Items tagged with facial-recognition
From personal devices to more broad applications, facial recognition and AI are becoming a large part of all types of technology and applications. Earlier this year, Amazon banned law enforcement from using its facial recognition software. The hope was that legislation could be passed to prevent law enforcement's use of facial recognition, but that has not happened yet, and it seems to be a widespread issue. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has now issued a ban on the use of commercial facial recognition software for police work. According to Buzzfeed News research, the use of facial recognition in law enforcement is a massive problem, with more than 2,200 agencies using software such...
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There are currently several AI tools whose purpose is to create more life-like images. The most recent addition is PULSE (Photo Upsampling via Latent Space Exploration), an AI-infused application that can transform low-resolution pixelated images into high-resolution images. The creators of PULSE’s mainly focused on human faces, but others have already used the tool to create slightly terrifying images of video game characters that may just haunt your dreams. PULSE was developed by a team at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It varies from other tools because “instead of starting with the LR (low resolution) image and slowly adding detail, PULSE traverses the high-resolution...
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The Pixel 4 does not drop until this upcoming October, but Google has already revealed several new features. The Pixel 4 will unlock with face scanning technology instead of a fingerprint sensor. This feature appears to be a direct challenge to Face ID found on devices like the iPhone XR and iPhone XS. Google has confirmed what many have suspected and insists that their feature differs from their competitors. It says that users will not need to hold up their device, strike a certain pose, or swipe to unlock their device after their face scan. The face unlock sensors will reportedly scan a user’s face as they pick up their device, regardless of orientation. The Pixel 4 will also feature...
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Facial recognition is a technology that can be incredibly beneficial in the tech space, but it has its share of supporters and detractors. Many companies in the tech world operate facial recognition databases, including software giant Microsoft. Likewise, many law enforcement agencies use facial recognition as a way to search through thousands of records to match a face with a suspect in a crime. Microsoft's massive facial recognition database went live in 2016 and was built of online images of 100,000 well-known people. The massive database is believed to have been used to train facial recognition systems that are used by police and the military. Microsoft has now deleted the massive database...
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Sammy Davis Jr. offered up some helpful advice to would be criminals in a theme song he sang for Baretta, a detective show that ran in the late 1970s. He said, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." But what if you didn't do the crime in the first place? Well, if you're an 18-year-old student in New York, you apparently sue Apple for $1 billion. That is the amount Ousmane Bah is seeking for being falsely accused and arrested for theft at an Apple Store, according to a lawsuit filed today. In the lawsuit, Bah claims he was at his senior prom in Manhattan when the alleged thefts occurred. So how exactly did he get accused of the crime to begin with, if he wasn't even there? We only have...
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When Apple first rolled out its Face ID security tech to eliminate the need for a fingerprint scanner, there were some initial security concerns. It turned out that early on Face ID could be bypassed with a cheaply made 3D printed mask. Now, a new report has tried something similar to bypass Android facial recognition using a 3D printed head and attempted the same trick to circumvent iPhone X Face ID security. The 3D printed head was made in the UK at a business called Backface using an array of 50 cameras that combine images to create a single 3D image. That single 3D image was then fed into a 3D printer where something looking like a marble bust was produced over a span of a few days. The final...
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While we may all know Amazon for fast, two-day shipping on millions of products, Prime Video, and a host of other offline and online services, police departments are looking to the tech giant for a different reason. According to emails that were obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) via a freedom of information request, the company is selling its Rekognition software to police departments across the United States. The Rekognition artificial intelligence (AI) system is capable of scanning faces in real-time and matching them against a database. In the case of police departments, this tool is being used to match people that may walk within range of...
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Microsoft's software is pervasive in meeting rooms across the globe, and the company is giving us a glimpse at how it plans to expand that domination with meeting rooms of the future. At the year's Build conference, Microsoft pulled the wraps off a hardware prototype that uses all of today's hottest tech buzzwords to make communicating with peers even more seamless. The device, which is shaped like a cone, is equipped with a 360-degree camera and a powerful microphone array. The camera uses facial recognition to scan the room and identify meeting participants. The microphones are used to pick up their voice and transcribe everyword spoken in a meeting in real-time using Microsoft's...
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An increasing number of companies and agencies are turning to facial recognition technology for various things, but is it really ready for prime time? It's a valid question in the wake of some concerning developments, the latest of which involves the South Wales police force using facial recognition technology to scan for criminals at major events. In particular, during the 2017 Champions League final, more than 2,000 people in Cardiff were identified as potential criminals even though most of them were not. The way it works is cameras scan faces in a crowd, then compare the images to the police force's database. Around 170,000 people attended the aforementioned event, with the facial recognition...
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Facebook is expanding its facial recognition technology, and it should help users that want to better curate their "image" via social media. If you've ever used Facebook, chances are that someone has uploaded a photo of you, perhaps without your permission. Oftentimes you only happen to stumble across the images when scrolling down your News Feed. Sometimes, you may not mind the photo, and other times, it could have possibly captured you at a not so "photogenic" moment. To help combat any potentially embarrassing situations and to help users know exactly how and when their image appears on social media, Facebook’s facial recognition technology can now determine if you are in a picture --...
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Alright Google Glass haters, I’m actually kind of with you on this one. A new app for Google Glass (aka “glassware”) is designed to read people’s emotions and respond accordingly, and if there’s anything people dislike more than being stared at by a Google Glass wearer, it’s wondering if that person (most likely in this case a customer service rep) is using your facial expression to calculate your feelings on a product, store, or experience. Here’s a wild prediction: Most of the expressions being read will not be happy ones. (Also, there’s a less expensive way to gauge people’s emotions that’s been around for a long time, and it’s...
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As facial recognition technology begins to look like something that’s actually quite useful and powerful, the FTC is trying to stay out in front of it by developing a set of best practices for commercial applications. Why is the FTC so proactive about addressing facial recognition technology? This passage from the agency’s Facing Facts: Best Practices for Common Uses of Facial Recognition Technologies report sums it up fairly well: In the most advanced application, companies can use the technology to compare individuals’ facial characteristics across different images in order to identify them. In this application, an image of an individual is matched with another image of the...
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