Highlight: the app that lets you know who’s nearby

A brand new iPhone app has been released that alerts people when they’re near someone they share a connection with.

Actually the app, called Highlight, does a little more than that. According to its App Store description:

If someone standing near you also has Highlight, their profile will show up on your phone. You can see their name, photos of them, mutual friends, and anything else they have chosen to share. When you meet someone, Highlight helps you see what you have in common with them. And when you forget their name at a party a week later, Highlight helps you remember it.

How you feel about that probably depends on whether you think this kind of tech is exactly what we need to improve society or if you believe we’re heading irrevocably toward being enslaved by robot overlords.

Highlight claims that runs “quietly in the background” as you go about your business, “surfacing information about the people around you”.

The makers behind Highlight claim it will alert you if someone you know is nearby and that “if someone interesting crosses your path, it will tell you more about them”.

They also claim they chose to use Facebook as a default login “because we think it makes for a better user experience”.

The app does appear to place fairly significant drain on your battery life and only works for stalkers, I mean users, running iOS5 and up.