Google's Satellites Could Soon See Your Face From Space 140
Jason Koebler (3528235) writes Two months ago, after much lobbying by the biggest satellite company in North America, DigitalGlobe, the US government relaxed restrictions to allow for commercially available satellite imagery up to 25 cm resolution—twice as detailed as the previous limit of 50 cm.
The DigitalGlobe's Worldview-3, the first commercial satellite set to capture these high-res images is set to launch this Wednesday. Six months after that, private businesses, including its regular client Google, will be able to get their hands on hyper-detailed photos and videos of the globe.
The DigitalGlobe's Worldview-3, the first commercial satellite set to capture these high-res images is set to launch this Wednesday. Six months after that, private businesses, including its regular client Google, will be able to get their hands on hyper-detailed photos and videos of the globe.
but... my face is smaller than 25 cm? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:but... my face is smaller than 25 cm? (Score:5, Funny)
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I am not a
Google, however, is.
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doesn't that mean my entire face would be 1 pixel large?
Maybe two if you have a big mouth..... (Shush up Dave!)
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doesn't that mean my entire face would be 1 pixel large?
I think Slashdot editors believe that all of the readers must be profoundly obese chinbeards...as in, multiple chins, and a beard for each of them.
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All the way down to their bulbous DDD man bewbs,
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No, it's chins all the way down.
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I'm still recovering from dining @ Carlos O'Kellys the other night and seeing the species in question polishing off a couple dinners and appetizers. " Damn , honey , look at that! His tits are twice as big as yours!" I had to draught two more Dos Equis Dark , just to finish some of my dinner.
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The mirror for that satellite would have to be several hundred meters in diameter.
Re:but... my face is smaller than 25 cm? (Score:4, Informative)
Not specially. It depends on the satellite altitude. For low orbits, a 1-m telescope is vastly sufficient for 25-cm resolutions.
Maybe you are confused with Geostationary orbits, where indeed enormous mirrors would be required to get hi-res (GEO stays interesting because of its permanence : only from tyere you can get a "movie"; from low orbits it's images "on the fly")
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..and to be clear as cellphone pics from one meter it would need to be 10 000 times the resolution.. so?
better headline.. "be able to tell possibly what kind of a car you're driving and what hardware some random 3rd world country has in their military base".
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> Not specially. It depends on the satellite altitude
If it's anywhere above the atmosphere, which, being a satellite, it is, then the limit is at about five times that due to atmospheric diffraction. You need multiple times the limit in order to process the results into something near your diffraction limit. That's why WorldView-2 had an aperture about 2m to get 50cm resolution. Plus it was launched sun-sync at ~700 km, which I suspect is where WV-3 will sit too.
Re:but... my face is smaller than 25 cm? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:but... my face is smaller than 25 cm? (Score:5, Funny)
Ah yes but you forget...
ENHANCE!
If you think nobody's head is that big... (Score:5, Insightful)
...you obviously haven't been hanging around here for long.
I trust them (Score:4, Insightful)
I have complete confidence that companies will follow all laws even for things that are to be placed forever out of the reach of inspectors. Even if they could, they would never just put an artificial restriction on the equipment for when some clueless government inspector wants to do the pre-launch check.
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You know, some of us walk around with our heads pointing to the sky with a 800cm^2 magnifying glass over us. You insensitive clod!
I hope you live in Seattle or Portland. And have some Joo Janta 200 sunglasses and an awfully large Aloe Vera garden.
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Re:but... my face is smaller than 25 cm? (Score:5, Funny)
"doesn't that mean my entire face would be 1 pixel large?"
Americans have much larger faces, even their centimeters are 2,54 larger.
Re:but... my face is smaller than 25 cm? (Score:5, Interesting)
You know what Slashdot's editors want us to be terrified of the privacy implications from? Something significantly lower-resolution than existing aerial photos like this image [knoxcountymaine.gov].
Download the image, and measure the length of runway 3/21 in pixels from threshold to threshold. (Approx. 6341 pixels.) Figure out how long it should be at 25cm per pixel. (4876 pixels.) Scale the image appropriately (7500 pixels wide.) Zoom in to 1:1 resolution onscreen.
Now, are you terrified? No? Nor am I. Want to confirm I'm right about the scaling? Find a car and measure the length: it should be about 20 pixels, or 500cm for a typical full-sized US car. (I tried one, and the first one I tried was exactly 20 pixels.)
So no, I'm not scared. What I am is mildly amused that the myth of satellites that can read newspapers from space still exists. That, and surprised that imagery this (still relatively) low-resolution was ever off limits in the Internet age. And a bit disgusted that a supposed nerd site insults the intelligence of nerds who know far better, this readily.
I really should stop coming back here.
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Think I am going to start wearing hats more often now.
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Only if you're looking up in the direction of the satellite, otherwise it's your head that would be about 1 pixel. Of course it's unlikely in either case that your your head/face would be contained in one pixel so it would more probably be split among 2 or 4 pixels.
