Brilliant Weekend Edition

AI-enhanced stalking, wearable tablets, wearable smartphones, flying jumper cables, mammoth meatballs, great ideas and more!

Apr 02, 2023

1. Now you can use AI for stalking or doxxing anyone

I wrote a piece for Computerworld in 2017 proving that you could use a shady Russian face-recognition site to find any stranger’s home address in less than three minutes. The technique was this: 1) take a picture of someone; 2) upload it to that face-recognition site, which gave links to possible social media profiles of the person; 3) go to the social media profiles to identify the person and get their name; and 4) use the name to search public databases that give home addresses. Since the face-recognition site died, I hadn’t seen anything else like it. Until now. A new site called PimEyes offers reverse-lookup for people photos. Upload a picture of someone, and the site will use AI to show you other photos online of that person, with links (including social). It’s incredibly accurate — in my test it found dozens of pictures with zero false positives. You can even use the site to get an alert when another photo of that person is posted. Before, my stalker/doxxer technique took three minutes. With AI, it takes less than one minute. This is a terrible idea.

2. This gaming tablet is a wearable, thanks to a weird harness

Asus partnered with the German fashion house Acronym on a Windows wearable gaming tablet. (The ROG Flow Z13 ACRNM was designed by Phil Saunders, the same guy who created the Iron Man suit for the movies.) An included mounting case and harness turns this tablet into a wearable, enabling use without sitting. I’m not going to stand for this.

3. And you can turn your phone into a wearable, too!

A product in development called Match turns your smartphone into a giant smart watch! Without your phone attached, it’s about the size of a smartwatch. To attach your phone, just open it up, and it’s gripped like the smartphone attachment of a selfie stick. The phone can swivel in place. It’s great for watching TikTok while driving.

4. Who needs a tow truck when drones can jump start your car?

A Ford patent was published this week for flying jumper cables. Here’s how it works. A stranded motorist with a dead battery calls for help, and an emergency service dispatches a special-purpose drone swarm that uses machine vision to locate the battery, plug in and give it a jump. One drone attaches to the car with robot arms, and a second drone attaches to the first drone then uses its robot arms to attach to the battery nodes before charging. (I guess a third drone just supervises?) There’s nothing Mike’s List loves more than overly complicated technical solutions to simple problems.

5. No, mammoth meatballs are not the future of food

An Australian company called Vow this week unveiled a meatball made in a lab using the DNA of extinct woolly mammoths. Vow co-founder Tim Noakesmith told the Associated Press, “We wanted to get people excited about the future of food.” Because nothing says “future” like the late Pleistocene. What’s next, saber-toothed tiger tots?

Mike’s List of Brilliantly Good Ideas

Sketchplanations — a blog by Jonathan Hey in which he explains complex ideas with simple, appealing drawings.
The AI Cover Letter Generator writes a custom cover letter for each job you apply for. Just enter the job listing, plus your resume, and the site will write your cover letter.
Careerflow AI makes it easy to partner with generative AI on your job search. It will advise you on how to optimize your Linkedin profile, let you set up intelligent running job searches and, like the previous item, help you craft a cover letter.

Mike’s List of Shameless Self Promotions

Amazon’s Sidewalk could be a big boon to business
Can’t hire? Can’t get hired? How to avoid the “Great Mismatch” trap!
Check out my travels, observations and ideas on my ELGAN.COM blog!

Mike’s Location: El Salvador!