A researcher has discovered a way to use facial expressions to speed and slow video playback.
By using a combination of facial expression recognition software and automated tutoring technology Jacob Whitehill, a computer science Ph.D. student from UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering, is leading the project that ultimately is part of a larger venture to use automated facial expression recognition to make robots more effective teachers.
The researchers recently conducted a pilot test with 8 people that demonstrated information within the facial expressions people make while watching recorded video lectures can be used to predict a person's preferred viewing speed of the video and how difficult a person perceives the lecture at each moment in time.
"If I am a student dealing with a robot teacher and I am completely puzzled and yet the robot keeps presenting new material, that's not going to be very useful to me. If, instead, the robot stops and says, 'Oh, maybe you're confused,' and I say, 'Yes, thank you for stopping,' that's really good," said Whitehill in a release.
Recent advances in the fields of pattern recognition, computer vision, and machine learning have made automatic facial expression recognition in real-time a viable resource for intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), researchers added. As facial expression recognition technology improves in accuracy, the range of its application will grow. One particular application we are currently developing is a \smart video player" which modulates the video speed in real-time based on the user's facial expression so that the rate of lesson presentation is optimal for the current user, researchers said.
In the pilot study, researcher said the facial movements people made when they perceived the lecture to be difficult varied widely from person to person. Most of the 8 test subjects, however, blinked less frequently during difficult parts of the lecture than during easier portions of the lecture, which is supported by findings in psychology.
One of the next steps for this project is to determine what facial movements one person naturally makes when they are exposed to difficult or easy lecture material. From here, researchers could train a user specific model that predicts when a lecture should be sped up or slowed down based on the spontaneous facial expressions a person makes.
The goal of UC San Diego's Machine Perception Laboratory is to gain insights into how the brain works by developing systems that perceive and interact with humans in real time using natural communication channels. Researchers are also developing algorithms for robots that develop and learn to interact with people on their own. Applications include personal robots, perceptive tutoring systems, and system for clinical assessment, monitoring, and intervention.
CmdrTaco wasn't whining that the source isn't available, but he seemed disappointed the code won't be freely available. He wasn't accusing the author of immoral licensing practices.
And why shouldn't he be disappointed? it'd be fun to play with.
My first thought was "neat... can I play with this code?" and I'm sure my reaction wasn't unique.
WSJ published an online article relevant to/.'s target audience. Why shouldn't it be listed?
I know that her claims have no scientific basis and are downright sexist. But Slashdot is not a science-based news organization, it's a forum for geek culture.
I've seen plenty of highly-modded comments on gender in software development. Not scientific, but again, this is not a forum of science... it's a forum of culture.
I've read plenty of interesting comments. Sorry if you're not entertained... go read something else.
So who is "entitled" to comment on this issue? Most highly-modded comments I've read have been from developers... exactly who this article was talking about.
The OP wasn't saying that the headline was technically incorrect. He was saying that the headline is ambiguous and misleading. Sure, if the prize was something other than a Wii she may not have entered. The point is, a radio station asked listeners to enter a contest that is potentially deadly. The fact that the prize is appealing to many nerds doesn't qualify this as news.
But I didn't reply to correct one small quibble. Your post made me giggle a bit.
I love how you begin your post with an apology, and then inform the OP that he is incorrect. It's almost as if you are giving fair warning for the air-tight logical analysis which is to follow.
Then, throwing would-be critics a nasty curveball, you pre-empt what you *know* to be their rebuttals (such as "But it could have been any prize" and "It could have been anyone"). Your responses are as insightful as they are articulate.
I love your penultimate paragraph, which I can quote in-line (thanks to your clever two-line-paragraph-style). You write "The fact the matter is that the headline is correct. It IS Wii-related. They did not try to make it sound like the Wii was involved in the competition, only that it was related to it. And it is." You *emphatically* point out that the headline is not technically lying! Of course, the OP was saying that the headline is confusing and that this story hardly qualifies for posting on a technology news site, but the way you make your point is so cute!
And in the final paragraph we find a real gem. You see through his exterior and into his soul. He is just a Nintendo fanboy, defending his favorite new toy. Err wait, I mean he's a Wii-hater who can't stand immediate posting of anything a Slashdot editor finds on the net with 'Wii' in it. Yeah, that's right.
Certainly, some developers are not at all pleased with the Microsoft-Novell agreement. Mark is just letting them know they're welcome:P
Anyway, I don't see why this is 'un-Linuxy'. Competition helps OSS thrive, and if you can convince developers to work on your project, why wouldn't you?
For the sake of this argument, we'll assume your account of how this incident started is accurate -- even though he clearly had his books packed up and was reportedly walking towards the door when the police arrived. We'll also treat the first tazing as appropriate, even though it seems it wasn't necessary.
