Miguel Afonso Caetano<p>"Sam Altman’s iris-scanning, identify-verification technology startup says it will begin expanding to the US starting May 1 and will launch a phone-like hardware device by next year. Those changes—and a promised World-branded debit card—signal the company’s ambitions to develop a “super app”—a goal shared by Elon Musk.</p><p>Altman and Alex Blania, a German physics researcher, announced at an event in San Francisco Wednesday evening that their venture-backed company, Tools for Humanity, is updating its “World” products to include a new, smaller, eye-scanning orb. The device-and-app combo scans people’s irises, creates a unique user ID, stores that information on the blockchain, and uses it as a form of identity verification. If enough people adopt the app globally, the thinking goes, it could ostensibly thwart scammers.</p><p>Altman has expressed concern about the amount of fakery that new AI tools will enable, including the generative AI tools pioneered by his other startup, OpenAI, which is valued at $300 billion. So the World app, and its hardware component, are Altman’s solution to the problem."</p><p><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/sam-altman-orb-eyeball-scan-launch-us/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">wired.com/story/sam-altman-orb</span><span class="invisible">-eyeball-scan-launch-us/</span></a></p><p><a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/IdentityVerification" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>IdentityVerification</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Biometrics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Biometrics</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/FacialRecognition" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>FacialRecognition</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/World" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>World</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/ToolsForHumanity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ToolsForHumanity</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/AI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AI</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/Surveillance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Surveillance</span></a> <a href="https://tldr.nettime.org/tags/DataProtection" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>DataProtection</span></a></p>