The iris pattern is processed and encoded into an IrisCode, which is stored in a database and used for recognition in any transaction when a live iris is presented for comparison. Eyeglasses and contact lenses are accommodated easily.
of course, this is specific to that company's implementation of iris recognition, but i suspect that it's all in the method. if you can algorithmically process an image of an iris into a representation that matches even after optical distortion, then you're set.
we've got to stick our eye up against some camera, while we have a really bright light shone directly into it so that it can check our iris
that's how a retina scan would be; iris scans just use a regular video image of the front of your eye, so really you're only limited to the quality of the image that a video camera can produce at distance. i think that current systems can recognize you at a distance of a foot or so.
one of the cool things about iris scan technology is that it (can be configured so that it) rejects 'fake' id material like a photograph of an iris, some kind of model of an eye, or even a dead guy's eyeball.
the human pupil naturally oscillates and responds to changes in light level; a particularly secure iris recognition system could make use of this by, for example, providing a variable light source over the course of a few seconds to ensure that the iris is 'live' and not somehow simulated.
this is similar to the capabilities of that desktop face-recognition software that was going around a couple years ago - you could put it in a mode where it asked you to blink or smile or something during the recognition process. a bit less convenient but a bit more secure.
you'd think that people who cared enough about their privacy to want to strong-encrypt their email would just install PGP on their local system and be done with it, rather than trusting a third party to take care of the encryption for them.
i'm sure the java solution performs the encryption locally and never sends anything plaintext to the hushmail server (otherwise what would be the point) but it seems to be more hassle than it's worth.
i'm not saying this isn't useful; i'm just curious as to exactly what demographic they're aiming at. people who are already anal about their privacy will know how to do their own secure email; and people who don't go crazy about privacy and/or don't know how to use PGP will probably just go and use a more straightforward webmail service.
I think he is desperate to find the "next big earth shattering thing" and be renowned the world over as the first to see it, the only one smart enough to find it, the only one brilliant enough to recognize it.
i'd rather not get stuck in the mud of plain unfettered katz-bashing, but you're completely right, and that's the point i was trying to make.
if you say enough obvious things, one day you're going to say something that someone else didn't think was obvious. eureka!
this is similar to the 'shotgun theory of comedy' or, as someone once put it,
if you throw enough shit at a wall, some of it's going to stick.
What are virtual properties are the attributes and tools you use in the virtual world of UO. These are not items which are tangible, or have a physical presence in what we call reality, nor are they a service, such as the UO account or your cell phone airtime. They have a use, a purpose, a raison d'etre, so to speak, much as an ax has a use in cutting wood and a hammer in hitting nails. Its an error in logic to try to lump virtual real estate and tools and assets in with a service such as a gaming account, your ISP, or airtime.
well, i disagree, of course.
i'd argue that the attributes and tools in UO are just part of the service that comes with the account. if i get a free (ie. new) UO account, i can enter the world just like anyone else, but i don't have any gold, potions or buildings - so in effect this is providing me with a worse service than if i'd bought a three-year old account with tons of that stuff attached to it.
i hate to keep coming back to this, but i don't just pay for cellular minutes; i also have optional voice mail and email send/receive service. these are, in your model of the world, 'attributes' or 'tools' that are part of my 'virtual property'. i could use the phone without them (just like i could use UO with a new account) but the service wouldn't be as useful to me. but, of course, they're not an exciting new breed of virtual property.
i just think that you're trying to draw a line where none exists - where do the normal account details stop and the 'attributes and tools' begin? if every account has a username and a quantity of gold, what makes the username part of the 'mere key' but the gold an 'intangible attribute'?
i'm a bit confused by this post, partly because you seem to be agreeing with me for the most part.
They are intrinsically less valuable.
well, okay, that would be a good point... but where are you substantiating it? UO "property" is less valuable because the game's creators don't strictly control the value? i don't understand that.
granted, there isn't really a way to redefine 'minutes' or 'months', but there's nothing (in theory; please don't get technical-specific on my ass) to stop another phone or cable provider from offering a similar package at half the price. then your minutes/months would essentially be worth less, so i don't see how it's any different.