At this point the student is guilty of criminal trespassing, something that can't be waved away if he were to leave now. He has been ordered off the premises and blatantly refused the order.
No he is not. He is entitled to the court system to decide whether or not he is guilty.
You have an unidentified criminal, trespassing on government property, acting violent in the vicinity of young students, resisting arrest, moving in a violent manner. What would you propose, other than using force?
Despite your use of the word 'violence' twice in this description, you cannot honestly tell me that this student was any threat after being tazed. If he was, put handcuffs on him. These officers were clearly using the tazer as a compliance weapon. You know what? Sometimes police work isn't fun. Sometimes police have to be patient and listen to someone saying mean things about them. Tough shit -- do your job properly. Us taxpayers pay their salaries because they do a service to us. When officers break the law because they don't feel they should have to wait or carry someone out of a library, the punishment needs to be harsh. These cops are lazy at best, cowards at worst. Pussies like these have no place in law enforcement.
Let's see... the new version of the operating system used by a large majority of the world has been expected for a long time. The (relatively) scant time remaining should be spent for small changes -- polishing stuff up and finding those hard-to-find bugs. The main elements of the project should be basically implemented, it should be time to ensure a rock-solid product in light of it's competition from the Unix-likes of the world (including, of course, OSX).
And where are we now? IE7 is the same browser it's been for, what, 4 or 5 years now... they just added tabs. Did they even write the code for tabbed browsing themselves or did they send the CrazyBrowser guys a couple dollars for their code? At a time when CEO's and programmers alike should be getting exciting, we have reports of pissed of workers and incidents involving Google-cursing and chair-chucking. And what's the deal with WinFS anyway? We hear that we'll need a gig of RAM to run this thing, but what the heck is it going to be used for?
I can't see how they could release this for, as Balmer puts it, an embarassingly long time. If Balmer is 'revamping of the engineering and the processes' this late in the game, things must be pretty rough. Development seems pretty stale right now and the pressure is on Microsoft -- if this OS isn't as popular as it has historically been people (and distributors) might take a look at Red Hat or Ubuntu.
So yeah... this alleged change comes a liiitle bit late.
Personal information of nearly a hundred thousand former students has no business whatsoever on a laptop.
Who let this happen? Sheesh... you'd think the birthplace of the *BSD's could work out something a little safer than putting others' personal data on a tiny device that screams "steal me! steal me!" OpenSSH is good (w/ X tunneling if needed) and Remote Desktop (preferably tunneled though SSH) will do the job.
Yeah -- but it uses OOP! *cutting edge technology* It sound awesome... orienting objects and whatnot.
But my favorite part is the bit about "test driven development." Of course it's test-driven... that's how programming generally works.
And Zonk... please tell me what the program is before telling me to "Clickey here! Download Now!". I'm not really looking for online photo management software at the moment, thank you.
Ever since the invention of agriculture, humans quit evolving like the rest of the creatures on earth. The question is now is "who reproduces?" instead of "who lives through the night?"
"Survival of the fittest" doesn't apply to humans -- obesity kills a lot of people. You don't have to be fit (in any sense of the word) to survive. Who's reproducing more: smart people or idiots? I'd bet on the idiots (smart people think a little more about the implications of having [another] child). If the average intelligence of the human race is dropping (ever so slighly), how can we call that evolution?
Evolution seems to lead to diversity, and as a race humans are becoming (IMO) less and less diverse. The concept of evolution is intimately tied to diversity -- humans have quit evolving... we're done.
So a little variation here or there is natural... it's all statistics anyway.
I guess any article that mentions evolution makes it on/. these days:/
Don't bother with Cygwin just for AV. Clamwin is pretty sweet. No real-time scanning, but installation and configuration is fairly straight-forward -- and the database is updated several times a day.
The biggest problem it faces may be that it's so plain and easy to use that people have trouble accepting that it's as good as all the colorful commercial offerings they see. I wonder if Intel's gonna keep AVG's viruses.
Use it as a second scanner if you already have another AV program-- Clamwin is not a resource hog.
Oh yeah -- it's frequently used as an email scanner in networks of all sizes... don't worry about it's virus database!
Slashdot Mirror
This story wouldn't have run if the inventor wasn't female.
Nor would it have run if the title wasn't the sensational "Solar Cells - Made In a Pizza Oven."
If you're looking for platitudes, continue reading the summary or read TFA itself. There are plenty.
But the only feminism I see is the extra attention she is receiving. She's not created anything worthwhile.
"Crafty chick" would be a bit disturbing if it was in the New York Times or other reputable news source, but Slashdot? Not so much.
