Slashdot Mirror
Real-Time, Detailed Face Tracking On a Nokia N900
ptresadern writes "Researchers at the University of Manchester this week revealed a detailed face tracker that runs in real-time on the Nokia N900 mobile phone. Unlike existing mobile face trackers (video) that give an approximate position and scale of the face, Manchester's embedded Active Appearance Model accurately tracks a number of landmarks on and around the face such as the eyes, nose, mouth and jawline. The extra level of detail that this provides potentially indicates who the user is, where they are looking and how they are feeling. The face tracker was developed as part of a face- and voice-verification system for controlling access to mobile internet applications such as e-mail, social networking and on-line banking."
I love my N900, it's a shame Nokia doesn't. Still waiting for MeeGo, and to get the best out of my device I've OC'ed it slightly, not to mention transition and touch screen sensitivity tweaks which all make the phone much more usable. What I want to know is why can't they get it right the first time? Since they didn't, how hard would it be to adopt similar tweaks directly into the OS so it doesn't feel so sluggish? It had/has so much potential, but I'm afraid for now, we'll never see it. As soon as Apple releases an iPhone with a slide out QWERTY keyboard, I'm in.
The extra level of detail that this provides potentially indicates who the user is, where they are looking and how they are feeling.
Phone: I noticed that you've been watching that blonde over there, and you appear to be sad. Would you like a list of local escort services?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Articles like this make me glad that I bought the n900 because it is the premier development environment for phone based science, unfortunately, the downside is that there aren't very mainstream apps for the n900 (google maps being the most glaring absence).
Those game demos looked a lot like the standard implementation of OpenCV. It's too bad there isn't any security on this technology as merely showing a picture of the person to the camera defeats it.
How well do they work with black people? These have been issues in other face recognition systems.
controlling access to mobile internet applications such as e-mail, social networking and on-line banking.
First one kinda iffy.. second one makes sense.. third one, no way in hell!
It's the old convenience vs. security argument. Personally for things like my money, I'm willing to go the extra mile and enter a password (or some kind of one time code if only my bank offered it).
Can't find any detailed info, but from looking at their demo, I'll guess they are probably using the Viola-Jones method, possibly with a "tree" cascade to detect face angles. The last time I checked, libopencv provided most of the tools to build such as a system, as well as pre-trained detectors for individual face features. Not much invention going on here, but possibly some innovation -- I'd be interested to see more info, if anyone knows where to find it.
The N810 is bulkier and a bit behind in software version. There's no obligation to use the N900 with a carrier. I don't. I use it with WiFi exclusively.
If I want something like an N900, but I don't plan to use it on a cell phone carrier, is the N810 any good?
IMHO, you should still be much better off with an N900. The N810 is already quite old and have a lot of annoying limitations. It got only 128MB of RAM, which is a major limitation. You can easily get out of memory with the N810 if you browse a heavy web site, and multi-tasking is limited as well. In addition, it got a relatively slow CPU, no OS support for GPU accelaration, 2GB internal storage and a limited size of system space for installing apps.
The N900 got 256MB RAM and 1GB virtual memory (with swap space), faster CPU, 32GB internal storage and up to 2GB for applications.
The N810 have a larger screen, which can be an advantage in some cases, but it is also bigger and heavier.
Better go with an N900. You can find used/refurb units for quite cheap prices on ebay.
Where can I find this?
;-)
exras-testing or extras-devel ?
Surely it's not in the Ovi Store?
Course, Nokia is a phone company and that's how they market it.
The N900 is a Linux box, which fits in your pocket, and which can talk to GSM, UMTS, WiFi, Bluetooth, FM transmitter and receiver, infrared transmitter, GPS.. Has an accelerometer, touchscreen, 5MP camera, audio (obviously), and TV out.
Lets put it this way. The N900 is a general purpose mobile computing module with battery backup that can do everything, talk to everything, uses open standards and is easy to use.
You can write bog standard shell/python/java/c/ASM/whatever software for it and distribute them as Debian packages.
Anything you can think of to do with a computer, you can do with the blessing of Nokia and you can do it mobile with full knowledge of location and movement. That is the difference between open and closed.
No offense or anything, but it's a no brainer.
Deleted
If you filled in the extensive questionnaire Nokia sent N900 owners, you were asked to rate the N900 on a scale from "computer with phone functions" to "phone with computer functions". Nokia understands the issue well. I don't think the N900 is anything at all to do with the iPhone/Android world. It is simply a completely different class of machine, and Nokia's low key approach suggests they regard it as a research vehicle. In exchange for supporting their research, you get a piece of equipment targeted at software developers. Yes, it's slower than an iPhone or recent Android devices. It's heavier. It's clunkier. But it's lighter, smaller and more convenient than anything else which I can use to do the same job.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."