Facebook adds face detection for photos, only 1% of users have it so far

downloadsquad.com
by Jay Hathaway (RSS feed) Jul 2nd 2010 at 2:30PM

Facebook is testing out a new face detection feature in its photo app, according to AllFacebook.com. This is the first big change to Photos since Facebook bought up Divvyshot a couple of months ago. Face detection recognizes faces in photos, and gives you a prompt to tell FB whose faces they are. This reduces the amount of clicking required to go through and tag that huge album from last night’s party. Of course, this feature won’t help you identify the strangers who appear in those photos … that would be a bit creepy.

It doesn’t sound like this is full-on facial recognition and auto-tagging … yet. That seems like the obvious next step for Facebook, though. If they go that route, they’ll already have the ability to pick a face out of a photo, and then plenty of user data about who the faces belong to. Geez, it’s hard enough to untag my ugly mug in photos as it is!

If you don’t see face detection on your photos yet, don’t worry. Only 1% of users have it so far, according to Facebook.

Israeli team says it has developed software to spot depressed bloggers

Inventors say program could enable mental health workers to identify individuals in need of treatment and recommend they seek help.

(HAARETZ)   Israeli researchers have developed software that claims to identify depressed bloggers by analyzing their writing.

The program scours blogs for words and phrases, descriptions and metaphors that can indicate the writer’s psychological state.

The software’s initial test run, which was part of a research study headed by Professor Yair Neuman of Ben-Gurion University’s department of education, combed more than 1,000 blog posts written by American bloggers that were online in 2004.

As part of the research, the software was asked to determine what it perceived as the 100 “most depressed” bloggers and the 100 “least depressed.”

Neuman told Haaretz that the software diagnoses largely matched those of four clinical psychologists who made their own diagnoses based on the blog posts.

“We found an 80 percent match between the automatic identification mechanism of the software and the human diagnosis given by the psychologists,” Neuman said.

“A psychologist knows how to spot various emotional states through intuition,” he said. “Here we have a program that does this methodologically through the innovative use of ‘web intelligence.’”

Neuman said the software could enable mental health workers to identify individuals in need of treatment and to recommend that they seek help.

“What does all of this mean from a practical standpoint?” he asked. “First of all, it shows that the technology is here and available and that it could be put to use.”

“In the United States there is a wide-ranging problem with depression,” said Neuman. “Through this software it will be possible to contact a blogger and request a general examination of the contents of his blog. If the blogger agrees, he will know whether he needs to seek professional counseling for any possible distress.”

Neuman said the researchers had received permission to analyze the blog posts.

The research and development for the software was funded by the Defense Ministry, yet Ben-Gurion University officials said yesterday the project would not be used for military purposes.

The program is capable of spotting words that express various emotions, like the names of colors that the writer employs to metaphorically describe certain situations. Hence words like “black,” if combined with other terms that describe such symptoms of depression as sleep deprivation and loneliness will be recognized by the software as “depressive” texts.

The software can also spot love and vengefulness (or at least thinks it can ).

Men who write prose laden with imagery from nature as well as words like “fire” or “lightning” could be determined by the program to be in love, as could women citing poetry or words related to music.

“The software does not rely on a single context-dependent word, but on a series of words strung together, terms and images chosen by the writer,” said Neuman.

…

Neuman cautioned against utilizing the technology for corporate purposes.

“I will not be pleased if this is put to negative use, like advertising for a certain product,” he said. “But I am all for using it as a means to spot cases of emotional distress.”

New Transistor Bridges Human-Machine Gap

By Stephanie Pappas, TechNewsDaily Contributor
livescience.com – 19 May 2010 02:22 pm ET

Humans and machines could be one step closer to merging thanks to a new transistor controlled by the molecule that powers biological cells.

The nano-sized device could be used in medical devices or prosthetics wired directly into the human body.

“Our devices make a bridge between the biological world and the electronic world,” said Aleksandr Noy, who developed the transistor along with colleagues at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in California. “In effect, we made a biological protein talk directly with a nanoelectronic circuit.”

Transistors are electronic components that can modulate or switch current on and off in a circuit. To make one that would respond to a biological molecule, Noy and his team borrowed from living cells.

First, they built the backbone of the transistor out of a carbon nanotube between two electrodes. Next, they insulated the electrodes and covered the nanotube with a mixture of fatty molecules called lipids and proteins. The covering formed a lipid “bilayer” — a double lipid membrane — much like those that make up the outer membranes of biological cells.

The researchers then poured a solution of sodium ions, potassium ions and adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, over the transistor while running a voltage through it. In cells, ATP is the primary source of energy. It fulfilled the same role in the transistor, powering the proteins embedded in the lipid bilayer.

These proteins began working, transferring sodium and potassium ions across the bilayer. The charges from the ions created an electrical field around the transistor, which then changed the ability of the transistor to conduct electricity by as much as 35 percent. The higher the concentration of ATP, the more the conductivity changed.

Getting a biological molecule to control the electric current in a transistor is a first step toward computers that would interface directly with the brain, Noy told TechNewsDaily.

