Computers Outperform Humans at Recognizing Faces

seven of five writes "According to the recent Face Recognition Grand Challenge, The match up of face-recognition algorithms showed that machine recognition of human individuals has improved tenfold since 2002 and a hundredfold since 1995. 'Among other advantages, 3-D facial recognition identifies individuals by exploiting distinctive features of a human face's surface--for instance, the curves of the eye sockets, nose, and chin, which are where tissue and bone are most apparent and which don't change over time. Furthermore, Phillips says, "changes in illumination have adversely affected face-recognition performance from still images. But the shape of a face isn't affected by changes in illumination." Hence, 3-D face recognition might even be used in near-dark conditions.'"

it's in the summary FFS

[QuantumG]

"for instance, the curves of the eye sockets, nose, and chin, which are where tissue and bone are most apparent and which don't change over time."

Geez.

Not that impressive

[DynaSoar]

Human face recognition is run by a several hardwired circuits operating in parallel (ie. fast, with little control) with the results put together after by some heuristics -- a good enough guess. What humans need to get from facial recognition, and what their ancestors required and so developed through evolution, is nowhere near the same thing facial recognition software is after. Humans need to recognize quickly that there is a face and what information it's displaying far more than they need to differentiate one from another. Facial recognition software does just the opposite. Also, the software does the complete job every time. Humans only process as much as they need to in any given instance.

If "better" is based on the standards of humans (fastest good enough guess) rather than machines (as correct as possible, complete & in depth), humans win.

Re:Great, now commercialize it..

[QuantumG]

huh? I said commercialize.. that means, "give me something I can buy" not "give me something for free". wtf?

In related news...

[evanbd]

Google seems to be deploying something similar [arstechnica.com]

.

Since you asked, you can have it...

[MedicinalMan]

After LA the incident in May where protesters and cameramen kept running into police batons and shooting themselves with stolen police guns, the LAPD wants the city council to ban masks and goggles [laweekly.com] from public demonstrations. A law somewhere in Europe against masks was recently applied to burkas (no source, but google can backup any claim).

Re:Ageing?

[vux984]

Really depends what you mean by "headscarf". Some would. Some wouldn't.

Searching google images shows the diversity of things called 'headscarf'. The word covers garments ranging from little more than a headband to the complete head covering a women in Taliban controlled afghanistan would wear.

Re:Great, now commercialize it..

[glittalogik]

The Transparent Society [davidbrin.com] by David Brin.

Re:3D face scans?

[Bardsley]

I'm researching 3D Face Reconstruction and Recognition for my PhD (see my website). The structured light scanner I use to acquire my 3D data takes less then 0.2ms for the 2 phase capture of structured light / texture images and then about 30 seconds to produce a high resolution model from the 4 stereo images. This is sufficiently fast to capture a subject even if they are moving during the capture process. Using this technology a subject must be suitably close to the cameras for the reconstruction to work, however, plenty of other techniques (such as model based reconstruction) allow 3D face models to be reconstructed using a single camera located quite a distance from the subject. In short 3D recognition is becoming the norm in the face recognition field as current 2D algorithms begin to reach their limits.