The recent release of the new Black Mirror episodes has once again put on the table a range of issues related to the use and abuse of technology, a fiction series that recreates a not too distant future in which the new tools raise tremendously disturbing issues .
The reason? Its credibility and closeness to reality .And it is not surprising if we take into account that the current context is sown with gadgets, artificial intelligences and other projects in full development that do not stop making us feel a certain unease.Today we analyze some of the most significant, as well as other examples directly related to their employment.
Horror applications and websites
We will start with something simple and designed for the purpose at hand: to be scary.We are referring to software and, specifically, to the websites and applications for terror addicts .Regarding these First, we are left with Terror in the cinema, a portal that will delight lovers of the seventh art full of trailers of the genre, with their corresponding comments and data.
Horror legends, meanwhile, is a site focused on literature where we find multiple stories, from the most traditional to others that are not so much.Your Ghost Stories is similar, however, it is designed for users to publish their own experiences, that is, many of the stories found there would have real events behind them.
As for the apps, iPoe points in the same direction.It is a kind of interactive book that honors the genius of the letters and that allows us to rediscover it through our device.In addition to some of its most popular stories , the utility includes interactive elements , a soundtrack composed by Teo Grimalt, and illustrations by David Garcia Fores.
The Ghost Radar approach is simpler, a tool that supposedly detects the paranormal activity present around us .In theory it does so using different magnetic fields, as well as various sounds and vibrations.
Horror video games
Video games are also another field that tries to exploit our hidden fears.A field in which virtual reality has contributed its particular grain of sand and has achieved very immersive experiences .House of Terror VR Free It is one of those that take advantage of it and, although it is intended for use with specific glasses, its traps, monsters and other elements, make it worthwhile to review it.The objective of the game is to solve clues and riddles and escape.
However, if we talk about VR, we can not stop commenting on the Arizona Sunshine of Vertigo Games.A zombie survival game designed for HTC Vive , sown of scares and very realistic.VRZ Torment It follows the same premise and does not fall behind.Both can also be enjoyed with the Oculus Rift.A little more modest is The Fear: Creepy Scream House that, developed by Genetic Studios, puts us fully in an abandoned factory where they have kidnapped our own family.
Sofia, the robot that wants to end humanity
In the middle of last year, too, We met Sofia, an American humanoid who, during a public interview, revealed that her goals were to marry and end the race that had created her.Something that, while well prepared, does not stop giving chills .Its achieved aspect does not help either.And it is that this robot has up to 62 facial and neck architectures , and a very realistic silicone skin.In addition, it integrates cameras in the eyes, so that he can establish eye contact and look directly at us.To interact and in addition to voice recognition, he has an artificial intelligence with a very particular personality.
Software that tells you when you will die
Another software that has earned its own space on this list is the one developed by the Medical Research Council of the United Kingdom, an AI-based system that tries to predict when a person with a heart will suffer more serious cardiac complications , that is, you will suffer an attack (up to one year in advance).A very useful system that could also end up being used in a negative way.
In any case, it is not a unique system of its kind, but the Big Data has also given rise to a series of tools that allow us to know the probable causes of our death and the like.The How You Will Die website, by Flowing Data, tries to guess them taking into account race, age and our sex, and analyzing data from 1999 to 2014 of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States.
Predictiveword tries to achieve it with the information we provide on social networks and that reflect life habits and other issues as if we have a partner, and so on.What it does is cross these figures with demographic data and more to give rise to a custom profile with statistics, percentages and future odds .Of course, it gives way.
AI able to read lips
But what would happen if, in addition From all this, could the AI read the lips ? It is precisely what LipNet does, which achieves it better than any expert, a technology created by experts from the University of Oxford and a project in which hundreds of hours of television have been turned over.
The objective? That the machine learned to associate the gestures of the images with the words, something that it achieves with a 52.4% of success and that could lead to leading important privacy problems if it is not used in the way appropriate.For the moment it is designed to help people with hearing impairment, although everything points to espionage.
Brain stimulation to alter memories
Brain stimulation also has very dark applications.In fact and already in 2015, French researchers showed that stimulating certain areas of the hippocampus allowed them to introduce artificial memories (that is, of situations that had never occurred) in sleeping mice.
Dr.Julia Shaw, meanwhile, said she used the science of memory for this purpose this September.The documentary Memory Hackers, issued by NOVA, shows some of these scientists in full action and explains how it would be possible even completely erase some experiences present in our memory.
Barbies and dolls that spy on you
But let's go with something a bit more shocking : the toys that are able to spy on the smallest of the house .Here it is possible to comment to the doll My Friend Cayla, who has starred in several controversies of this type, as well as the potential risks involved laultima Hello Mattel's Barbie.The model comes with WiFi and voice recognition, and invites children to chat with her.
However, what is striking is that these conversations are transferred to servers in the cloud that are analyzed by ToyTalk employees, which also has a dubious privacy policy in which it does not clarify so that it uses the information collected .A Google prototype in the form of a rabbit raised similar doubts.
a website to FIND OUR Double porn
On the other hand and, directly related to facial recognition systems, we cannot stop talking about a website where, just by uploading a photograph, it allows us to find anyone who is part of our fantasies sexual.
This is Megacams, an adult content page where different users connect to keep relations through the computer camera .What the tool tells us is which are the ones that most closely resemble the uploaded image.To achieve this, look for matches between more than 180 thousand individuals of LiveJasmin, Chaturbate and Bongcams.
Although the company ensures that all captures are erased immediately from their servers, their possible applications give thinking and are, in a way, sick. At a time when mass hacks are at the order of the day also makes us tremble.
Robot insects at the service of the army
Finally and in the purest Black Mirror style, as early as 2006, DARPA (the US Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency) began to consider the cyber-insects as a spying tool Very useful both on the battlefield and in the urban centers.The MIT Technology Review magazine even got to talk about a tremendously stealthy robot fly .
Far from ending, the matter did not fall in a broken sack but, at the end of last year, the state agency unveiled a new type of "bug" very similar with a purpose, supposedly, much friendlier.capable of spreading a compound to genetically modify plants to help them grow and be more resistant.Why shouldn't they be used to spread viruses and the like ?
Images | iStock: susandaniels
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