Technically correct (Score:2)
Title says nothing about being able to distinguish things like ears, nose, eyes, hair, etc... We will be able to see your face as exactly a pixel.
Considering how satellites transverse the Earth, we may even be able to once every couple of years! :)
That said, might be able to do analysis on face complexion if nothing else...
ENHANCE!
See your face...where your face is a single pixel (Score:1)
...If you are fat.
25 cm resolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:25 cm resolution (Score:5, Informative)
The largest recorded human head was 15.9cm x 25.5cm x 23.9cm, meaning that said person could require a second pixel, if they were observed in the appropriate axis.
It is important to note that if a person was observed laying down on the ground, they would occupy *up to* 10 pixels in the case of the world's tallest person, but the average would only require 6.
Re:25 cm resolution (Score:5, Funny)
For those that don't know what I'm talking about... [xkcd.com]
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except the St. Google has purchased are capably of much finer detail, ans they are lobbying to relax the regulations even more. If they are successful, then Google's Sats can see you face.,
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The average human head is 14.5cm x 23cm x 20cm, so you are quite correct that it would mean that the average human head would occupy less than 1 pixel
I'd argue a little differently, that pixel is primarily made up of your face/head (>50%). It's probably good enough to tell your skin or hair color, depending on angle.
It is important to note that if a person was observed laying down on the ground, they would occupy *up to* 10 pixels in the case of the world's tallest person, but the average would only require 6.
He'd be up to 10 pixels long. Actually 11 pixels, if you don't restrict yourself to tallest living person. But I'm guessing he's more than 10 inches wide, so I expect around twice the area except maybe the top pixel for the head. And more if you stretch out your arms, say two more to each side. So more like 1 (head) + 2*5 (body, legs) + 2*
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So you're telling me that a Final Fantasy 1 sprite on the NES is still exceedingly more detailed than a human being captured using this system? Cool, we're good!
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the average human head would occupy less than 1 pixel regardless of which axis it was observed across.
No, that would be low resolution. This is high resolution. Use a shot where the face is at the intersection of 4 pixels. There, I just quadrupled your resolution!
Of course, the headline (which seemingly has nothing to do with the articles or even the summary) says see your face from space, not identify your face from space. If your face is represented in 1-4 pixels, which could potentially be distinguished as a face by those pixels' colors in comparison to neighboring pixels, isn't it technically seeing
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With 25cm resolution, they'll have problems doing anything but blurring everyone's face.
Street view... (Score:2)
Have you seen the weather data you can download freely? It's available from a satellite near you (or an internet site, if you don't have a clue like most people...yes they don't have a clue). The resolution, (high res MAP) is terrible. Why? Ever heard of atmosphe
Re:Street view... (Score:4, Informative)
A lot of what shows up on Google Maps, especially in larger metro areas, has been photographed from planes. They're only up on nice VFR days, so there's no atmosphere in the way. Better resolution satellite stuff from Digital Globe will be nice to see, but aircraft will continue to dominate the commercial aerial imagery sector for quite awhile.
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Our they could use Planes (Score:4, Insightful)
They could get better and better satellites with higher resolutions, and continuously lobby the US government to allow higher resolutions to be released.
Or they could use planes, and StreetView cars... Like they currently do.
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The planes imagery is what the western world gets already.
This would be a great benefit to more remote areas however.
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They have (or had) a mostly exclusive contract with GeoEye for one of their satellites, though the US government held priority over that in case they needed access to the imagery.
Google recently purchased SkyBox, and so may soon be launching its own constellation of smaller satellites. These will reportedly have high-res video capabilities, so it may be possible to watch traffic (or other things) moving in real- or near-real time.
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If the government is removing the restrictions that tends to indicate they already have access to even better satellite imagery capabilities. When that plane disappeared a few months back they probably had enough evidence to locate the crash but could not publish the information without revealing their true capabilities.
Face from Space (Score:2)
2x the resolution? (Score:2)
Or 4x the resolution (a 50cm square being 4x as large as a 25cm square)?
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No. It isn't. That's why there are two dimensions to it.
X x Y (see, two dimensions). That's not linear. OP is right. 25cm is 4x the resolution of 50cm.
E
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Resolution is measured linearly, not quadratically.
Why? The surface of the Earth is two-dimensional (three, if you want to be picky), not one-dimensional.
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Are you in the habit of being an asshole?
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At this rate... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re:At this rate... (Score:4, Insightful)
What kind of honest lives? We probably can't rule out the possibility that they can, in the future, tape your sex act at home from all the way in space. So in that case we should stop having kids then? That would get rid of most of the human race pretty quick
Thinking sex between consenting people is dishonest, shameful and/or immoral has led to many of the draconian laws on the books today.
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Privacy will be a thing of the past in no time. The only matter is when do we reach the point of no return.
Start living honest lives...