That could include “futuristic” devices that would translate thought directly to typed words, he said, but could also have a more immediate application in the field of prosthetics.

To develop machines controlled by the mind, “we will need to have a way for our [brain cells] to talk to the electronic systems,” Noy said. “I think what we demonstrated is a first step towards that distant goal.”

must … delete …. facebook profile [udpated]

Facebook came after my time, and I learned better before getting entirely sucked into that. Ok scratch that.  I had a change of heart recently on this issue. I created a facebook app just for qbit.cc.  I don’t like using it for personal stuff but it can be useful for networking.

Friendster and Myspace were scary enough but Facebook’s ever-changing privacy agreement and DARPA/CIA connections have taken social data mining to a new level.  It would hardly be a surprise if every last bit of private data in all all our social network profiles were being integrated into Main Core.

When pondering the privacy implications of social networking, I envision a scenario where an Orwellian pre-crime system has determined that you are at risk of committing a crime, or some non-crime that you have “committed” in the past (blogging) retroactively becomes a crime, and the government uses private info from your social network sites to hunt you down.

I’m having a “Turn on, tune in, drop out” hippie moment.  For those of you saying “I’ve got nothing to hide, thus no reason to worry about having my private info on social networks.”  I wish I could tell you a story about being caught up in some drama, thru no fault of my own, and having my Myspace profile analyzed by a cop posing as a reporter.  But I’m no longer naiive enough to post private things in public places.

I’ve got nothing to hide… therefore the government has got no f’ing business accessing my private information.

Related:
Report: Facebook caught sharing secret data with advertisers (Ars Technica)

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Wikipedia)

Information Processing in Human Body

	Based on final project for MIT Class MAS 862 (1998) by Vadim Gerasimov Corrected and updated in 2000-2006.
	http://vadim.oversigma.com/MAS862/Project.html
Human Body Total number of cells 6*1013 Genetic code 6*109 base pairs or 1.5GByte (only 3% or 45 MBytes of that is active) Summated length of chromosome DNA chains in all cells 1.2*1014m (4.6 light days) Chromosome copy operations (prenatal + 1st year) >40 TBytes/s or 1,000,000 Ultra Wide SCSIs Power consumption (adult) 90-100 Watts (2,000 kilocalories/day) 1.6 pW/cell We can think about the human body as a self-organized collective of clones of a single fertilized egg cell. Each cell of the human body is an elaborate bio-chemical computer. It has its own power management and information processing structures. It communicates with its neighbors and the environment. Each cell is an individual organism. Under certain conditions it may live outside of the collective. Most cells have a complete copy of the genetic information and theoretically are capable of recreating the whole human body. The magnitude of information processing activity inside the human body is amazing. The cell reproduction processes require terabytes of chromosome DNA information to be copied every second within the body. Besides, the protein formation and other functions in cells can be several orders of magnitude more information-intensive. Power consumption of a single cell corresponds to about 107 chemical reactions per second. Human Brain Number of neurons (adult)* 20,000,000,000 – 50,000,000,000 Number of neurons in cerebral cortex (adult)* about 20,000,000,000 (some sources have incorrect number 8,000,000) Number of synapses (adult) 1014 (2,000-5,000 per neuron) Weight Birth 0.3 kg, 1 y/o 1 kg, puberty 1.3 kg, adult 1.5 kg Power consumption (adult) 20-40 Watts (0.5-4 nW/neuron) Percentage of body 2% weight, 0.04-0.07% cells, 20-44% power consumption Genetic code influence 1 bit per 10,000-1,000,000 synapses Atrophy/death of neurons 50,000 per day (between ages 20 and 75) Sleep requirement (adult) average 7.5 hours/day or 31% Normal operating temperature 37±2°C Maximum firing frequency of neuron 250-2,000 Hz (0.5-4 ms intervals) Signal propagation speed inside axon 90 m/s sheathed, <0.1 m/s unsheathed Processing of complex stimuli 0.5s or 100-1,000  firings *The main source of these numbers is the article [1] by Pakkenberg & Gundersen. The authors estimate that an average human brain has 21.5 billion neocortical neurons with a 95% tolerance limit of + or -38%. They have a more precise estimate with sex, age, neocortical surface and volume taken into account. According to other sources there are more neocortical neurons than other neurons in the human brain. That gives us a very rough top estimate of 40-50 billion. Unfortunately, I could not find a more accurate and believable estimate of the total number of neurons. 100 billion is a nice round number used in most sources… The brain consists of interconnected neurons which exchange signals with each other and with the rest of the body cells. There are at least three different signaling mechanisms. Two of the mechanisms are based on ion-flow (electronic) pulses sent along axons. Those signals can either be received directly as ion current arriving to a receiving neuron’s dendrite or through a more complicated neurotransmitter mechanism. Some neurons can also produce or receive special chemical tags transported though the blood flow. The total information processing activity of the brain is hard to estimate because the current knowledge in this area is fragmentary. However, it is possible to get a general picture of the electronic pulse exchange activity within a couple of orders of magnitude. The activity of the brain is equivalent to that of 1000 kHz processor with 40 Gbits of states. The corresponding processing power (channel capacity) is C=4*1013 bit/s. The minimum necessary power to perform the computations is P=C k T log e, where k is Boltzmann constant and T is the temperature (310 K). So P=1.2*10-7 W. If we assume that brain only needs the energy to perform the computations, the efficiency is about 10-8 of the physical limit. The neurons require several orders of magnitude more power than the other cells. Therefore, we can assume that most of the power goes to the information processing activity. 0.4-4 nW corresponds to roughly 1010 chemical reactions per second or to at least 107 chemical reactions per firing. Fig.1 Human cortical neuron An electronic equivalent of the cortical neuron would have 2,500+ pins. The dendrite inputs are connected to axon inputs of other neurons. All pins must be able to change their length and move around. The behavior of the neuron itself is more complicated than sending an axon pulse after receiving signal at a dendrite. Intel Pentium 4 1.5GHz Number of transistors 4.2*107 Power consumption up to 55 Watts Weight 0.1 kg cartridge w/o fans, 0.3 kg with fan/heatsink Maximum firing frequency 1.5 GHz Normal operating temperature 15-85°C Sleep requirement 0 (if not overheated/overclocked) Processing of complex stimuli if can be done, takes a long time The power consumption of the Pentium 4 may exceed that of the human brain. That explains why Pentium cooling systems are getting close in size to the human head. The number of transistors in 500 Pentiums is roughly the same as the number of neurons in cerebral cortex. The firing frequency is 1,000,000 times higher in the Pentium. Transistors are less sophisticated than neurons. For example, transistors cannot move and change connections. References Neocortical neuron number in humans: Effect of sex and age / B. Pakkenberg, H. Gundersen 1997 An introduction to genetic analysis. / Anthony Griffiths [et al.] 1993 Molecular evolutionary genetics. / Masatoshi Nei 1987 Role of excessive genetic information in evolution. / Vadim Gerasimov 1995 Wisconsin’s Biotechnology and Food Handbook / Tom Zinnen and Jane Voichick Human Molecular Genetics / Weber, W. and Wong, C. 1993 Molecular Evolution: Computer Analysis of Protein and Nucleic Acid Sequences. / R. F. Doolittle 1990 Controlling Computers with Neural Signals/ Hugh S. Lusted and R. Benjamin Knapp, Scientific American October 1996 Signal entropy and the thermodynamics of computation / Neil Gershenfeld 1996 Encyclopedia Britannica – www.eb.com Various WWW sources… Generalized electromechanical modeling of bioenergetic systems. / S.V.Gandilyan [et al.] 1997 Efficiency function of human and monkey brain applicable to robotic pattern recognition. / Z. Shen, J. Hua 1997 Orchestrated reduction of quantum coherence in brain microtubules: a model for consciousness. / S. Hameroff, R. Penrose 1997 Intelligent machines. / Hans P. Moravec 1977 The mind and the brain. / Jeffrey M. Schwartz 2002 Neuroscience: exploring the brain. / Mark F Bear, Barry Connors, and Michael Paradiso 2006

