Cool (if a little scary) tech

The other day I went galavanting about creating new accounts on social networking sites and other Web 2.0 sites, mostly social networking. One stands out among them as very cool, if a littl scarry, namely MyFaceID. It's an interactive demo of Betaface, which is a facial recognition product. See? Very cool! The jist of it is as follows:

1. Create account (duh)


2. Upload a bunch of photos of yourself and/or others


3. System anylizes the photos, performs facial detection and shows you the "faces" it's found


4. Tag the photos as you or whomever. Alternatively, delete the ones that are bad matches (it happens).


5. Do something cool with them.
   
   
   
   1. Click on a face and see who in their database it matches. The database is of the Public profiles
      and a large collection of celebrities.
   
   
   2. Mix several images together
   
   
   
   

"Do something cool with them" is where things go a little off. Unfortunately you almost centainly won't match (at the time of this post) any "real" people. I can't say how many people are signed up but the public profiles amount to 34. I am not one of those 34. Presumably there are more people, people like me, signed up checking out the cool tech. The rub of it is that you'll only really match celebrities. There's nothing inherently wrong with that but since the system relies on lots of good input the matches can be a little... off. I promise you, I don't look at all like Scarlett Johansson. No really, I don't. If I did I would have a different carreer.

As for that second one, mixing faces together. That tempted me into triyng it straight away. The system only allows you to mix ten images at a time, for server sanity I assume. Okay, fine. After choosing five images of one person I'd tagged and five images of someone else I'd tagged I set it running. Processing...processing...more processing...expired session, logged out Lesson learned, ten images equals too much processing. It turns out that eight, in my case, worked out fine. The result? A somewhat blury face that looked like some poor bastardization of two people. Okay, just one person then. ... A somewhat blury face that looked like some poor pastardization of one preson. Dammit! I have to say that sadly I wasn't terribly surprised. It looks like an averaging algorithm similar to stacking a bunch of images, changing their alpha levels and then flattening the layers. I haven't tried that yet but I ought to for comparison sake. In my opinion part of the problem comes down to sample set, ten images just isn't enough. In defense of the mixing system they present random images of average X vs. average Y, where X and Y are related sub components of a category (eg. Male vs Female). Those look fairly reasonable, though I'm sure that the sample is huge in comparison and takes a long time to produce.

My general assestment? This is cool. It's a little scary at a base level of personal privacy and identity, which is I assume why there are only 34 public profiles. It needs some work (duh is bleeding edge stuff). Notably I think that it should provide options/features to:

1. See the identifying points and lines that the system has determined.


2. Accept some training input such as indicating that a match is bad or that an image is altogether wrong. My arm is not my face.


3. Provide a "Save" feature for blended faces (even if they aren't spot on, they're still pretty cool sometimes). This will save processing later if someone wants to review and could allow for backgrounding the process in a queue to be finished later at low priority on the system.


4. Provide that backgrounding system that I just mentioned.


5. If the mix algorithm is as simplistic (and I hope it's not) as it appears a new morphing based solution would be interesting to see.

Still, very cool. Very cool indeed! So go check it out and be braver than me, make a public profile!

cheers!

Kindle is (has been) here!

It arrived on the 14th, as expected, and in my free time I've finished the series I was reading, started another fantasy series set in modern time, linked to my wife's account, and loaded up some Shakespeare. I'm stuck in the lurch with my previous series and next book won't be out for another year. I'll (have to) make due with other varieties of sci-fi and fantasy.

So, nothing special, just enjoying my Kindle and enjoying enjoying reading again. In itself that's one of the best things about the Kindle. For a long time I was not much of a pleasure reader. I attribute my lack of interest to a late diagnosis that I needed glasses. In reflection I can recall that I got terrible headaches when I read as a child. As a result I couldn't bear to read for very long and developed an aversion to it all together. I'm not sure how or why but a few years ago I started passively reading again and while I enjoyed it it wasn't near the top of my list of things to do for fun. I find the Kindle to be such an "easy read", and so terribly convienent, that reading is fun again. By "easy read" I mean that the gray background is "easy" on the eyes, even in bright light.

Well back to work. Later tonight I'll likely finish that book and simply download the next one. How great is that? No going to Borders or B&N. Awesome!

Kindle On Its' Way!

Amazon just set me an email telling me that my Kindle just shipped. My roommate just received his and I'm sure that my wife will be ecstatic because it means that I will stop stealing hers. Personally I love it as an e-reader, it's bang on in my opinion because it's just plain simple. There are no frills to be had, no multi functional mistakes. It's not a PDA, a game system or a laptop, and it doesn't pretend to be. To the people that keep trying to criticize it for not having calendar scheduling or a phone, "It's an e-reader, it reads books. Period." And so much the better. To the people who claim that their Palm from five years ago does just as good a job, "Keep telling yourself that, while I download the next book in the series that I've been reading."

Okay, it has a proprietary format that is based off an old format and that kind of sucks. I can't share willy-nilly the book that I've purchased with all my friends. I have not played with the sharing that does exist in fairness, but here is a reality: authors and publishers are in it to make money. And here's another: you can't read the same book in multiple locations when it's made of paper. I'll be able to speak more on this after I've experimented with the multiple account sharing features, for now though I'm quite happy that it's on its' way. The fact is that it was so cool that it got me reading for fun again, and that is a task. It's easy to carry, easy to update your library, and easy to read in practically all situations that one would read a book. Don't let them fool you, it's a screen, it can develop some glare. Not so much as it prevents you from reading after tipping the Kindle a bit. It doesn't have a back lite. So? Last time I checked my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows didn't have one built into the book either.

My plan? Curl up on my new Victorian style couch with a blanket, let my puppy burrow a bit, turn on the light in the corner and continue the fantasy series, that I've been attempting to ignore the romance plot line in and concentrate on the supernatural aspects. A little bit of fluff is good for the soul, nothing too deep just plain fun.

The Evil Black Can

Okay, before you get all "you're a racist, how dare you say 'black' and 'evil' in the same sentence?" on me, I'm talking about this black can. And let me tell you, it is evil! It's just a can of Coke you say? Oh but no, no it's not just a simple can of Coke, it's so much more. What it is is deceptive. It attemps, and succeeds in doing so, to fool us. To lull us into a false sense of security before it strikes. And strike it does! It uses the sexy look of the black can, highlited by that sultry silver wave and punctuated by that trademark Coca-Cola red. It stands out and taunts us from within the vending machine, saying "I'm differnt than the rest. See? I'm in a black can. Try me..." The allure gets the best of me and *plunk!* there it is, craddeled in the vending machine return.

*pfft!* *clack!* Sounds like a Coke! *glug glug* Looks like a Coke, maybe a little flat looking but that happens. Crap! Still diet! Yep, there it is, that terrible tinny-flat-taste indicitve of diet soda. Damn you little black can! Damn you!! How dare you use your corporate marketing machine ways on me, your alluring gothic styling?! You lied to me! Shame on you! And shame on me for falling for it, I knew better. I still know better, but the force is strong with this one and I've developed an army of the little black-can-bastards on my desk. It may be too late for me but I bring you this message, "resist!" Don't let them fool you, they're not real Coke! Save yourself and get the one in the red can, better yet the maroon can it won't lie to you.

Farewell, I have to go back to consuming enough synthetic sugar to give lab rats cancer (as if they weren't going to get cancer anyway, they're lab rats!).