It's actually a really easy case to win. I wouldn't worry about it holding up in any nation's court. All you need to ask is two questions...
1. Do you have a license to use this copyrighted code?
If no, they lose the case. If yes...
2. Did you abide by the terms of your license?
That's it.
A researcher has discovered a way to use facial expressions to speed and slow video playback.
By using a combination of facial expression recognition software and automated tutoring technology Jacob Whitehill, a computer science Ph.D. student from UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering, is leading the project that ultimately is part of a larger venture to use automated facial expression recognition to make robots more effective teachers.
The researchers recently conducted a pilot test with 8 people that demonstrated information within the facial expressions people make while watching recorded video lectures can be used to predict a person's preferred viewing speed of the video and how difficult a person perceives the lecture at each moment in time.
"If I am a student dealing with a robot teacher and I am completely puzzled and yet the robot keeps presenting new material, that's not going to be very useful to me. If, instead, the robot stops and says, 'Oh, maybe you're confused,' and I say, 'Yes, thank you for stopping,' that's really good," said Whitehill in a release.
Recent advances in the fields of pattern recognition, computer vision, and machine learning have made automatic facial expression recognition in real-time a viable resource for intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), researchers added. As facial expression recognition technology improves in accuracy, the range of its application will grow. One particular application we are currently developing is a \smart video player" which modulates the video speed in real-time based on the user's facial expression so that the rate of lesson presentation is optimal for the current user, researchers said.
In the pilot study, researcher said the facial movements people made when they perceived the lecture to be difficult varied widely from person to person. Most of the 8 test subjects, however, blinked less frequently during difficult parts of the lecture than during easier portions of the lecture, which is supported by findings in psychology.
One of the next steps for this project is to determine what facial movements one person naturally makes when they are exposed to difficult or easy lecture material. From here, researchers could train a user specific model that predicts when a lecture should be sped up or slowed down based on the spontaneous facial expressions a person makes.
The goal of UC San Diego's Machine Perception Laboratory is to gain insights into how the brain works by developing systems that perceive and interact with humans in real time using natural communication channels. Researchers are also developing algorithms for robots that develop and learn to interact with people on their own. Applications include personal robots, perceptive tutoring systems, and system for clinical assessment, monitoring, and intervention.
Interested in hypermiling?
CmdrTaco wasn't whining that the source isn't available, but he seemed disappointed the code won't be freely available. He wasn't accusing the author of immoral licensing practices.
And why shouldn't he be disappointed? it'd be fun to play with.
My first thought was "neat... can I play with this code?" and I'm sure my reaction wasn't unique.
WSJ published an online article relevant to /.'s target audience. Why shouldn't it be listed?
I know that her claims have no scientific basis and are downright sexist. But Slashdot is not a science-based news organization, it's a forum for geek culture.
I've seen plenty of highly-modded comments on gender in software development. Not scientific, but again, this is not a forum of science... it's a forum of culture.
I've read plenty of interesting comments. Sorry if you're not entertained... go read something else.
So who is "entitled" to comment on this issue? Most highly-modded comments I've read have been from developers... exactly who this article was talking about.
The OP wasn't saying that the headline was technically incorrect. He was saying that the headline is ambiguous and misleading. Sure, if the prize was something other than a Wii she may not have entered. The point is, a radio station asked listeners to enter a contest that is potentially deadly. The fact that the prize is appealing to many nerds doesn't qualify this as news.
But I didn't reply to correct one small quibble. Your post made me giggle a bit.
I love how you begin your post with an apology, and then inform the OP that he is incorrect. It's almost as if you are giving fair warning for the air-tight logical analysis which is to follow.
Then, throwing would-be critics a nasty curveball, you pre-empt what you *know* to be their rebuttals (such as "But it could have been any prize" and "It could have been anyone"). Your responses are as insightful as they are articulate.
I love your penultimate paragraph, which I can quote in-line (thanks to your clever two-line-paragraph-style). You write "The fact the matter is that the headline is correct. It IS Wii-related. They did not try to make it sound like the Wii was involved in the competition, only that it was related to it. And it is." You *emphatically* point out that the headline is not technically lying! Of course, the OP was saying that the headline is confusing and that this story hardly qualifies for posting on a technology news site, but the way you make your point is so cute!
And in the final paragraph we find a real gem. You see through his exterior and into his soul. He is just a Nintendo fanboy, defending his favorite new toy. Err wait, I mean he's a Wii-hater who can't stand immediate posting of anything a Slashdot editor finds on the net with 'Wii' in it. Yeah, that's right.
Care to elaborate?
No.
Maybe he was insinuating the fact that he (Mark), does not have developers as good as those at Novell.
No.
Frankly, I find Canonical's latest Kubuntu release rather wanting and disappointing.
