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There are many ways to detect hidden cameras using your smartphone — this includes shining a flashlight around the room to spot tiny reflections coming from tiny lenses, using your phone’s camera to detect infrared emissions from hidden cameras, or using camera apps with reflection analysis. However, the first two methods require manual scanning, meaning you’re likely to miss something small and unnoticeable, while the last method is prone to false positives. Because of this, the research team decided to make their own solution using artificial intelligence.
First, they built a $7 (around KRW 10,000) LED grid that snaps to the back of your camera phone. These lights change direction continuously, allowing the reflections on different surfaces to move or disappear altogether as they move around. Since most cameras, including hidden ones, have a unique structure with their lenses, aperture, and sensor, they often exhibit a distinctive reflection pattern which SweepLED can reliably detect. The team tested the gadget in real-world settings, running it across 30 items, some of which have embedded hidden cameras, and it was able to achieve a 93.9% detection accuracy. This makes it a huge improvement over manual methods, which are tedious and prone to false positives.
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/cameras/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/cameras/korean-researchers-build-usd7-hidden-camera-detector-gadget-uses-led-lights-and-ai-to-separate-reflections-from-lenses#main
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