Researchers Announce ‘100% Accuracy’ In Facial Recognition

Psychology researchers from Glasgow University have just announced that they’ve developed a facial recognition algorithm that’s 100% accurate in their testing. The technique essentially averages 20 photos into one composite but is able to disregard confounding variables like age, lighting, expression and camera equipment used. (I mean, you can see what they did to poor John Travolta.)From their abstract:

Accurate face recognition is critical for many security applications. Current automatic face-recognition systems are defeated by natural changes in lighting and pose, which often affect face images more profoundly than changes in identity. The only system that can reliably cope with such variability is a human observer who is familiar with the faces concerned. We modeled human familiarity by using image averaging to derive stable face representations from naturally varying photographs. This simple procedure increased the accuracy of an industry standard face-recognition algorithm from 54% to 100%, bringing the robust performance of a familiar human to an automated system.

So even if their unworldly claims of 100% accuracy are possible, it seems that you need quite the baseline of photos to reach it. Here’s hoping they can—wait, is this a good or a bad thing? I keep forgetting.

-from Gizmodo.com

Air Force commits to micro air vehicle

The U.S. Air Force has gone all-in by authorizing full production of the AeroVironment backpack-sized Wasp III micro air vehicle, which will soon to be standard issue for combat controllers and USAF special ops, according to the Pentagon. This follows the U.S. Marine Corps’ purchase of a Wasp III system, which it plans to deploy at the platoon level as a complement to the Raven.

Weighing in at a mere 1 pound, the plane’s diminutive 29-inch wingspan can still loft a variety of hefty payloads in addition to its infrared cameras that stream video directly to ground control. The Wasp is launched by hand and can be operated either manually or programmed for auto-pilot with autonomous GPS navigation, according to AeroVironment. The Wasp III is part of Air Force’s Battlefield Air Targeting Micro Air Vehicle program (BATMAV), which will allow troops to scan enemy targets from 5 kilometers away for up to 45 minutes at a time, according to the company.

-from Crave on Cnet.com

11-year-old Boy Deaf for Nine Years is Suddenly Cured

An 11-year-old boy from Britain, who was deaf for nearly 10 years, was suddenly cured when a thick piece of cotton popped out of his ear, according to a report in the Daily Mail.

Jerome Bartens was diagnosed as deaf in his right ear when he was just two-years-old.

Over the next nine years, he struggled to live a normal life as a young boy — but everything changed when he felt a sudden pop in his right ear while playing a game of pool with friends.

He put his finger in his ear and pulled out a tip of a cotton wool bud that had been wedged in his ear since he was a toddler.

“It was just incredible — his hearing returned to normal in an instant,” Barten’s dad said.

“I had always suspected Jerome had stuck something in his ear when he was little and that was causing the problem. But the doctors and hearing specialists said it was wax and he would probably grow out of it.”

“I am amazed they didn’t spot something as obvious as a cotton wool bud.”

Jerome is due to be examined by hearing experts later this week — and his dad is taking along the cotton wool bud as proof of his “miracle cure”.

“It was very strange at first to be able to hear everything,” said Barten.

“But now I’m getting used to it — it’s great that people don’t have to shout to me or that I don’t have to turn my head all the time.”

-FoxNews.com