Boston Dynamics Wins Darpa Contract To Develop LS3 Robot Mule (It’s a Bigger BigDog)

spectrum.ieee.org

This robot mule will be able to navigate rough terrain, carrying 180 kilograms of soldier gear — no driver required

Arm yourselves now [updated]

The machines are just about ready for their true mission…

Hundreds of different types of robots are already deployed in active combat in the middle east. There are armed airborne drones, some with wheels and treads, even 4 legged models:

The one thing they’re lacking though is an agile, bipedal model that is effective against urban guerilla fighters- not just against personnel and vehicles in open spaces, but against populations in door-to-door sweeps of buildings; against a guerilla “insurgency” in an urban setting.

Once this technolgy goes into mass production, it will be deployed not only against Arab nations, but against all of us. The elite plans for their New World Order utopia do not include the sprawling masses of useless eaters. The lower classes of humans are obsolete and the elite have no intention of sharing their life-extension technology that is right around the corner.

This is why agencies like DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) have blank-check budgets to develop autonomous killing machines.

Take heed, fleshies. They will be here soon.  I urge you to procure survival supplies and armaments immediately.

Workers have daily smile scans

Telegraph
By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo
Published: 1:23PM BST 06 Jul 2009

More than 500 staff at Keihin Electric Express Railway are expected to be subjected to daily face scans by “smile police” bosses.

The “smile scan” software, developed by the Japanese company Omron, produces a sweeping analysis of a smile based on facial characteristics, from lip curves and eye movements to wrinkles.

After scanning a face, the device produces a rating between zero to 100 depending on the estimated value of the fulfilled potential of a person’s biggest smile.

For those with a below-par grin, one of an array of smile-boosting messages will op up on the computer screen ranging from “you still look too serious” to “lift up your mouth corners”, according to the Mainichi Daily News.

A growing number of service industries are reportedly using the new Omron Smile Scan system for “smile training” among its staff.

Workers at Keihin Electric Express Railway will receive a print out of their daily smile which they will be expected to keep with then throughout the day to inspire them to smile at all times, the report added.