What's the difference between virtual money, which is a mere representation of money, and real money, which is a mere representation itself? There is no difference. The value is attributed and not inherent.
well, thanks, that's precisely my point. we deal with "virtual property" every day (in the sense that we 'own' the quantity of dollars that the bank's computer stores against our name in a database), which makes the angle of the article even less valid.
the only reason that cable TV service isn't traded is because it doesn't have any added value - why buy cable from your neighbor (and give him a profit) when you can get it cheaper from the cable company?
the difference with UO is that accounts accumulate value with [us]age. so there's a market demand, effectively, for used accounts, and they're sold at a price far above that of a brand new account (which are free, really, unless you want to include the price of the game - and you're going to be paying the monthly fee whatever account you use).
so, yeah, you're right, there is a difference, but it's not an intrinsic one. people don't buy post-it notes from each other; they buy them from a store. but if someone had a post-it note with, say, bill gates' - um, nevermind, linus' - signature on it, then someone will want to pay hard cash for it. it's still just a post-it, but it's had value added to it; the same happens with UO characters.
admittedly it's harder to provide added value to a specific cable TV or mobile phone account than it is for a UO account, but it's not part of the issue.
So, you don't think it's interesting that people are willing to shell out big $$$ for property in a computer game?
i do think it's interesting, but i think the spin of jon's article was wrong. he's making a big song and dance about this new era of "virtual property", and that's misleading.
i would have enjoyed the article, rather than been annoyed by it, if he'd stuck with the subject in hand - told about some of the motives of people buying these accounts, talked to some UO gamers about how they thought this was going to affect the balance of power and influence in the game world, etc - but instead he chose the overly familiar path of trying to extrapolate a greater significance and meaning, resulting in a big fluffy article that didn't really tell you anything you wanted to know.
jon does this in every article, presumably in the hope that one day he'll actually hit upon a genuine revelation instead of regurgitating old material. keep an eye out for the inevitable "new era of wearable computing!", "new era of portable computers!", "new era of geek cinema!" etc (oh, hold on...) stories over the coming weeks.
as always, i don't take issue with what jon's saying; this sort of story would be very suitable to go into a print publication or a non-tech-oriented web site. there are billions of people out there who don't even appreciate or recognize the concept of a non-physical product, and they'd get a lot from the article - but, sadly, none of them read slashdot.
i don't have a "hatred of all things katz". jon's written some decent stuff on slashdot in the past (well, nothing that comes immediately to mind, but some of his writing on hotwired was good), but this article was dumb for the reasons i gave. feel free to criticize my reasoning, but don't say that i'm just blindly disagreeing because this article was written by katz. i've got better things to do.
what was bought and sold was a 100% virtual item. Cell phone time and debit card cash all have tangible, real world conversions. A character in a game is 100% virtual. Outside of the realm of a computer and the internet, it simply does not exist and is wholly irrelevant.
you're confused, and you're wrong. how is cell phone time different to a game character? without a cell phone, you can't make use of the time; without a computer and a copy of the game, you can't make use of a UO account. that's why it's a service - it's an enabler for an existing product.
you wouldn't call a plumber if you didn't have any pipes in the house (well, you could, but you'd be a dumbass), you wouldn't buy cellular minutes if you didn't have a phone, and you wouldn't buy a UO character if you didn't have a copy of the game and a computer to play it on.
and, okay, debit card money may have a "tangible real world conversion", but that's not relevant to the issue. cash is essentially just a physical representation of an abstract item, and i could just as easily print out a page with the details of a specific UO character. see, there you go, it's a tangible item. do you see my point?
One issue that I think we've not discussed that I'd like to hear other thoughts on is the implication of players of low level ability suddenly leaping into a game with tons of goodies.
