AI built to track you through walls because, er, Parkinsons? AI systems can track the movements of people hidden behind walls by inspecting radio waves reflected off their bodies, according to a new study. The model dubbed “RF-Pose” starts off by transmitting low power radio signals that can penetrate through walls using a wireless Wi-Fi device. These waves bounce back when reflected …
Well, that had nothing to do with IT or the article subject but definitely worth an upvote.
On the subject of the article, I am increasingly of the opinion that many researchers need a daily slap to wake them up and make them think about the possible consequences of their research.
Fortunately in my house because of condensation problems all the walls are lined with tin foil.
So far I can't find an argument for condensation on my head.
On the subject of the article, I am increasingly of the opinion that many researchers need a daily slap to wake them up and make them think about the possible consequences of their research.
This... points out so much wrong with the world of research and "publish or perish". While the intent may be ethical, the results and misuse sometimes outweigh the advantage. There should be some sort of ethics assessment made before work progresses. And full disclosure on who's funding this. I can see a lot of government agencies that might be interested and then there's the miscreants...
Having an elderly relative who has had a number of serious bone-breaking falls but seems to be wilfully courting further disaster on a daily basis, having a reliable means of knowing when to summon another ambulance that doesn't depend on having the entire house under video surveillance would at first sight seem like a wonderful idea.
And although it might be creepy that it is possible to find out who is in your house by means of radio waves, presumably it's not significantly more intrusive than watching who comes through the door.
Having an elderly relative who has had a number of serious bone-breaking falls but seems to be wilfully courting further disaster on a daily basis, having a reliable means of knowing when to summon another ambulance that doesn't depend on having the entire house under video surveillance would at first sight seem like a wonderful idea.
This sort of stuff has been around for years, albeit without the new added artificial neural networkTM that seems obligatory these days as an alternative to any sort of statistical analysis (because that would involve actually thinking about the problem and gaining insight into it from the data instead of just pumping loadsadata into a neural network). See for example http://www.jpier.org/PIERB/pierb20/09.10022206.pdf
As for detecting when your granny has fallen over, as opposed to having a sit down or crawl around, false positives are a big nuisance and false negatives a disaster. Neural networks need to be trained with a great many test cases. So unless you are prepared to push your granny over a few thousand times to generate the necessary training data, making it reliable is going to be problematic. Getting some poorly paid PhD student to pretend to fall over a lot is unlikely to work either, since real falls don't look anything like pretend falls.
Getting some poorly paid PhD student to pretend to fall over a lot is unlikely to work either, since real falls don't look anything like pretend falls.
However, most (if not all) universities have an almost limiteless supply of undergrad students who will genuinely fall over a lot...usually around closing time, and especially during freshers' week.
Getting some poorly paid PhD student to pretend to fall over a lot is unlikely to work either, since real falls don't look anything like pretend falls.
Also, a 20 something student is also going to have a very different gait and lifestyle to a middle-aged Parkinson's patient.
The emissions are generated by a "wireless Wi-Fi device" (a wifi repeater, is that what they're saying?) However they don't say what's being used for reception. I doubt you can generate those heatmaps using a normal wifi (MIMO?) interface.
Expect this to appear in every Cop or Spy TV series starting next september...
>>Expect this to appear in every Cop or Spy TV series starting next september...<<
Already there - Netflix Continuum
Corporate police officer from 2077 has this wifi processing ability built into her outfit.
As this system is already at around 10cm resolution I'd expect the TVs milimeter detail within 20 years.
Clothes that are 'stealthy' and don't let this [redacted] shit work.
A good number of researchers need more than a slap in the morning. They need several kicks where it really hurts just to remind them of their responsibility to Humanity in general and not just to whichever mega corp that is funding their research. Just because they can does not mean that they should.
BB nantually.
“By using this combination of visual data and AI to see through walls, we can enable better scene understanding and smarter environments to live safer, more productive lives,” said Mingmin Zhao, first author of the paper and a PhD student at MIT. ®
I don't want to live a more productive life, i want to live a significantly less productive life, one that maybe involves lots of travel, no money worries and the freedom to do whatever i fancy.
This system needs a visual reference to build the start point for learning about movements.
How about this for V2.
Use ultrasound to build the 3D area model (a small group of these transmitters in the area will be needed) and the same small box can contain the wifi and push the raw data back to a central cloud for processing.
