Thoughts on several recent technology-related items.
Neo reports on an arrest owing, at least in part, to video technology:
An arrest has been made in the Kelsey Smith case, another almost unspeakably tragic murder in which an attractive young woman was abducted in a mall parking area and the incident was recorded by surveillance cameras.
The facts of the case make it clear that those cameras were vital in fingering the alleged perpetrator. Not only was Ms. Smith’s abduction apparently taped, but the suspect’s arrival at the store and his vehicle were likewise identified by the cameras. It is highly possible that, but for those cameras, this case would have forever gone unsolved. ...
But there’s no way that all cameras could be monitored in real time, just as anyone who really thought about the notorious telescreens in Orwell’s 1984 would have to conclude that, unless half the population were engaged in continually monitoring the other half (and then who would watch the watchers?) it just couldn’t be effectively done—except for its deterrent value, which might be enough.
To counter this problem, some surveillance cameras today are becoming “smarter,” detecting atypical movement patterns and calling attention to them by alerting a human operator (of course, for that to work, there must be at least one human operator around).
The machines are smart, but people—including perpetrators—are smart as well. Humans have found ways to thwart the cameras, but designers of the devices find ways to counter the humans, something like the race between bacteria and advances in antibiotics.
Fortunately, the antibiotics are getting stronger. Here's
The Belmont Club on biometrics:
Government Computer News reports that improved computer face recognition algorithms have reduced the false recognition rate 200 fold [see comments for discussion of this figure - aa] between 2006 and 2002. "In the 2006 test [sponsored by the FBI and Homeland Security] ... the accuracy of face recognition software was documented to exceed that of humans."
The new algorithms exploit the geometric signature of the human face and the ability to read micro-patterns -- swatches of skin display a structure of pores and texture -- rather like a fingerprint. Now you can look forward to a future where cameras can scan your face to the entrance of every stadium, theater, venue and public building that a network can reach.
Here's more from the
GCN article:
That face recognition technologies have improved significantly in recent years was evident in the results of the most recent Face Recognition Vendor Test sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The FRVT acted as a benchmark for the face recognition industry, allowing vendors to come forth and show what they could offer.
The results of the test, released in March, showed improvements in recognition accuracy of an order of magnitude, or 10 times better than in the previous test in 2002. ...
Another watershed in the 2006 test was that the accuracy of face recognition software was documented to exceed that of humans. According to the report, “In an experiment comparing human and algorithm performance, the best-performing face recognition algorithms were more accurate than humans.”
So what accounts for the dramatic improvement in face recognition? First, it’s important to understand the basic technologies involved in face recognition. In the initial step, an image must be captured, either by a still camera or a video camera. Next, the image may be “preprocessed” to adjust for lighting, angle or other elements of the recorded image. Finally, an algorithm is applied to extract features — known as landmarks or nodal points — from the image and compare them to data derived from other images. ...
A common problem with early face recognition technologies was that changes in lighting conditions and viewing angles could dramatically change the appearance of these features and result in different measurements for the same subject.
The better algorithms made some adjustments for such changes, but with limited data from the captured image, only limited adjustments could be made. Accordingly, face recognition systems could only deliver reasonably reliable results under very controlled conditions, where the viewing angles and lighting are controlled. ...
Another promising development has been the introduction of microfeature analysis, which essentially is a detection of patterns in skin texture. This method has only become possible with the introduction of higher-resolution cameras, and it offers an entirely new category of face landmarks.
There's another aspect I'd figure is playing into this, and that's the market. The proliferation of video technology in the hands of consumers is likely to accelerate the process still faster. That is, the fact that digital cameras are now standard equipment in cellphones and personal computers will not,
in and of itself, make FVRT work better; but the fact that the market exists will provide the economic incentive for developers and investors to push ahead with improving this technology. That's what will make the difference between a technology that remains a curiosity in somebody's laboratory somewhere, and one that sees widespread development. For security and law-enforcement entities, that also means there's a motive to acquire FVRT tools - because you never know when that passed out college student who was immortalized on YouTube by his roommate might turn out to be a wanted terrorist.
And then there's the decentralization thing, which brings us back to another Belmont Club post: Where is your computer?
Although the Youtube video basically describes the Microsoft Surface product the issues it highlights have been simmering for a long time. Much of what we regard as our "computing" resources resides in no single physical place. As it becomes possible to network those resources together the sum of them eventually becoming our computing base. At some further point the computing resources associated with an individual will become so inseparably part of him that they will arguably comprise part of the personality. Where is your computer?