In the past, those who have had the best toys were also those who put in lots of time and, presumably, got to be pretty good players. If espicially skilled players start selling their "virtual property", there could be an overturning of that hierarchy. In short, the skilled players could be playing with low-level characters and weapons while the amatures could be out there with the best available goods.
doesn't this sound familiar to you?
if nothing else, the trading of UO accounts and "property" is only going to make it more like real life. when someone's driving down the street in the $100,000 car with the $10,000 sound system, there's no guarantee that they've worked harder or invested more effort in their life to get those things.
all over the world, in england for example (with their surviving aristocracy), many people are 'born into' money; in america, people get lucky, or win the lottery, or get a huge lawsuit settlement, or otherwise just manage to land a six-figure-salary job involving virtually no work whatsoever. in reality there's very little correlation between amount of wealth / quantity of possessions and personal worth / effort / time invested.
now, whether it's good to inflict that model upon online gaming worlds is a point for debate, but ultimately it's not going to create a situation any more fucked-up than the one we live in now.
much as it pains me every single time i realize it, i'm afraid that i have to report that once again you're picking value out of vapor and getting all excited about something that, as always, isn't exciting or new at all.
i'm tempted to launch into an extensive diatribe, but i've got work to do today. suffice it to say that the "virtual property" that's got you so frantic in the last couple days is nothing more than a sale of service. it's amazing that you're managing to misunderstand this to the extent where you think there's something new.
every month i buy a package of 'minutes' for my mobile phone from my wireless company. these are just numbers in a computer, of course - am i purchasing "virtual property" here? and, if i am, haven't people been doing that for years?
i could subscribe to a paying-members-only web site; i could choose to pay for HBO; i could buy an Ultima Online account or good domain name from ebay. these are all the same thing - i'm buying the right to use a service. just because i'm not getting a physical product in return doesn't make it magic or 'cyber' or anything else you might want to think.
okay, the UO accounts and domain names might have certain 'added value' in terms of the time/effort invested in bringing them to their current status, but that doesn't make it any different. by buying an account or a domain, the purchaser is simply entitled to access to certain kinds of service in return for their cold hard cash - but hey, who pays in *cash* these days, anyway?
ooh! ooh! virtual property paid for with *virtual money*! another monumental technological discovery from jon katz! better write another/. column about this!
is it just me, or is the brain power search just completely broken?
yes, i've got cookies turned on, but it's vomiting a STDERR dump at me when i try the search.
my heart goes out to the poor brain power guy who's having to read all this bitching. but hey - it's one thing to be a startup, and it's another thing to put your new-and-untested system through the/. effect. oh well.
if you think those 'cartoons' suck, i suggest that both you and your roommate just don't bother. go see 'jawbreaker' or something instead. i'm sure you will find it fulfilling.
i saw 'office space' over the weekend, and laughed all the way through. jon's right - it isn't a brilliant movie - but the first three minutes had me laughing more than i've ever laughed at a dilbert cartoon.
there are some great satirical touches, like michael bolton rocking out to hardcore rap one minute and locking his door in fear of a black flower seller the next. and i was so happy to see someone else noticing the office-static-shock syndrome that any outstanding flaws in the movie were instantly forgiven.
oh, and also it was a GEEK MOVIE!!! from that new GEEK MOVIE genre!!! so that was a plus.
i'd like to think i'd never flame anyone for making a genuine effort, and of course slashdot shouldn't be off-limits to those of a non-technical disposition (we're here to spread the word, no?), but it's getting to the point where i just can't help but cringe when i see a new jon katz post. don't you?
come on, jon. there's no need to constantly (and almost deliberately, it seems - i guess there are worse ways to get attention) make yourself into prime flamebait every time you post. in almost every article you make bemused reference to the raging clique-centric 'geeks' who constantly bombard you with criticism and distaste after every posting. and yet each time i read a new one, it seems almost purposefully crafted to elicit irritation to the max among/.ers.
the old routine is getting tiresome. maybe the mainstream media is fascinated with katz-esque articles; maybe the people who buy newspapers and magazines love to read about how the world is being taken over by 'geeks' and how [geeks | oss | linux] is going to be the solution to poverty, world hunger and facial herpes. but this is slashdot, for god's sake, and i can't imagine that anybody here could enjoy reading article after article that basically amount to "there's this [geek | oss | linux] thing out there, guys, and *boy* is it gonna be BIG!"
