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Face Recognition Comes to Cameraphones
An anonymous reader writes "If you have a camera phone, you may soon have to take a picture of yourself before making a call or accessing data stored on the device. A Japanese company has developed face recognition software for camera phones that it says can authenticate users within one second of clicking the shutter. Omron (Japanese) will demonstrate its Okao Vision Face Recognition Sensor at tomorrow's Security Show Japan in Tokyo."
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You'd think they'd avoid visible light and use IR or a combo to pull this off, though in IR we can also look different depending which end of the ski run we are on ...
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I am wondering how particular the recognition software is. There could be some considerable day-to-day differences in a face if, say, one was ill, or had a bad fall, etc. Could I, for example, take a friends camera, take a pic of a good photo of my friend and then gain access to his phone/pda/device? The article didn't really address that though I don't think it was intended to be within it's scope. Still, it's something to think about.
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But what if you have to call an ambulance after getting into a car accident that damaged your face? :)
What if you are having a 'bad face day'?
Maybe it won't recognize me when I'm wearing my tinfoil hat...
This is great - until you are in a car accident and are bleeding from the face.
"I need to call [insert japanese equivelent of 911]."
"Sorry sir, facial recognition failed."
[Insert slow painful death]
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I equivocate over the added features for cell phones. This is one that I can't see having too much impact here in the US. Face recognition for your phone? What for? To use my phone?
What if I lose or gain a few pounds? What if I grow or cut my beard? What if I get a new girlfriend and she changes my "look" with a new 'dew?
It is hard enough to get customer service for my phone as it is. I don't need to be locked out of my phone because I changed my diet.
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Omron claims that the camera need not be held in the same position each time, and that the sensor will detect the owner regardless of the location of the user's face in the frame.
Given the current state of computers, I wonder how they can do this. If I take a picture of my face from the front right as a reference, and the next time from the front left, how will it stil recognize me? Same goes for a number of different angles. I'd also think that haircuts, glasses and a few other things could mess this up.
Be interesting to see how well it works in the field instead of in the lab. Anyone here have access to Akibahara for when this is released?
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Considering that most camera phones are 1 MP, How accurate could this possibly be ?
Face recognition has been tried in various places for law enforcement, Tampa Florida in particular. The cameras and recognition software failed to assist in a single crimimal being identified from 10'000's of images. This was a multi-year trial. This crap might work under ideal conditions but it fails utterly under any real world conditions.
...and use someone elses cell phone. All you need to do is lob of their head and carry it around in a sack with you. When you need to make a call, pull out the head and snap a picture; free cell phone minutes.
Or what if you are tammy fey? do you have to put on the same face every day?
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is Fist Recognition - to warn their owners of an incoming punch when they engage in obnoxious cellphone abuse in my presence.
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This is such a pathetic gimmick, in 6 months no one will care about about it or be using it - how many people here even use voice dial? It doesn't even have a use to it, there is simply no problem with entering a pin number and facial recognition is simply not that good, even in good fixed lighting conditions with a good camera and lots of computing power its bad enough to be annoying, for security i give this about 3/10 - its better than setting your pin number to all zeros, usefulness is around 4/10 - maybe you could find some kind of novelty application for it? why wait 1 second when your pin number is checked instantly? why bother taking a picture when you can often tap yor keypad without even looking, why waste R&D on this when people really just want flat-rate fast net-access on their phones, to be honest.
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Why do phones suddenly need biometric security devices?? As far as I'm aware, security isn't that big of a problem concerning cell phones. None or close to none of the current generation (or previous) of phones has much of any security like that, nor do many pda's I've seen.
Most people don't keep a lot of really sensitive data on their phones, and phones aren't really remotely hackable like normal computers. Why all of a sudden do we need face recognition on them??
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Do you need a barcode on your face for it to work?
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There is the hassle of taking a picture of yourself, for one.
Like another poster mentioned, the possibility of something happening to injure your face, and causing you not to be able to access your own phone.
