Recognising Faces
Friday, October 02, 2009 Labels: Computers and Society, Photography 5 commentsSoftware That Sends Chill Down The Spine
Recognising faces is such an amazing God-given gift that we fail to realize the complexities of the process. Only when we try to build machines to do this, that we realize the near impossobility of the task.(On the left, is me @ 13 Yrs of age, 1963, a school group photo. Notice the determination in the eyes. I love this boy!)
Picasa, the photo software from Google has added face recognition in its recent version 3.5. I tried it on my 5,000 odd photo collection. Let me give a rewiew of Picasa's face recognition abilities.
I am computer world's senior citizen. I wrote my first computer program in 1969 on a 2nd generation machine which filled a big hall in our college. Since then I have kept pace with various fast paced changes in the technology. During the course of these 40 years, I have put all my music (7,000 songs) and photos (5,000) on the PC. The photos represent a vertable history of my life and my times. Oldest photo is of 1954 - when I was a 4 year old toddler. It has been a herculian task to maintain this treasure, specially due to transfers and changes of computers and software.
I downloaded and upgraded Picasa 3.5. On opening it started the task of recognising the faces in my stock of albums.
It asks you to name the faces it recognises and asks your confirmation wherever it has any doubt.
The accuracy is amazing. It not only recognized 'me' with or without beard - that I keep growing and shaving from time to time, but it could recognize my son's childhood photos and linked these to his adulthood face. A normal person who has not seen my son grow would not be able to do that!
Rather than successes what sent a shiver down my spine was its errors. It confused between my son and faces of myself, his mother and sister. That means that it can discern genetic signatures. DNA tests may become redundant.
I thought that the software appeared to be "God's hand". But such horrorific ideas vanished when it also made silly mistakes like confusing between a female face and a face of a bearded policeman. I felt relieved and granted myself a smile. The software doesn't have "God's hand" but is all too human. Even that is a disturbing achievement!!!
I am computer world's senior citizen. I wrote my first computer program in 1969 on a 2nd generation machine which filled a big hall in our college. Since then I have kept pace with various fast paced changes in the technology. During the course of these 40 years, I have put all my music (7,000 songs) and photos (5,000) on the PC. The photos represent a vertable history of my life and my times. Oldest photo is of 1954 - when I was a 4 year old toddler. It has been a herculian task to maintain this treasure, specially due to transfers and changes of computers and software.
I downloaded and upgraded Picasa 3.5. On opening it started the task of recognising the faces in my stock of albums.
It asks you to name the faces it recognises and asks your confirmation wherever it has any doubt.
The accuracy is amazing. It not only recognized 'me' with or without beard - that I keep growing and shaving from time to time, but it could recognize my son's childhood photos and linked these to his adulthood face. A normal person who has not seen my son grow would not be able to do that!
Rather than successes what sent a shiver down my spine was its errors. It confused between my son and faces of myself, his mother and sister. That means that it can discern genetic signatures. DNA tests may become redundant.
I thought that the software appeared to be "God's hand". But such horrorific ideas vanished when it also made silly mistakes like confusing between a female face and a face of a bearded policeman. I felt relieved and granted myself a smile. The software doesn't have "God's hand" but is all too human. Even that is a disturbing achievement!!!
Girish,
I remember you as a youngster with a smiling face always eager to learn,way back in 1972-73, when I was at Liluah. You very much looked like your 13-year old school picture. Your bearded face is hardly recognizable. Why don't you get rid of the garb that is hiding your cheerful personality?
My best wishes,
Swapan Kumar Sen
:-), Thanks. I will consider your suggestion when I stand before the mirror next time.
looks like you are missing from your blog since 2009. How about a new post?
and could you take this comment approval off. One cn always delete an undesirable rare comment.
Dear Prof Mal, the Spam comments are too many, if these are restricted by approval process. Yes I have not written since 2009. Perhaps, I should take control of my time again. Thanks for visiting.