 5y ago
> There’s several reasons you may want to hide a face: > [...] > * The faces of protestors who are standing up against a grotesque war I don't know if I find this disgustingly opportunistic or a solid gesture of protest and support. Maybe both
- ravi-delia 5y ago
  Creator clearly wants the app for their own use case, but correctly identified another. It is neither.
  - xcambar 5y ago
    "Neither" is an option. The marketing copy indicates something else. But that'd be the best option yes.
- matt_heimer 5y ago
  In addition to emojis, imagine if this had deep fake support. For the war protestor use-case imagine if everyone in the crowd having the face of Zelenskyy. It'd be nice if this was usually built into whatever social media app people use but I wouldn't trust most social media companies to not store the original image. A sea of mini Nickolas Cage faces in pictures of your child at a playground would entertain some people.
  - rchaud 5y ago
    Zelensky holding up signs for peace/ceasefire wouldn't be surprising. We need pics of thousands in the streets with Sergei Lavrov's face. Or better yet, the warmonger in chief himself.
- InTheArena 5y ago
  Virtue signaling at it's best. (In this case, there is true virtue - but profoundly unlikely to be safely applied in the use case that exists)
- Larrikin 5y ago
  The privacy of others was the original use I came up with when I made this same app for my final project in Intro to iOS class in grad school way back in 2017. From my initial project proposal >Governments and tech companies such as Facebook are now continuously scanning all photos uploaded to the internet for faces, locations, and objects, effectively removing anonymity for anybody that is in any picture. A user might want to share a picture from a protest, but other users in the background might not want it known they were there. >I would like to make a privacy focused camera application. The application will allow the user to take a picture and then it will find the faces in the picture. The user then will have to tap on the individuals in the photo they would like to be included in the final picture. By default all the faces in the picture will be marked as discard. After the user has finished selecting the faces the final picture will be produced. The faces not selected will have an effect applied to them to obscure that person identity. The user will then have the ability to share the photo to other applications, such as Twitter. There is a lot of code in the standard library that includes face detection, didn't even have to add any libraries and was able to do the project in the last 2 weeks of class. I ended up putting a heavy mosaic over the faces, but emojis would have been just as easy. Still preferred Android dev over iOS after it, but was impressed with the included camera features. To me the use case seems weird that she is trying to hide her kids so she can constantly post them on Instagram, when she has full control over taking pictures of her kids and what she puts on her page.
123jay7 5y ago
elpakal 5y ago
Hey, mine detects and redacts faces too (++text and ++macOS) https://gorp.app https://gorp.app
- WoodenChair 5y ago
  How do you feel about the fact that yours has been out for a couple years, does essentially the same thing (although maybe has less appealing marketing images on the App Store TBH), and only has a handful of ratings compared to the 300+ for this new app from this popular podcaster? I ask sincerely, and I wonder if it speaks to the power of marketing.
  - elpakal 5y ago
    I think it does speak to the power of marketing but that can mean a lot. I’m also not out here trying to get ratings, I’m making things I use and publish them because I think others will too. That’s why it’s free and ad free (and admittedly slow to update). Also reviews can be paid for…
kennydude 5y ago
I love it. I'd love to also see something like this that can hide or change number plates of cars before posting online.
- jachee 5y ago
  Why? I’ve never understood this practice. The number plate is already out in public nearly 24/7 anyway, what difference does it make if it’s unobscured in a photograph, unless it’s a stolen car or plate or something?
  - sschueller 5y ago
    In countries like Switzerland where we have strict privacy laws you can not just post pictures online of cars plates that may expose someone's privacy. For example a parking lot at a cancer hospital. The owner of a car can be identified by plate and therefore you need to make sure you don't expose them possibly having cancer etc.
  - post_break 5y ago
    It’s not too difficult to use that information to find out where the car probably parks at night. The difference being the odds of a random finding the car plate useful vs online an abuser, criminal is higher.
ziml77 5y ago
I'm not sure why a bunch of commenters are dismissing the idea of hiding faces by placing emoji over them. That's already a thing. I see it a lot on photos that are shared online. It's a good alternatives to having to carefully frame or crop an image to hide objects and faces you don't want others to see.
- micheljansen 5y ago
  As a parent of a preschooler I can confirm this is definitely a thing. We have decided to do what we can to avoid our child’s life being subject to data mining or the creation of shadow profiles by whatever company (past or present) thinks it can profit from it. We always cover his face with an emoji. So do most of the parents in our social circle.
  - ectopod 5y ago
    To turn it round, do you spend time looking at other people's emoji-obscured photos? I don't, so I can't see the point of posting them because I don't imagine that anyone would look at them. But I could well be wrong.
    - micheljansen 5y ago
      Given that it’s mostly used on Instagram: sure! It’s a picture-first medium after all. Obviously portraits are rare, but it’s quite common to see posts of their kids doing something adorable with just the tiny portion of the picture that contains a face covered. Plenty remains to see.
paul7986 5y ago
I bet Apple or Android will probably include adding emojis the same in their photo/crop edit tools in a year or two. People are already doing this with other apps as you see in dating apps and stuff.
gpmcadam 5y ago
FYI Markup, a feature of the Photos app in iOS can essentially do this fairly trivially. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT206885 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT206885
- kemayo 5y ago
  True, but it's honestly pretty fiddly. If you want to do exactly-this, adding an emoji is a pain because you have to jump through a few hoops to resize it -- pinch-dragging doesn't work.
DHPersonal 5y ago
Another similar app that also works with video: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anonymous-camera/id1504102584 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anonymous-camera/id1504102584
zabaki 5y ago
Added a picture with a bunch of people. Not all of them got an emoji, so as I continued to add emojis, I wanted to pinch to zoom but that behaviour turned out to be for the emoji. Handling a tiny emoji was really add, so I’d appreciate be able to zoom in and out of the picture when I have to add more emojis :)
jwhite_nc 5y ago
Is the app simple? Yes. Do you have to purchase it? No. Not sure why this turned into a critique of the programmer and subsequently his podcast and co-hosts.... weird.
JeremyBanks 5y ago