Yeah, but isn't it pretty creepy that it could be relatively soon when your nosy neighbor (and by that I mean anyone that knows your address) will be able to stalk you from their basement? In 75 years we have gone from the first satellite images to them being commercially available and nearly real time (at least daily). In another 75 years, it seems plausible that there will be near real time video of most of the populated world. It's going to happen for military purposes, so we might as well accept it
At this rate... (Score:1)
aerial imagery will never be a problem as these are static snapshots. They don't show anything private and the current rate of 1fpa (frames per annum) depending on region they don't yield enough data for anything unless you have really bad luck doing something really dumb and one datapoint is enough.
The resolution in time is so much worse than everything else that is collected about you that people who want to invade your privacy use other sources and then point a satellite to the location they want to watc
Japanese porn... (Score:1)
...is shot from space?!!
Google already has high-res imagery (Score:3)
Google and other online map-providing companies supplement satellite imagery with aerial photography, and as far as I know, there are no limits on that sort of thing.
Google Street View (Score:1)
Umbrella (Score:2)
And we're done.
Evil doer? (Score:1)
The company whose boss said I should not expect privacy on Internet will soon have satellites. What could go wrong?
Indeed with 25cm resolution they cannot recognize people, but they can still track their movements. And combined with data from smartphones, identifying someone gets easier.
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The company whose boss said I should not expect privacy on Internet will soon have satellites.
That is not what he said. Here is the quote:
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place,"
This was in December 2009, as China's efforts to read dissident's emails were coming to light. There is a reasonable chance that he knew what Snowden told us. I think this was a warning.
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My White Naked Ass (Score:1)
is much bigger than 25 cm. I am very happy that they will be able to see it clearly.
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Even better.
So don't look up (Score:3)
I always walk around outside looking at the ground (don't like the sight of moving people).
Google isn't going to film my face from space - at least, not until they cover the ground with mirrors.
Sure (Score:2)
No need for a Satellite... (Score:1)
Google Street View cars are doing a great job so far:
http://mashable.com/2013/06/10... [mashable.com]
And the physical limit of resolution is???? (Score:2)
I remember seeing a documentary about leaked details of satellites that could read the headlines off a newspaper in the early 1970s, but they would have had very low orbits and didn't stay up long, mainly because they would run out of film.
Re:And the physical limit of resolution is? (Score:2)
From low orbit, about 25cm is reported for military satellites. Maybe a little better. DigitalGlobe is now at 41cm. Reading newspaper headlines from orbit is unlikely. If the military satellites were doing that well, there would be little reason to fly recon drones or aircraft.
Once you can recognize vehicles, weapons, and troops from orbit, more resolution doesn't help much militarily. The next step, which is where DigitalGlobe is going, is more frequent imagery, and wider fields of view and more down
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I think the best that can be done with a single image is around 15cm due to the atmosphere. Maybe somewhat better with multiple images, although I don't know how well that works on a moving target/ moving platform except at astronomical distances.
I once heard that during the Iran crisis back in the late 70's the imagery was good enough that they could identify the Ayatollahs by the shape of their beards
Better with drones (Score:1)
Blackadder (Score:2)
Some sort of hat is probably in order.
commercially available satellite imagery up to 25 cm resolution
If you have a huge face, at least.
50cm limit was on selling, not taking photos. (Score:3)
AFAIK this limit was for _selling_ photos commercially, not for taking them. Those satellites could already take photos at higher resolution (25cm or better), they just had to be provided to USA government and noone else.
50cm images sold commercially were probably upsampled from 25cm photos anyway.
Limit was also only applicable in USA (obviously), and was changed to allow USA companies to compete with rest of the world as technologies advance.
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25cm resolution (Score:2)
Oh no! That pixel representing the 25x25 area of my face will violate my privacy so badly if I happen to look up at the wrong moment!
What do they mean (serious question)? (Score:2)
I seriously do not understand what they mean by 50cm (or 25cm) resolution. On the current Google Maps picture of our house, you can clearly see the yellow garden hose snaking across the lawn. The garden hose is maybe 3cm thick. We have stepping stones in the lawn, averaging maybe 40cm by 60cm; each stone clearly occupies multiple pixels. I would guess that a single pixel represents about 10cm.
This is in Switzerland. Are photos in the USA fuzzier? I just zoomed in on a military base, and I can clearly see th
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Unacceptable! (Score:2)
So you're telling me that if I want to protect my privacy now, I either have to stop looking straight up while I'm walking around? How the hell am I supposed to see where I'm not going?!? And what am I supposed to do if I accidentally make eye contact with someone???
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Not two, but four times as detailed (Score:1)
All of two pixels (Score:1)
I am looking forward to my portrait in a glorious two pixel resolution.
Facing up? (Score:1)
Government satellites? (Score:2)
What resolution do we think that government satellites can do?
Don't you mean 4x the resolution? (Score:2)
Here's what's much better than Hi-res.. (Score:1)
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...and for those of you not up on your 70's TV shows, Robin Williams committed suicide.