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Coronavirus smart glasses
Via YouTube (PanoCloud)

China is using AI smart glasses to detect people with coronavirus

The specs can monitor a person’s body temperature from up to a metre away

As China continues to ease its lockdown measures, security officers are using artificial intelligence-powered smart glasses to detect people with fevers, one of the main symptoms of coronavirus.

Developed by AI startup Rokid, the smart specs use thermal imaging to measure a person’s body temperature from up to a metre away. According to the South China Morning Post, they can check the temperature of several hundred people every two minutes.

The glasses are currently being used by security guards working at the recently reopened Hongyuan Park, in the eastern city of Hangzhou, to reduce waiting time at the park’s entrance. If someone registers a high fever, the device uses real-time facial recognition to send an automatic alert to staff for digital record.

While the technology has proved successful in some cases, it doesn’t detect people who are asymptomatic or those who are infected but have yet to develop symptoms. It’s also slightly concerning to think of the implications that face-tracking technology could have on mass surveillance.

In slightly less creepy tech-related news, research lab OpenAI has made an neural network that lets you create tracks in the style of Céline DionKanye West, Tupac, and more.