Walyou

Facebook’s Face Recognition Can Tell Your Profile from Someone Else’s

Posted: 04 Apr 2014 01:45 PM PDT

Until not so long ago, people used to fear that Google Glass might get some face recognition features that could ruin our privacy, but it looks like Facebook went ahead of the search giant and implemented a spectacularly accurate version of that.

Humans are still the best at recognizing other people, but Facebook’s face recognition technology has great chances of surpassing them. According to a recent report, the social network’s latest experimental feature can distinguish you from another person just by analyzing your face.

The new AI system, which is simply known as DeepFace, is scary accurate. In some experiments conducted by Facebook scientists, the DeepFace system was asked to confirm or infirm if two pictures are of the same person. The results? Well, Facebook’s face recognition technology is right 97.25% of the times, while humans clock in at 97.53%. How long do you think it will take this system to surpass us? That accuracy is already very high, and it’s so close behind us that beating humans (at this test, I mean, not in a “world domination” context) wouldn’t take much.

DeepFace represents a major step forward from Facebook’s current face recognition technology that is used for making suggestions while tagging photos of friends. The Google+ social network features a similar technology, but DeepFace is said to be a lot better. Most face recognition software can only make an association between a photo and a person if the image is taken from the front of the subject, thus revealing the most noticeable characteristics. DeepFace, on the other hand, can easily create a 3D model of the faces in photos. After doing so, it analyzes them using an AI technology called “deep learning.”

Facebook spokeswoman Lydia Chan pointed out that for the time being, DeepFace is just “theoretical research,” and that this feature might never make it on a global scale. Still, Facebook isn’t known for inventing new technologies just for the sake of playing with them.

In an earlier paper, Facebook researchers claimed that “The social and cultural implications of face recognition technologies are far reaching, yet the current performance gap in this domain between machines and the human visual system serves as a buffer from having to deal with these implications.” According to them, DeepFace “has closed the majority of the remaining gap.”

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the stealth clothes that prevent Google Glass from recognizing faces and this funny Lenovo IdeaPad face recognition ad.

ChocaByte, The World’s First Chocolate 3D Printer Will Sell for $99

Posted: 04 Apr 2014 12:15 PM PDT

While 3D printing is not that new of a concept, people have only recently realized that they could print food using a similar process. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many commercial solutions available at the moment, but ChocaByte means to change that.

SolidIdea, the Sydney-based company that developed ChocaByte, walks on the footsteps of Foodini, a pizza 3D printer I wrote about last December. Since then, the developers of Foodini launched a Kickstarter campaign that might be followed by the mass production of the device if the $100K goal is reached. If Foodini takes care of what could be considered a main course or a snack, ChocaByte was made with the sole purpose of delivering uniquely designed deserts.

Luckily for most chocolate addicts, you don’t need CAD skills to use this 3D printer. On the contrary, the company intends to create a library of chocolate printing templates. Moreover, users will be able to add their own special designs, thus helping the ones who lack creativity.

SolidIdea doesn’t want to make ChocaByte only easy to use, but also very affordable. The manufacturer’s plan is to sell this product for only $99, really an unimaginable price when it comes to 3D printer, regardless of their types. Of course, a printer is of no use without cartridges, and SolidIdea plans to sell sets of four for $10. Still, there is no word on how much each of these cartridges will weigh, so it’s hard to tell whether the price is right or not.

As far as the printing time is concerned, a 2 x 2 x 1 in (5 x 5 x 2.5 cm) chocolate shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to print. It might seem a lot, but after you surprise someone dear with some custom chocolates, you will definitely think that the wait was worth it.

The manufacturers of ChocaByte mean to launch a limited edition of the device. Each printer will be numbered from 001 to 500, but considering how many chocolate addicts are around the globe, there will certainly be a demand for more. Anyone wanting to get such an innovative product should head over to SolidIdea’s website, where the developers opened pre-registrations for orders.

Hopefully this is how the food 3D printing industry takes off. After pizza and chocolate, it will definitely be interesting to see what can be done next using this method that allows highly customizable products.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Foodini pizza 3D printer and the Legobot 3D printer built almost exclusively out of LEGO bricks.