AI Can See Without Cameras. WiFi Was Just the Beginning.
Bilawal Sidhu
562,797 views
Radio waves were built to carry information. Now AI is learning to read the physical world hidden inside their reflections.
The same basic idea behind Call of Duty’s heartbeat sensor already exists in soldiers’ kit bags, Google’s Nest Hub, cheap radar boards—and, at a much larger scale, the cellular networks spreading across entire cities. This video traces the lineage RF sensing from the Army-funded Sense Through the Wall program and biometrics-at-a-distance research, through public studies that can measure breathing, heartbeats, location, pose, emotion and identity, to Google Soli, Reliance Jio’s 26 GHz rollout and T-Mobile’s patent for environment scanning with a cellular network.
Then we examine Ghost Murmur -- the disputed report that quantum magnetometry helped locate a downed US airman in Iran. The rescue and the CIA’s reference to “exquisite technologies” are on the record; the alleged sensing method and range remain contested.
The larger shift is legit -- radio is quickly becoming a sensing medium as much as a communications medium. With AI, the same infrastructure can communicate with the world and perceive it -- at room, building and city scale. No camera required. The inevitable implications of this tech is what we'll explore.
Watch my original WiFi sensing video:
Your WiFi Can See You. Here's How.
Watch my synthetic aperture radar (SAR) video:
This Satellite Revealed Things We Were Nev...
Chapters:
00:00 The Heartbeat Sensor Is Real
00:53 How Radio Sees You
01:12 Sense Through the Wall
02:12 Biometrics at a Distance
02:46 Your Heartbeat Is an ID
03:28 Five Layers of RF Sensing
07:10 Radar on Your Bedside Table
08:42 Why India Blocked the Pixel 4
09:14 From Phone Radar to City-Scale Sensing
10:17 The $22 Version
11:33 The Ghost Murmur Mystery
13:48 What Radio Waves Really See
Key research & sources:
Sense Through the Wall radar patent:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2...
US Army: Soldiers See Through Walls:
https://www.army.mil/article/32868/so...
Biometrics-at-a-Distance program:
https://www.sbir.gov/awards/142821
DHS Portable Signs of Life Identifier survey, including Jetson:
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/fil...
Through-wall heartbeat detection using single-channel 24 GHz radar:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
Millimeter-wave human detection and localization in complex indoor environments:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16142572
Millimeter-wave emotion-recognition dataset:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
RDGait single-chip radar identity research:
https://doi.org/10.1145/3678552
MIT Vital-Radio:
https://people.csail.mit.edu/hongzi/c...
Google Soli / Motion Sense:
https://blog.google/products-and-plat...
Google Nest Hub Sleep Sensing:
https://support.google.com/googlehome...
Reliance Jio 26 GHz mmWave rollout:
https://www.ril.com/news-media/press-...
T-Mobile patent — Environment Scanning Using a Cellular Network:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US1...
Ghost Murmur technical analysis:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
AP reporting on the rescue and “exquisite technologies” statement:
https://apnews.com/article/7d8cfb6d0f...
--
Subscribe for more in-depth AI & creative tech videos! 👉 @bilawalsidhu
Join My Newsletter: https://spatialintelligence.ai
Connect with me on X/Twitter here: https://x.com/bilawalsidhu
Everywhere else here: https://bilawal.ai
Business inquiries: team@metaversity.us
Bio:
Bilawal Sidhu is a creator, engineer, and product builder obsessed with blending reality and imagination using art and science. Bilawal is the technology curator for TED Talks, and a venture scout for Andreessen Horowitz. With more than a decade of experience in the tech industry, he spent six years as a product manager at Google, where he worked on spatial computing and 3D maps. His work has been featured in major publications including Bloomberg, Forbes, BBC, CNBC, and Fortune, among others. Bilawal’s journey into computer graphics began at 11, when he fell in love with seamlessly blending 3D into real life footage. Since then, he's captivated over 1.5M subscribers, garnering more than 500M+ views across his platforms. Driven by a mission to empower the next generation of artists and entrepreneurs, Bilawal openly shares AI-assisted workflows and industry insights on social media. When he’s not working, you can find Bilawal expanding his collection of electric guitars.
TED: https://www.ted.com/speakers/bilawal_...
20 Comments
Nikola Tesla
And when a section of the military realizes that this technology can be used to force regime change and complete chaos in a third country, the world's worst nightmare begins.
