Hobbyist makes Raspberry Pi camera that displays others’ photos instead of yours

A French engineer and hobbyist who goes by the name Salade Tomate Oignon has created a unique camera using Raspberry Pi and a Google images.

A few years ago, the maker designed The Layer Cam, a Raspberry Pi-hack that would allow users to point a box that acted as a “camera” toward a landmark in order to see other people’s pictures of the same landmark, with the help of GPS coordinates and Google images.

Now, he’s done it again, with a project called Le Myope, or The Shortsighted in French, a Raspberry Pi-based camera that uses advanced algorithms based on machine learning and computer vision to take a picture and return a similar one from Google image search.

So, for example, if you’re using the camera in a popular place, like a tourist attraction, chances are you may capture the same photo as someone else in that area.

“Use it in a remote place and get random roughly similar pictures from all over the internet!,” says Salade Tomate Oignon, on his project page.

So instead of seeing the photos you capture, the camera will show you random strangers’ images.

On Salade Tomate Oignon’s website, you can find code and instructions to build your own. Check out the video for a deeper look.

Story via Raspberry Pi Foundation.