As a side activity to warrant its shelf space have it also respond to 'Alexa / Google show me cat videos on the TV'
Tinfoil is your friend here.
It can be very effective. We recently opened our nice new community shop, state of the art environmentally sound design etc. And because Welsh slate costs a fortune, a black corrugated iron roof (looks much nicer than it sounds - and the 10kW solar PV panels just fade into the background).
But... we also have foil layers on the wall insulation. And a thin metal layer on the triple glazed windows.
Coudn't work out why we had absolutely no mobile reception inside, but 3 bars of 4G outside the front door.
We'd built our own Faraday cage! But it's lovely and peaceful in the cafe. None of this "I'm in the cafe. I SAID, I'M IN THE CAFE"
Ah, memories of the Windmill pub, Chipperfield. Not sure how they managed it, but mobile signal would drop to zero as soon as you entered the bar. the landlord took quite a few calls on the fixed landline along the lines of 'Who? No, haven't seen him all evening', often followed by 'Bill, June just called again'.
Happy days.
or at the least the building blocks for them are all starting to come together?
Add this to the Slaughterbots (https://autonomousweapons.org/slaughterbots/) and they will know just which wall to blow a hole in to get to us :-(
They aren't real yet in case anyone gets immediately worried. Maybe we all need to practice crawling around on all fours like a bobcat so the AIs will ignore us?
Since it isn't mentioned I think we need to know the type of wall they are getting their pictures through.
I assume they expect wood frame with plasterboard surfaces - typical modern construction. What happens when they encounter 1 meter thick solid stone walls or walls with metal cladding or indeed ant wall different to the usual modern construction. They did test those types of walls I hope before their song and dance act.
Talking about reflections and stuff it is clear they are talking about doing this from INSIDE a structure, so meter thick stone walls on the outside of a building aren't a problem - I assume few buildings have those on the inside?
Doing this from the outside would a problem even for modern construction, since in the US except for cheapest possible construction that ignores efficiency it means reflective foil wrap on the entire envelope of walls and roof except for windows and doors - and the windows are likely low-e glass with a metal layer, and most doors these days are foam filled steel. And people wonder why they get such terrible cellular reception in their new house when its 5 bars in their backyard...
"meter thick stone walls on the outside of a building aren't a problem - I assume few buildings have those on the inside?"
Funny you should say that. When my parents bought their first (and last) house in Havefordwest back in the 70s, every wall, interior and exterior, was 2'6" (or thereabouts - medieval construction wasn't, apparently, a high precision system) thick and comprised very irregular blocks of stone held together by what appeared to be crunchy, granular mortar and a lot of hope,
My father's renovation and rebuilding efforts led to 'interesting times'.
very irregular blocks of stone held together by what appeared to be crunchy, granular mortar and a lot of hope,
Obviously very effective hope (and lime mortar) - it's lasted for centuries!
My house is similar. 200 years old, 18" thick stone walls, and not always even lime mortar. When I was doing some work I found that the interior side of the wall was held together with mud and horsehair. I just slapped some plasterboard over it and carried on! Floor is slate slabs on earth, and foundations? What are they? Good for another few centuries though, unlike the average modern build.
Easy electromagnetic shielding of rooms can be achieved with "frequency selective surfaces". You get those by placing periodic patterns of metallic thingies on the walls you want to shield.
Squares with a side of 3 to 4 inches should do it in the microwave band. Cover the area leaving a few inches between the squares and then the bad AI cannae see you.
Phew!
Where are the geeks knocking out RF and IR jammers for our homes and cars? We need an active jammer, not just random radiation. Shouldn't be hard to project ghost images, like submarines do with sonar. Fill your home with a dozen ghosts, and which signal is you now? Have the unit merge your track with a ghost now and then to confuse their find-the-human algorithm. The lovely thing there, is that your widget could project ghosts when you're not even there.
One each for home and maybe workplace, another for the car should do it OK, get to it lads!
Shouldn't be hard to project ghost images
Imagine a projector in the centre of a room. If you want to project IR images, you'd have to heat several human-sized patches of wall or furniture to 37C. Think about how focused the beam would have to be to draw out even a rough image, and how powerful the projector would have to be to get a scanning beam to heat that area and keep it at the right temperature. Given the inevitable inefficiencies in the system, I think the air in your room would be very toasty by the time you got home.
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