we know, jon, we know. thanks for the heads-up. can you write about something else now? why not use your (considerable) talents to report back to us about what's happening in the *rest* of the world - which would actually be useful, since many people here have their heads so buried in 'geekdom' that they don't notice the happenings outside of it - instead of trying to tell us about ourselves.
we already know, and we don't need it to be analyzed by you, because you're not in any position to analyze. you definitely belong on slashdot, and slashdot definitely needs the perspective of someone like you; it would just be great if you could put some more effort into finding your proper place.
i thought there wasn't any problem with reverse-engineering as long as you don't have any prior knowledge of the technology that's being reverse-engineered.
Slashdot Mirror
of course, this is specific to that company's implementation of iris recognition, but i suspect that it's all in the method. if you can algorithmically process an image of an iris into a representation that matches even after optical distortion, then you're set.
that's how a retina scan would be; iris scans just use a regular video image of the front of your eye, so really you're only limited to the quality of the image that a video camera can produce at distance. i think that current systems can recognize you at a distance of a foot or so.
the human pupil naturally oscillates and responds to changes in light level; a particularly secure iris recognition system could make use of this by, for example, providing a variable light source over the course of a few seconds to ensure that the iris is 'live' and not somehow simulated.
this is similar to the capabilities of that desktop face-recognition software that was going around a couple years ago - you could put it in a mode where it asked you to blink or smile or something during the recognition process. a bit less convenient but a bit more secure.
http://www.iriscan.com/ has some good information about iris scanning, particularly this page.
i'm sure the java solution performs the encryption locally and never sends anything plaintext to the hushmail server (otherwise what would be the point) but it seems to be more hassle than it's worth.
i'm not saying this isn't useful; i'm just curious as to exactly what demographic they're aiming at. people who are already anal about their privacy will know how to do their own secure email; and people who don't go crazy about privacy and/or don't know how to use PGP will probably just go and use a more straightforward webmail service.
i'd rather not get stuck in the mud of plain unfettered katz-bashing, but you're completely right, and that's the point i was trying to make.
if you say enough obvious things, one day you're going to say something that someone else didn't think was obvious. eureka!
this is similar to the 'shotgun theory of comedy' or, as someone once put it,
well, i disagree, of course.
i'd argue that the attributes and tools in UO are just part of the service that comes with the account. if i get a free (ie. new) UO account, i can enter the world just like anyone else, but i don't have any gold, potions or buildings - so in effect this is providing me with a worse service than if i'd bought a three-year old account with tons of that stuff attached to it.
i hate to keep coming back to this, but i don't just pay for cellular minutes; i also have optional voice mail and email send/receive service. these are, in your model of the world, 'attributes' or 'tools' that are part of my 'virtual property'. i could use the phone without them (just like i could use UO with a new account) but the service wouldn't be as useful to me. but, of course, they're not an exciting new breed of virtual property.
i just think that you're trying to draw a line where none exists - where do the normal account details stop and the 'attributes and tools' begin? if every account has a username and a quantity of gold, what makes the username part of the 'mere key' but the gold an 'intangible attribute'?
well, okay, that would be a good point... but where are you substantiating it? UO "property" is less valuable because the game's creators don't strictly control the value? i don't understand that.
granted, there isn't really a way to redefine 'minutes' or 'months', but there's nothing (in theory; please don't get technical-specific on my ass) to stop another phone or cable provider from offering a similar package at half the price. then your minutes/months would essentially be worth less, so i don't see how it's any different.
well, thanks, that's precisely my point. we deal with "virtual property" every day (in the sense that we 'own' the quantity of dollars that the bank's computer stores against our name in a database), which makes the angle of the article even less valid.
the only reason that cable TV service isn't traded is because it doesn't have any added value - why buy cable from your neighbor (and give him a profit) when you can get it cheaper from the cable company?
