Image: Screenshot of Veil stereoscopic view with realtime facial recognition!

Problem: The opportunity to make commentary art out of the vast surveillance apparatus that engulfs us is enormous. The Veil project starts with a cornerstone of the modern surveillance stack — facial recognition — and sticks it in, well, your face.

Approach: Have you ever picked up your phone to take a picture and it is in selfie mode? The horror and awkwardness of seeing your own face staring back at you. Now imagine if this thing was projected on someone elses body… without your approval! Since I am using the Pixel 7 Pro (in the interim) as an MR display, I’ve got a powerful Android 14 compute device. It has built-in facial recognition support via ML Kit so its another good choice for prototyping.

Challenge: Just as above, this is all Google stuff on a highly-trackable mobile device. Ideally, I can get off this platform before completing this project!

Commentary: Early experiments with ML Kit are VERY positive. It’s fast, accurate and tunable.

Summary: The Veil concept is basically an outward facing screen that covers the operators face. In order to see, the operator will have a stereoscopic screen (similar to VR headset) with a feed of the outside world. The initial hope was reusing the screen and optics from an existing used VR headset for this function to cut down on cost and complexity.

Problem: How to build a mixed reality platform on the cheap.

Solution: Scavenge parts from a Meta Quest 2 headset (lenses and view screen)

Approach: Used Quest 2 headsets have crashed in value. Widely available for $30 – $40 on ebay in used/acceptable condition.

Challenge: After disassembly, discovered that Quest 2 screen has proprietary connector. The only resuable parts are the mechanical view port and Fresnel lenses.

Commentary: Quest 2 is just eWaste if you don’t want to run Zuckerberg’s spyware!

The concept of a series of gadgets that provide countermeasures to surveillance capitalism got me thinking about superheros. If someone were to adopt all of the devices that I’ve been imagining, they would look like a costumed crusader.

It kind of makes sense to imagine the centerpiece of my project would be a NEW superhero (COUNTERMEASURE). In addition to the tech-laden gear, they would have a sidekick (robot dog), a car (electric w/ lots of onboard compute), supervillain enemies (Zuckerberg, Bezos, etc) and a mission: to free the masses from tech platform neofeudal capitalism!

After running this idea by a few folks, I realized that the idea of a superhero, besides being pretty passé, didn’t do justice (groan) to the seriousness of my concept. Also, superheroes tend to be loners. They right the wrongs and ride off into the sunset.

The battle against surveillance capitalism can’t be won and it can’t be fought with a single person. While the devices that I ultimately produce may not be totally practical, the plans and concepts will be far more real than any imaginary comic book character!