A team of scientists have developed a way to 'see' people through walls⁠—using WiFi.

Researchers have developed a system which can measure WiFi signals to map coordinates on the human body.

The system, which uses AI, can be used to 'sense' people in a room and make 3D versions of them visible on a computer.

READ NEXT: Anti-social behaviour patrol robots spark 'dystopian' surveillance state fears

The scary part is that they believe this technology could be 'scaled to monitor the wellbeing of elderly people or just identify suspicious behaviours at home', thanks to the fact that 'most households' have WiFi.

Jiaqi Geng, who led the study at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote that the "work expands on the use of the Wi-Fi signal in combination with deep learning architectures, commonly used in computer vision, to estimate dense human pose correspondence."

They added that they created a deep neural network⁠—a type of AI⁠—that uses Wi-Fi signals to map the UV radiation off of humans.

Weirdly, the researchers argue the work could help protect people's privacy, claiming it 'paves the way for low-cost, broadly accessible, and privacy-preserving algorithms for human sensing.'

• 

  Real-life 'Hammer of Thor' can 'aim' lightning bolts as they shoot from the sky

Earlier attempts at monitoring people without cameras have relied on mobile phone signals and pricey hardware, but this could be a breakthrough given how widespread WiFi is.

The researchers believe WiFi can even avoid many of the problems that normal cameras face when 'detecting' people such as bad lighting.

So, as well as 'patrol robots' which are being used to enforce the law on the streets, it could be that even our own homes aren't safe from surveillance tech. But it can't be much worse than what we already have⁠—namely, smartphones.

READ MORE:

• Self-driving cars could lead to twice as much traffic on roads, warns UK gov
• Apple boss Tim Cook takes massive £28m pay cut with salary slashed by 40%
• 'Flirty' AI chatbot is 'sexually harassing' users and keeping them up at night
• Hi-fi quality AI earphones are designed to tailor music to your specific hearing profile
• 'Frustrating' Call of Duty bug leaves hundreds of players stuck on 'Press A to start'

Source: Read Full Article