273 points by ilarum 5y ago

I wish the makers of live video apps would add an AI feature to auto blur unknown faces, car plates and mask unknown voices. This would make it possible to legally live stream in countries with strict privacy laws like Switzerland or Germany.

abrichr 5y ago
Can you please give some examples of live video apps you are referring to?
- sschueller 5y ago
  Instagram, TikTok etc.

thomasjudge 5y ago

As seen on the "Accidental Tech Podcast" atp.fm

Grustaf 5y ago

I heard him say on some podcast that he thinks there is a possibility for him to make real money on this, but I would say there isn't. Very few people care about this, and almost none of that already small group will have heard of the app. Plus I can't even see how this simplifies anything, if you're posting to instagram it's surely simpler to skip the extra step and just use instagram's built in editor, even if you have to place the emojis yourself? Or you could just not post those photos. What's even the point of posting a photo of your child, with the face hidden? Seems very niche. Just post another photo. Casey Liss is a very anxious person, there is nothing wrong with that but if you make apps for people like yourself, it's an advantage to be more mainstream!

eddieroger 5y ago
Heard the same, thought the same. Casey succumbed to the struggle I find myself dealing with all the time - he found a problem with a technological solve and solved it with technology, which is only something other technologists do or want. Like you said, Instagram has a facility to already put stickers on images for people who wish to censor their pics. If they're not using Instagram, maybe the other program can do the same, if they user even cares at all. How do you convince someone with an existing workflow to change? "Why do I need another app," they will ask you. I wish him luck and applaud the nerve to go it alone in the tech world, but I'm not sure this is a diamond waiting to be found.
- samhw 5y ago
  As one of our VCs once wisely said to us: "The hardest thing is to get a consumer to install a new app. Deliver your solution any way other than its own app."
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Yes and no; there are a few handfuls of apps that Made It in that they are only viable as apps, the ones that people will cycle through and open up multiple times a day. It is really hard to get to that point though. I mean the last ones I can think of that people installed were TikTok (similar appeal as Instagram, maybe Snapchat) and FaceApp (short lived gimmick).
    - reaperducer 5y ago
      I think the app gold rush is over. We've passed the time when every company "needs" an app. Even marketing managers can look at their phones and realize, "Why do I have all of these apps? I don't even know what half of these things are for anymore?" I recently moved, and my new building has separate apps for: Package notifications, dry cleaning pick up/drop off, paying rent, the speakers in the ceilings, building bulletin board, reserving a common space, reserving the freight elevators, maintenance requests, pet care service, doorman notifications, self-parking, valet parking, and probably a bunch more that I've forgotten because I'd rather let my wife deal with that stuff than overwhelm myself with apps. And that's just the building. Nevermind grocery delivery, each individual utility, food delivery, restaurants, and on and on and on. My wife is a big app person. Hates using mobile web sites. She has at least 200 apps on her phone, all obsessively organized in tiny folders. But even she has started using the web versions of things, just because having so many apps has finally become harder than clicking a bookmark in Safari.