the difference with UO is that accounts accumulate value with [us]age. so there's a market demand, effectively, for used accounts, and they're sold at a price far above that of a brand new account (which are free, really, unless you want to include the price of the game - and you're going to be paying the monthly fee whatever account you use).
so, yeah, you're right, there is a difference, but it's not an intrinsic one. people don't buy post-it notes from each other; they buy them from a store. but if someone had a post-it note with, say, bill gates' - um, nevermind, linus' - signature on it, then someone will want to pay hard cash for it. it's still just a post-it, but it's had value added to it; the same happens with UO characters.
admittedly it's harder to provide added value to a specific cable TV or mobile phone account than it is for a UO account, but it's not part of the issue.
i do think it's interesting, but i think the spin of jon's article was wrong. he's making a big song and dance about this new era of "virtual property", and that's misleading.
i would have enjoyed the article, rather than been annoyed by it, if he'd stuck with the subject in hand - told about some of the motives of people buying these accounts, talked to some UO gamers about how they thought this was going to affect the balance of power and influence in the game world, etc - but instead he chose the overly familiar path of trying to extrapolate a greater significance and meaning, resulting in a big fluffy article that didn't really tell you anything you wanted to know.
jon does this in every article, presumably in the hope that one day he'll actually hit upon a genuine revelation instead of regurgitating old material. keep an eye out for the inevitable "new era of wearable computing!", "new era of portable computers!", "new era of geek cinema!" etc (oh, hold on...) stories over the coming weeks.
as always, i don't take issue with what jon's saying; this sort of story would be very suitable to go into a print publication or a non-tech-oriented web site. there are billions of people out there who don't even appreciate or recognize the concept of a non-physical product, and they'd get a lot from the article - but, sadly, none of them read slashdot.
i don't have a "hatred of all things katz". jon's written some decent stuff on slashdot in the past (well, nothing that comes immediately to mind, but some of his writing on hotwired was good), but this article was dumb for the reasons i gave. feel free to criticize my reasoning, but don't say that i'm just blindly disagreeing because this article was written by katz. i've got better things to do.
you're confused, and you're wrong. how is cell phone time different to a game character? without a cell phone, you can't make use of the time; without a computer and a copy of the game, you can't make use of a UO account. that's why it's a service - it's an enabler for an existing product.
you wouldn't call a plumber if you didn't have any pipes in the house (well, you could, but you'd be a dumbass), you wouldn't buy cellular minutes if you didn't have a phone, and you wouldn't buy a UO character if you didn't have a copy of the game and a computer to play it on.
and, okay, debit card money may have a "tangible real world conversion", but that's not relevant to the issue. cash is essentially just a physical representation of an abstract item, and i could just as easily print out a page with the details of a specific UO character. see, there you go, it's a tangible item. do you see my point?
In the past, those who have had the best toys were also those who put in lots of time and, presumably, got to be pretty good players. If espicially skilled players start selling their "virtual property", there could be an overturning of that hierarchy. In short, the skilled players could be playing with low-level characters and weapons while the amatures could be out there with the best available goods.
doesn't this sound familiar to you?
if nothing else, the trading of UO accounts and "property" is only going to make it more like real life. when someone's driving down the street in the $100,000 car with the $10,000 sound system, there's no guarantee that they've worked harder or invested more effort in their life to get those things.
all over the world, in england for example (with their surviving aristocracy), many people are 'born into' money; in america, people get lucky, or win the lottery, or get a huge lawsuit settlement, or otherwise just manage to land a six-figure-salary job involving virtually no work whatsoever. in reality there's very little correlation between amount of wealth / quantity of possessions and personal worth / effort / time invested.
now, whether it's good to inflict that model upon online gaming worlds is a point for debate, but ultimately it's not going to create a situation any more fucked-up than the one we live in now.
much as it pains me every single time i realize it, i'm afraid that i have to report that once again you're picking value out of vapor and getting all excited about something that, as always, isn't exciting or new at all.
