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Google Glass could help children with autism socialize with others
Google Glass may have failed as a high-tech fashion trend, but it's showing promise as a tool to help children with autism better navigate social situations.
A new smartphone app that pairs with a Google Glass headset uses facial recognition software to give the wearer real-time updates on which emotions people are expressing. In a pilot trial, described online August 2 in npj Digital Medicine, 14 children with autism spectrum disorder used this program at home for an average of just over 10 weeks. After treatment, the kids showed improved social skills [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41746-018-0035-3], including increased eye contact and ability to decode facial expressions.
After her 9-year-old son, Alex, participated in the study, Donji Cullenbine described the Google Glass therapy as "remarkable." She noticed within a few weeks that Alex was meeting her eyes more often — a behavior change that's stuck since treatment ended, she says. And Alex enjoyed using the Google Glass app. Cullenbine recalls her son telling her excitedly, "Mommy, I can read minds."
Q: What does the scouter say about his emotional state? A: He is confused... Now he has recognized this device as Google Glass and has become enraged.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:44AM (7 children)
Yet you talk to plenty of people with smartphones, which can record a conversation reasonably well even if they are in a pocket.
News flash, privacy out in public places is dead. And many other places as well.
The surveillance will get better too. Conspicuous autistic Glasshole today, normal-looking eyeglasses, contact lenses, or jewelry tomorrow (just make the smartphone the wireless hub for all attached cameras).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @04:52AM (3 children)
I actually try to avoid that.
There are different kinds of privacy. I think privacy from mass surveillance - whether in public or not - is perfectly legitimate. If only we could rein in on governments and corporations who want to conduct mass surveillance on the populace using various means, but that's crazy talk.
Your 'Give up already!' attitude just makes you a de facto apologist for oppression. Privacy is only truly dead if you surrender like a slave.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @01:41PM
" Yet you talk to plenty of people with smartphones, which can record a conversation reasonably well even if they are in a pocket.
I actually try to avoid that."
How do you avoid that? Almost EVERYONE has a smart phone? Do you just not talk to anyone?, 'cause it's hard to tell who has one and who doesn't.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday August 04 2018, @02:03PM (1 child)
Fight winning battles, not losing ones. Buy different hardware, and keep "compromised" hardware for non-sensitive usage. Run Tor or other schemes only when you need to. If you need physical privacy, you can find that in your own home, or perhaps in the middle of a nearby forest/desert/tundra.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 04 2018, @07:38PM
What if the battles we're losing are winnable if only people start to care? What if the battles we're currently losing are, in fact, important to a healthy, free society? If privacy doesn't exist, then society itself may as well cease to exist. We need prohibitions on mass surveillance, not just privacy in our own homes or out in the middle of nowhere.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pslytely Psycho on Saturday August 04 2018, @05:53AM (2 children)
"Conspicuous autistic Glasshole today, normal-looking eyeglasses, contact lenses, or jewelry tomorrow"
I remember a story I read thirty or more years ago where old people wore glasses that recorded everything and could call the police if the wearer warranted it. I can't for the life of me recall the name of the book, or whether it was a short story, novella, or novel. At the time I thought of it as something that could never occur within my lifetime, a flight of fantasy set in a dystopian world (not all dystopias are bombed out crater towns with robots and renegades running amok). I would love to read it again. It was apparently more prophetic than I realized in my youth.
If I remembered more of the plot, I could probably figure it out, but that was the only bit I recall.....
Ah, to be a kid again, when bleak, surveillance state stories were fiction, and not daily life.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by https on Saturday August 04 2018, @03:46PM (1 child)
You're perhaps thinking of "Earth", by David Brin?
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday August 07 2018, @01:45AM
Ah, thank you, that was it, just re-reading it last night, have the entire Brin Planets series, haven't re-read them in years.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.