AI Can See Without Cameras. WiFi Was Just the Beginning.
Bilawal Sidhu
562,797 views
Radio waves were built to carry information. Now AI is learning to read the physical world hidden inside their reflections.
The same basic idea behind Call of Duty’s heartbeat sensor already exists in soldiers’ kit bags, Google’s Nest Hub, cheap radar boards—and, at a much larger scale, the cellular networks spreading across entire cities. This video traces the lineage RF sensing from the Army-funded Sense Through the Wall program and biometrics-at-a-distance research, through public studies that can measure breathing, heartbeats, location, pose, emotion and identity, to Google Soli, Reliance Jio’s 26 GHz rollout and T-Mobile’s patent for environment scanning with a cellular network.
Then we examine Ghost Murmur -- the disputed report that quantum magnetometry helped locate a downed US airman in Iran. The rescue and the CIA’s reference to “exquisite technologies” are on the record; the alleged sensing method and range remain contested.
The larger shift is legit -- radio is quickly becoming a sensing medium as much as a communications medium. With AI, the same infrastructure can communicate with the world and perceive it -- at room, building and city scale. No camera required. The inevitable implications of this tech is what we'll explore.
Watch my original WiFi sensing video:
Your WiFi Can See You. Here's How.
Watch my synthetic aperture radar (SAR) video:
This Satellite Revealed Things We Were Nev...
Chapters:
00:00 The Heartbeat Sensor Is Real
00:53 How Radio Sees You
01:12 Sense Through the Wall
02:12 Biometrics at a Distance
02:46 Your Heartbeat Is an ID
03:28 Five Layers of RF Sensing
07:10 Radar on Your Bedside Table
08:42 Why India Blocked the Pixel 4
09:14 From Phone Radar to City-Scale Sensing
10:17 The $22 Version
11:33 The Ghost Murmur Mystery
13:48 What Radio Waves Really See
Key research & sources:
Sense Through the Wall radar patent:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2...
US Army: Soldiers See Through Walls:
https://www.army.mil/article/32868/so...
Biometrics-at-a-Distance program:
https://www.sbir.gov/awards/142821
DHS Portable Signs of Life Identifier survey, including Jetson:
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/fil...
Through-wall heartbeat detection using single-channel 24 GHz radar:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
Millimeter-wave human detection and localization in complex indoor environments:
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16142572
Millimeter-wave emotion-recognition dataset:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
RDGait single-chip radar identity research:
https://doi.org/10.1145/3678552
MIT Vital-Radio:
https://people.csail.mit.edu/hongzi/c...
Google Soli / Motion Sense:
https://blog.google/products-and-plat...
Google Nest Hub Sleep Sensing:
https://support.google.com/googlehome...
Reliance Jio 26 GHz mmWave rollout:
https://www.ril.com/news-media/press-...
T-Mobile patent — Environment Scanning Using a Cellular Network:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US1...
Ghost Murmur technical analysis:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
AP reporting on the rescue and “exquisite technologies” statement:
https://apnews.com/article/7d8cfb6d0f...
--
Subscribe for more in-depth AI & creative tech videos! 👉 @bilawalsidhu
Join My Newsletter: https://spatialintelligence.ai
Connect with me on X/Twitter here: https://x.com/bilawalsidhu
Everywhere else here: https://bilawal.ai
Business inquiries: team@metaversity.us
Bio:
Bilawal Sidhu is a creator, engineer, and product builder obsessed with blending reality and imagination using art and science. Bilawal is the technology curator for TED Talks, and a venture scout for Andreessen Horowitz. With more than a decade of experience in the tech industry, he spent six years as a product manager at Google, where he worked on spatial computing and 3D maps. His work has been featured in major publications including Bloomberg, Forbes, BBC, CNBC, and Fortune, among others. Bilawal’s journey into computer graphics began at 11, when he fell in love with seamlessly blending 3D into real life footage. Since then, he's captivated over 1.5M subscribers, garnering more than 500M+ views across his platforms. Driven by a mission to empower the next generation of artists and entrepreneurs, Bilawal openly shares AI-assisted workflows and industry insights on social media. When he’s not working, you can find Bilawal expanding his collection of electric guitars.
TED: https://www.ted.com/speakers/bilawal_...
Find me on github here: https://github.com/bilawalsidhu