Causecast Video Blog: Auto-Blur The News: Mobile App For Human .

Nonprofit organization WITNESS was constituted to "give the eyes of the universe to human rights violations," through the use of punk and small video cameras and a freely-available video platform. But because security is necessary when WITNESS users cover dangerous events of human rights violations, subjects often want to be kept anonymous, and this can be difficult when using very basic and low-cost cameras.

At this year's Hack Day for the 2010 Open Video Conference held at ITP, WITNESS shows how they're currently using facial-recognition technology found in many current smartphones as piece of their mobile video app to help keep subjects anonymity when filming interviews. The mobile telephone market has seen flourishing development for the preceding few years, especially from the iPhone and Google Android platforms, who are leveraging smartphones incredibly powerful processors to do complicated tasks- like GPS location and photography and video recording. One service some phones are subject of is augmented reality- where images are composited over live video. WITNESS is using the technology, along with facial-recognition, to composite a black square over people's faces as the picture is being recorded. This way once filming has completed, the user can immediately upload the video online without having to edit afterward on a calculator with video editing software (which the user may not own or have admittance to in a light measure of time). If the user successfully uploads the picture at their current location, they can also immediately erase the raw video on the sound so there is no evidence that a recording took place. Established in 1992 by Peter Gabriel, WITNESS has matured throughout the age to embrace current technology- including establishing a good video portal (the Hub), partnering with YouTube, and offer numerous training courses to help activists make powerful videos. The current library holds over 5000 video titles, WITNESS has several guidelines users can be to see that their identity is safe, and that any video they upload can not be traced back to them. News organizations and filmmakers can license raw footage uploaded to the site, and all revenues are divided with WITNESS partners. Thankfully, open-platforms like Android and friendly rivalry between businesses like Apple and Google encourage technological invention and low-cost solutions for users who can drive developments like these on a full scale. And of course fighting for human rights is not usually found on the rear line for major consumer businesses, so creativity from the ground-up may be what solves most of the world's problems. For more info about WITNESS, go to http://witness.org For more info about Nathan Freitas and his panel with WITNESS given at the Open Video Conference, go to http://www.openvideoconference.org/ -by Brandon Buck