Hasta La Gadget!

Today in New York City, data-crunching company Dataminr announced a new tool for journalists. Its goal is to seek out news stories before they’re heavily reported.

NameTag is a pretty cool-sounding app on paper, but it could quickly turn into the stuff of nightmares in reality. It’s essentially an app that can match people’s mugs to their social media profiles.

NameTag essentially uses facial recognition to match people with their accounts on social networks and even dating profiles. All users will have to do is take a picture of the person. The app will then send the image wirelessly to a server, which will compare the image to online records. When a match is found, that person’s name, photos, and links to social media accounts will be displayed.

The app is being developed by FacialNetwork, who is also working on a technology that will let users take things one step further by allowing them to scan the pics to determine the person’s dating history or find their profiles on dating sites. Just imagine what potential stalkers might be able to do with this app.

In addition to smartphone apps, the company is working on a version for Google Glass as well, though if the beta demo below is any indication, the database lookups aren’t exactly instantaneous at this point:

FacialNetwork’s Kevin Alan Tussy explained: “I believe that this will make online dating and offline social interactions much safer and give us a far better understanding of the people around us.”

On privacy, he adds: “People will soon be able to login to www.nameyag.ws and choose whether or not they want their name and information displayed to others… It’s not about invading anyone’s privacy; it’s about connecting people that want to be connected. We will even allow users to have one profile that is seen during business hours and another that is only seen in social situations.”

What do you think?

[via C|NET]

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