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Face Recognition - Real or Science Fiction?
An anonymous reader writes "Facial recognition software has been touted as one of the technologies that will change our future, particularly in law enforcement. How close are we to being recognized by a computer anywhere we go, as portrayed in movies like Minority Report? According to the industry's recent Public Relations releases, these products are closer than we think.
The reality though, is that current products work only when utilizing a small comparative sample, and any attempts for an individual to disguise themselves typically throw off the results. To see how far this technology needs to go before becoming mainstream, one site utilized Government-tested face recognition software, available freely through MyHeritage.com, to compare hundreds of famous people, animals, and cartoons to a database of 2,000 celebrities. Some of the results showed promise for the technology, but most were just funny — for example, who would mistake Barbara Streisand for Shrek, or Lance Bass of N'Sync for a Teletubby?"
I've tried out the software and it was fun for some laughs. I'm not sure how it works exactly but I can tell that the angle of the face makes a difference. When I put one picture of myself in where I'm looking ever so slightly to the right, I'm matched with celebrities photos looking in that direction. When I put in a similar photo facing the other direction, I get a different set of celebrities looking in the other direction. There's a few overlaps and those are the ones I think I look the most like (although it's a stretch to say I have anything that could pass as a celebrity look).