Talking Tech: Your Face Sold on the Cheap and Bilibili's Failed Satellite Launch

What's the latest in clean breathing innovation? Who is using your data? When will the drones deliver your mail? Keep up with the latest circuitry in our new column, Talking Tech.

Your facial recognition data could be on the market

At a time in which you need to scan your face for everything from registering a phone number to dispensing toilet paper in public restrooms, who doesn’t have one or two ugly shots that they want deleted, lest they be stolen and posted online? With the multitude of apps and services that require facial data – most notably the ubiquitous Health Kit App – it's safe to say that the face scan function is becoming increasingly valuable.

As valuable as this info may be, however, your beautiful mug isn't being hawked for as much as you might think. Earlier this week, a report from Xinhua exposed online vendors who are selling suspicious merchandise called “human faces tool kits,” which turned out to be a laundry list of personal information including facial recognition data pulled from various platforms.

“One face will only cost you RMB 0.5, and I've got 20,000 on hand. No bargaining allowed,” reads one such ad from a black market bio trader. If the knowledge that your facial data might be circulating online wasn't awful enough, the fact that it's being sold for the price of a plastic grocery bag certainly adds insult to injury.

The Bilibili satellite that didn’t make its way to the sky

On Children's Day this year, one of China's biggest video platforms, Bilibili, declared their next ambitious plan: to send a satellite into space. Touted as a Children's Day gift for the playfully curious at heart, the hi-def video satellite was meant to capture everything from the city's gleaming lights to fluctuations in the polar regions via its three-dimensional imaging system. That content would then be used to create a range of educational and research materials including science, history, geography, environmental, and many other topics that would be available on Bilibili. What's more, people would even be able to order customized filming services from the satellite. Think sky-writing, but the opposite.

At least it was supposed to do these things...

Bilibili live-streamed the satellite's launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Jul 10, which had already been delayed since late-June. The satellite was strapped to the Kuaizhou 11 rocket and at 12.17pm, the rocket soared into the sky jets blazing. Curiously, however, the cameras weren't turned towards the launching site. Rather, viewers got to watch someone carve a satellite into a pumpkin, later an official announcement was released, admitting defeat. According to leaked videos that went viral online shortly thereafter, the rocket was indeed sent skyward, but deviated wildly from its path. The fate of the satellite is still unknown, but Bilibili has reiterated that they, unlike their hardware, will stay the course and try to launch the satellite again.

Read: Study: Beijing's Green Hotels Are as Comfy as They Are Eco-Friendly

Image: Bilibili, Zhihu, Tencent, 163