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Breakthrough In Face Recognition Software

Posted by Soulskill on from the anonymity-takes-another-hit dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Face recognition software underwent a revolution in 2001 with the creation of the Viola-Jones algorithm. Now, the field looks set to dramatically improve once again: computer scientists from Stanford and Yahoo Labs have published a new, simple approach that can find faces turned at an angle and those that are partially blocked by something else. The researchers "capitalize on the advances made in recent years on a type of machine learning known as a deep convolutional neural network. The idea is to train a many-layered neural network using a vast database of annotated examples, in this case pictures of faces from many angles. To that end, Farfade and co created a database of 200,000 images that included faces at various angles and orientations and a further 20 million images without faces. They then trained their neural net in batches of 128 images over 50,000 iterations. ... What's more, their algorithm is significantly better at spotting faces when upside down, something other approaches haven't perfected."

6 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Upside Down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "What's more, their algorithm is significantly better at spotting faces when upside down, something other approaches haven't perfected."

    Add this step: Rotate the image and run the algorithm each x degrees. What am I missing?

    1. Re:Upside Down? by kekx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Performance.

  2. This is supposed to be a good thing? by Snotnose · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For every "terrorist" they track through the mall, how many ordinary Joes like me who like their privacy are also tracked and stored in huge databases for all time?

    1. Re:This is supposed to be a good thing? by RoknrolZombie · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All of them.

    2. Re:This is supposed to be a good thing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think it's pretty well understood that there *are* terrorists...

      Yes.

      ... and a lot of them ...

      By almost every measure: No.

      ...and they're walking among us.

      For virtually every useful North American or Western European definition of 'us': No.

    3. Re:This is supposed to be a good thing? by Jack+Griffin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think it's pretty well understood that there *are* terrorists and a lot of them and they're walking among us.

      I disagree with this statement. If there were even a handful of real terrorists amongst us, there'd be blood in the streets. Seriously, if you really are hell bent on murdering infidels, it's not hard to drive a bus into a pack of school children, or carry a tin of petrol and a lighter into your nearest train station. That's the nature of terrorism, it is so trivial to execute that the threat is equally trivial to measure. See the history of the IRA for real world examples.