deanc 5y ago

This is such an obvious thing now that I see it. Great idea and execution. One might argue this should be a feature available natively, and a valid use-case for face-detection other than identification and tagging.

sdimitris 5y ago

Nice implementation! We made a similar app a couple of years ago as part of a hackathon project but we never really polished it to submit to an app store Description: https://devpost.com/software/patronus-k61iv4 https://devpost.com/software/patronus-k61iv4 Code: https://github.com/parasmehta/patronus https://github.com/parasmehta/patronus Unlike this app, we also used age and emotion detection on top of face recognition.

samwestdev 5y ago

App has already 317 ratings on the App Store. Crazy what the power of hosting a popular tech podcast can do for you.

FirstLvR 5y ago

the app is simple and clever... tho, you should NOT post personnal stuff on social platforms, do NOT post pictures of your kids ... the internet has become a dreamland for pedos and psychos

rchaud 5y ago
I agree, but only a small % of parents are going to refrain from the temptation to share pics widely, and that means online. So this app has a very beneficial use case.
oh_sigh 5y ago
So you're saying pedos are going to be jerking off to the image of two kids standing with their mother, possibly on their first day of school?

minton 5y ago

It seems like a significant investment to spend six months developing an iOS app solo, knowing it will likely be cloned and copied within a month.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
First mover advantage, but it'll only take off if you work really hard in the first month or so to get the word out and become a 'household name'. That said, yeah it's likely there will be competitors springing up left and right if it becomes popular (recent example is this "unpacking" game, the app store was flooded with clones within a month). For apps like this, your best hope is probably that a bigger party like Instagram knocks on your door and offers to buy you out to integrate the feature into their own apps. It's cynical, but this is where we find ourselves; I don't believe single feature apps have much of a future. A photo manipulation app (generally speaking) is great, but unless you add a social network to it like Instagram did it's not going to go far.
scarface74 5y ago
“Investment in what?” It just took some time working on a hobby and “sharpening the ax”. I waste more time watching Netflix. If he had wanted to make serious money as an app developer, he wouldn’t have quit his day job.

nbzso 5y ago

I don't get the use case at all. Just stop sharing images of people. We are living in backward times indeed. What is next? The social app that makes you anonymous?

mjlee 5y ago
Have you heard of 4chan?

wronglebowski 5y ago

Where I struggle with this is on the basis of the idea. At this point why not turn everyone into a Holo Live character or some other metaverse style creation? Our face is part of who we are and removing that feels very unnatural to me.

ethanbond 5y ago
I think the point is in fact to obscure the subjects' identity.

xcambar 5y ago

> There’s several reasons you may want to hide a face: > [...] > * The faces of protestors who are standing up against a grotesque war I don't know if I find this disgustingly opportunistic or a solid gesture of protest and support. Maybe both

ravi-delia 5y ago
Creator clearly wants the app for their own use case, but correctly identified another. It is neither.
- xcambar 5y ago
  "Neither" is an option. The marketing copy indicates something else. But that'd be the best option yes.
matt_heimer 5y ago
In addition to emojis, imagine if this had deep fake support. For the war protestor use-case imagine if everyone in the crowd having the face of Zelenskyy. It'd be nice if this was usually built into whatever social media app people use but I wouldn't trust most social media companies to not store the original image. A sea of mini Nickolas Cage faces in pictures of your child at a playground would entertain some people.
- rchaud 5y ago
  Zelensky holding up signs for peace/ceasefire wouldn't be surprising. We need pics of thousands in the streets with Sergei Lavrov's face. Or better yet, the warmonger in chief himself.
InTheArena 5y ago
Virtue signaling at it's best. (In this case, there is true virtue - but profoundly unlikely to be safely applied in the use case that exists)
Larrikin 5y ago
The privacy of others was the original use I came up with when I made this same app for my final project in Intro to iOS class in grad school way back in 2017. From my initial project proposal >Governments and tech companies such as Facebook are now continuously scanning all photos uploaded to the internet for faces, locations, and objects, effectively removing anonymity for anybody that is in any picture. A user might want to share a picture from a protest, but other users in the background might not want it known they were there. >I would like to make a privacy focused camera application. The application will allow the user to take a picture and then it will find the faces in the picture. The user then will have to tap on the individuals in the photo they would like to be included in the final picture. By default all the faces in the picture will be marked as discard. After the user has finished selecting the faces the final picture will be produced. The faces not selected will have an effect applied to them to obscure that person identity. The user will then have the ability to share the photo to other applications, such as Twitter. There is a lot of code in the standard library that includes face detection, didn't even have to add any libraries and was able to do the project in the last 2 weeks of class. I ended up putting a heavy mosaic over the faces, but emojis would have been just as easy. Still preferred Android dev over iOS after it, but was impressed with the included camera features. To me the use case seems weird that she is trying to hide her kids so she can constantly post them on Instagram, when she has full control over taking pictures of her kids and what she puts on her page.