Ubuntu is the most successful distro. Not by accident either.
Folks at Ubuntu should borrow a leaf from Xandros and Freespire. These distributions actually work as advertised.
You're kidding, right?
Certainly, some developers are not at all pleased with the Microsoft-Novell agreement. Mark is just letting them know they're welcome :P
Anyway, I don't see why this is 'un-Linuxy'. Competition helps OSS thrive, and if you can convince developers to work on your project, why wouldn't you?
Sigh...
For the sake of this argument, we'll assume your account of how this incident started is accurate -- even though he clearly had his books packed up and was reportedly walking towards the door when the police arrived. We'll also treat the first tazing as appropriate, even though it seems it wasn't necessary.
At this point the student is guilty of criminal trespassing, something that can't be waved away if he were to leave now. He has been ordered off the premises and blatantly refused the order.
No he is not. He is entitled to the court system to decide whether or not he is guilty.
You have an unidentified criminal, trespassing on government property, acting violent in the vicinity of young students, resisting arrest, moving in a violent manner. What would you propose, other than using force?
Despite your use of the word 'violence' twice in this description, you cannot honestly tell me that this student was any threat after being tazed. If he was, put handcuffs on him. These officers were clearly using the tazer as a compliance weapon. You know what? Sometimes police work isn't fun. Sometimes police have to be patient and listen to someone saying mean things about them. Tough shit -- do your job properly. Us taxpayers pay their salaries because they do a service to us. When officers break the law because they don't feel they should have to wait or carry someone out of a library, the punishment needs to be harsh. These cops are lazy at best, cowards at worst. Pussies like these have no place in law enforcement.
While it's obvious that an Xbox 360 would have higher energy demands then a Playstation 1
Probably true, but not obvious.
I tried emacs, but couldn't figure out how to exit! Why do they make it so hard?
:wq
And where are we now? IE7 is the same browser it's been for, what, 4 or 5 years now... they just added tabs. Did they even write the code for tabbed browsing themselves or did they send the CrazyBrowser guys a couple dollars for their code? At a time when CEO's and programmers alike should be getting exciting, we have reports of pissed of workers and incidents involving Google-cursing and chair-chucking. And what's the deal with WinFS anyway? We hear that we'll need a gig of RAM to run this thing, but what the heck is it going to be used for?
I can't see how they could release this for, as Balmer puts it, an embarassingly long time. If Balmer is 'revamping of the engineering and the processes' this late in the game, things must be pretty rough. Development seems pretty stale right now and the pressure is on Microsoft -- if this OS isn't as popular as it has historically been people (and distributors) might take a look at Red Hat or Ubuntu.
So yeah... this alleged change comes a liiitle bit late.
Personal information of nearly a hundred thousand former students has no business whatsoever on a laptop.
Who let this happen? Sheesh... you'd think the birthplace of the *BSD's could work out something a little safer than putting others' personal data on a tiny device that screams "steal me! steal me!" OpenSSH is good (w/ X tunneling if needed) and Remote Desktop (preferably tunneled though SSH) will do the job.
Yeah -- but it uses OOP! *cutting edge technology* It sound awesome... orienting objects and whatnot.
But my favorite part is the bit about "test driven development." Of course it's test-driven... that's how programming generally works.
And Zonk... please tell me what the program is before telling me to "Clickey here! Download Now!". I'm not really looking for online photo management software at the moment, thank you.
Ever since the invention of agriculture, humans quit evolving like the rest of the creatures on earth. The question is now is "who reproduces?" instead of "who lives through the night?"
/. these days :/
"Survival of the fittest" doesn't apply to humans -- obesity kills a lot of people. You don't have to be fit (in any sense of the word) to survive. Who's reproducing more: smart people or idiots? I'd bet on the idiots (smart people think a little more about the implications of having [another] child). If the average intelligence of the human race is dropping (ever so slighly), how can we call that evolution?
Evolution seems to lead to diversity, and as a race humans are becoming (IMO) less and less diverse. The concept of evolution is intimately tied to diversity -- humans have quit evolving... we're done.
So a little variation here or there is natural... it's all statistics anyway. I guess any article that mentions evolution makes it on
Don't bother with Cygwin just for AV. Clamwin is pretty sweet. No real-time scanning, but installation and configuration is fairly straight-forward -- and the database is updated several times a day.
The biggest problem it faces may be that it's so plain and easy to use that people have trouble accepting that it's as good as all the colorful commercial offerings they see. I wonder if Intel's gonna keep AVG's viruses.
Use it as a second scanner if you already have another AV program-- Clamwin is not a resource hog.
Oh yeah -- it's frequently used as an email scanner in networks of all sizes... don't worry about it's virus database!