If this is your only phone, would you have to wash your hair in the morning and groom yourself before the phone would know who you are? Really... a good idea, just not a practical one
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In the UK they have used this type of technology at sporting events to identify trouble shooters (guys that generally start riots at more than one game). They then re-verify those identified manually. Works pretty well whith people walking in a hallway into a stadium. And on tens of thousands of people as well.
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How would this help? If I stole someone's wallet with their family picture in it, could I not then use the cellphone?
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I want the facial recon to filter out calls.. Kinda like the firefox cookie blocker:
1. Ed calls John.
2. John's phone asks Ed's phone for a picture
3. Ed takes a picture of his face.
4. Ed's phone sends it to John's phone.
5. John's phone does facial recon to determine if his face is in the whitelist, if so, then it rings.
6. Otherwise forward to voicemail automaticly
You could have various settings, like "Theatre mode" where it only rings if that person is on the emergency list.. "Ex-Girl/Boyfiend" mode, where it just forwards to "this number has been disconnected"
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The article was extremely brief and didn't mention anything about how this software actually decides it's looking at the real user's face. what happens if I hold up a picture of the correct owner and snap a shot of that? I have a feeling the device will happily log me in unless it has some method of detecting 2D vs 3D.
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My friend here at PennState University is working on face recognition research. He and I were suprised that such a technology was announced without us hearing about it ahead of time. Normally face recognition would not be useful for this purpose (security clearance). It is either too sensitive (not shaving, wearing sunglasses, etc) screws it up, or it's not sensitive enough to make it secure. Research here at the university was trying to find ways to fix these downfalls, but research on the subject is not even close to complete yet. I can't see this in anyway being as useful or complete as promised.
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Presumably, you'd be able to designate certain numbers as "security cleared", just like you can do on phones with normal security in the US.
Nokia phones for some time have allowed users to designated emergency numbers that are allowed to dial-out if their phone is locked. Most people set these to their home phone numbers (the only number that will dial out is the number of their home, so that if their phone is stolen, the first call made will be to their home) or 911, so that if they have their phone locked in an accident or something, they can call for emergency without having to remember the password in a pinch.
Personally I think the whole idea of password protecting my cell is ridiculous, but I suppose there are some people in sensitive places that need to have their phones protected against thefts and things. Like Paris Hilton.
Now they won't just steal you cell phone.
They have to cut off your face too!
At least in the US, most cameraphones (including the smart variety) I've seen can't even show you the taken picture one second after snapping the shutter, much less analyze it and try to match it up to a (easily alterable) picture in a database somewhere.
Forget using this for security. Can I use to this to get the phone to remember girls names for me?
Just take a picture and up comes the girls name or it speaks it. Maybe even better if it reminds me where I know her from. Gone is the embarrassment of not remembering her name, leaving me only the embarrassment of trying to make conversation.
The Cleveland Clinic is looking for a patient to try this on.
You'll also need a new cell phone.
Maybe if they didn't load cell phones will all kinds of web-browsing, picture taking, mp3 playing, text messaging, tv playing extra features they'd be so cheap that nobody would care if they were stolen.
I think IR light is too transient to use for recognition. Everytime you're face heats up you wouldn't get into the phone. UV might work better, but wouldn't work with sunglasses very well. I'm wondering why passwords have gone out of style? They only take about a second to enter in.
Does this remind anyone of the scene from the classic Steve Martin comedy "LA Story"? He is trying to call his mother on his voice activated phone, and has to continually say "Mom" louder and louder each time. The phone dials wrong numbers, dials no number, and generally doesn't work. The scene points out how ridiculous it is that we waste time on time-saving features; it would have taken seconds to dial the number.
A time-saving appliance only makes sense if it:
- Works reliably in real-life situations
- Has no learning curve
- Costs no more than the "time" you "get back" from it
Face-recognition camera phones just don't fit these criteria.
The reason why they use the face recognition is because nowadays most cell phones have a camera anyway. It may be somewhat sensitive to IR light (as CCDs are), but most likely the manufacturers are NOT going to add another one...
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