Surveillance Art

Wired has some great reporting, and this story is no different.

On July 3rd, I installed this exhibition app on all the free computers at the 14th Street Apple Store. […] When the slideshow first opened, it would capture an image of whoever was standing in front of the computer, and show them first before fading into the previously captured photos.

It’s the backstory behind the “People Staring at Computers” art exhibit.  This guy wrote a program which used a MacBook’s webcam to detect faces, then capture a photo and send it to his server.  He installed it at a few Apple stores and let it run for a few days.  Many people think the result is pretty cool (and I agree), but Apple and the Secret Service didn’t.