i'm tempted to launch into an extensive diatribe, but i've got work to do today. suffice it to say that the "virtual property" that's got you so frantic in the last couple days is nothing more than a sale of service. it's amazing that you're managing to misunderstand this to the extent where you think there's something new.
every month i buy a package of 'minutes' for my mobile phone from my wireless company. these are just numbers in a computer, of course - am i purchasing "virtual property" here? and, if i am, haven't people been doing that for years?
i could subscribe to a paying-members-only web site; i could choose to pay for HBO; i could buy an Ultima Online account or good domain name from ebay. these are all the same thing - i'm buying the right to use a service. just because i'm not getting a physical product in return doesn't make it magic or 'cyber' or anything else you might want to think.
okay, the UO accounts and domain names might have certain 'added value' in terms of the time/effort invested in bringing them to their current status, but that doesn't make it any different. by buying an account or a domain, the purchaser is simply entitled to access to certain kinds of service in return for their cold hard cash - but hey, who pays in *cash* these days, anyway?
ooh! ooh! virtual property paid for with *virtual money*! another monumental technological discovery from jon katz! better write another /. column about this!
please.
-thom
if you don't think speech recognition can be done over the phone, try calling 1-888-573-8255 and FEEL THE POWER.
or something.
isn't this more a 'scanner' than a 'plotter'?
what do i know.
is it just me, or is the brain power search just completely broken?
/. effect. oh well.
yes, i've got cookies turned on, but it's vomiting a STDERR dump at me when i try the search.
my heart goes out to the poor brain power guy who's having to read all this bitching. but hey - it's one thing to be a startup, and it's another thing to put your new-and-untested system through the
oh, yeah. it's one of those new space-age urls that end in a quote character. rfc31337, i believe.
yeah, i remember this from the IIS web site analysis tool. it's cool to see it working as a java applet, though.
i can't believe that it's particularly revolutionary. even before the IIS tool came around, i'm sure i've seen stuff like this before.
if you think those 'cartoons' suck, i suggest that both you and your roommate just don't bother. go see 'jawbreaker' or something instead. i'm sure you will find it fulfilling.
i hear that MANSON is in it!!!
there are some great satirical touches, like michael bolton rocking out to hardcore rap one minute and locking his door in fear of a black flower seller the next. and i was so happy to see someone else noticing the office-static-shock syndrome that any outstanding flaws in the movie were instantly forgiven.
oh, and also it was a GEEK MOVIE!!! from that new GEEK MOVIE genre!!! so that was a plus.
come on, jon. there's no need to constantly (and almost deliberately, it seems - i guess there are worse ways to get attention) make yourself into prime flamebait every time you post. in almost every article you make bemused reference to the raging clique-centric 'geeks' who constantly bombard you with criticism and distaste after every posting. and yet each time i read a new one, it seems almost purposefully crafted to elicit irritation to the max among /.ers.
the old routine is getting tiresome. maybe the mainstream media is fascinated with katz-esque articles; maybe the people who buy newspapers and magazines love to read about how the world is being taken over by 'geeks' and how [geeks | oss | linux] is going to be the solution to poverty, world hunger and facial herpes. but this is slashdot, for god's sake, and i can't imagine that anybody here could enjoy reading article after article that basically amount to "there's this [geek | oss | linux] thing out there, guys, and *boy* is it gonna be BIG!"
we know, jon, we know. thanks for the heads-up. can you write about something else now? why not use your (considerable) talents to report back to us about what's happening in the *rest* of the world - which would actually be useful, since many people here have their heads so buried in 'geekdom' that they don't notice the happenings outside of it - instead of trying to tell us about ourselves.
we already know, and we don't need it to be analyzed by you, because you're not in any position to analyze. you definitely belong on slashdot, and slashdot definitely needs the perspective of someone like you; it would just be great if you could put some more effort into finding your proper place.
isn't *black-box* reverse-engineering legal?
i thought there wasn't any problem with reverse-engineering as long as you don't have any prior knowledge of the technology that's being reverse-engineered.
someone tell me i'm wrong.