123jay7 5y ago

elpakal 5y ago

Hey, mine detects and redacts faces too (++text and ++macOS) https://gorp.app https://gorp.app

WoodenChair 5y ago
How do you feel about the fact that yours has been out for a couple years, does essentially the same thing (although maybe has less appealing marketing images on the App Store TBH), and only has a handful of ratings compared to the 300+ for this new app from this popular podcaster? I ask sincerely, and I wonder if it speaks to the power of marketing.
- elpakal 5y ago
  I think it does speak to the power of marketing but that can mean a lot. I’m also not out here trying to get ratings, I’m making things I use and publish them because I think others will too. That’s why it’s free and ad free (and admittedly slow to update). Also reviews can be paid for…

kennydude 5y ago

I love it. I'd love to also see something like this that can hide or change number plates of cars before posting online.

jachee 5y ago
Why? I’ve never understood this practice. The number plate is already out in public nearly 24/7 anyway, what difference does it make if it’s unobscured in a photograph, unless it’s a stolen car or plate or something?
- sschueller 5y ago
  In countries like Switzerland where we have strict privacy laws you can not just post pictures online of cars plates that may expose someone's privacy. For example a parking lot at a cancer hospital. The owner of a car can be identified by plate and therefore you need to make sure you don't expose them possibly having cancer etc.
- post_break 5y ago
  It’s not too difficult to use that information to find out where the car probably parks at night. The difference being the odds of a random finding the car plate useful vs online an abuser, criminal is higher.

ziml77 5y ago

I'm not sure why a bunch of commenters are dismissing the idea of hiding faces by placing emoji over them. That's already a thing. I see it a lot on photos that are shared online. It's a good alternatives to having to carefully frame or crop an image to hide objects and faces you don't want others to see.

micheljansen 5y ago
As a parent of a preschooler I can confirm this is definitely a thing. We have decided to do what we can to avoid our child’s life being subject to data mining or the creation of shadow profiles by whatever company (past or present) thinks it can profit from it. We always cover his face with an emoji. So do most of the parents in our social circle.
- ectopod 5y ago
  To turn it round, do you spend time looking at other people's emoji-obscured photos? I don't, so I can't see the point of posting them because I don't imagine that anyone would look at them. But I could well be wrong.
  - micheljansen 5y ago
    Given that it’s mostly used on Instagram: sure! It’s a picture-first medium after all. Obviously portraits are rare, but it’s quite common to see posts of their kids doing something adorable with just the tiny portion of the picture that contains a face covered. Plenty remains to see.

paul7986 5y ago

I bet Apple or Android will probably include adding emojis the same in their photo/crop edit tools in a year or two. People are already doing this with other apps as you see in dating apps and stuff.

gpmcadam 5y ago

FYI Markup, a feature of the Photos app in iOS can essentially do this fairly trivially. https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT206885 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT206885

kemayo 5y ago
True, but it's honestly pretty fiddly. If you want to do exactly-this, adding an emoji is a pain because you have to jump through a few hoops to resize it -- pinch-dragging doesn't work.

DHPersonal 5y ago

Another similar app that also works with video: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anonymous-camera/id1504102584 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/anonymous-camera/id1504102584

zabaki 5y ago

Added a picture with a bunch of people. Not all of them got an emoji, so as I continued to add emojis, I wanted to pinch to zoom but that behaviour turned out to be for the emoji. Handling a tiny emoji was really add, so I’d appreciate be able to zoom in and out of the picture when I have to add more emojis :)

jwhite_nc 5y ago

Is the app simple? Yes. Do you have to purchase it? No. Not sure why this turned into a critique of the programmer and subsequently his podcast and co-hosts.... weird.

JeremyBanks 5y ago