Facial Recognition to Help Identify the Famous Faces of Art

 

The secret behind Mona Lisa’s smile may soon be cracked, thanks to facial recognition technology.

Professor Conrad Rudolph, a professor of medieval art history at the University of California at Riverside, has won funding to use advanced facial recognition technology to try to solve the mysteries of some of the world's most famous works of art. Rudolph wants to apply cutting-edge forensic science to thousands of portraits and busts where the identity of the subject has been lost.

Rudolph’s team will use facial recognition software on death masks of known individuals and then compare them to busts and portraits. If the software can find a match where Rudolph and his team know one exists, then it shows the technique works and can be used on unknown subjects to see if it can match them up with known identities.

The identity of the subjects of some of the most famous pictures in the world are unknown, including Girl with a Pearl Earring, a 17th-century portrait. The truth behind several paintings of Shakespeare – such as the Chandos portrait and the Cobbe portrait – has also been much disputed. It is possible facial recognition software could help solve these mysteries.

The Guardian tells us how:

To be identified, the subject of a portrait would need to be matched to the identity of another named person in a separate picture. But Rudolph has some tricks up his sleeve. He believes that another forensic technique – whereby an "ageing" programme is run on a subject – could also help solve art mysteries. In fighting crime the software is usually used to produce "adult" pictures of children who have been missing for many years. But it could see if the Girl with a Pearl Earring had been painted again as a much older woman, whose identity might be known.

Away from the high-profile cases there are a legion of other unknown subjects that might be more easily identified. In many works from before the 19th century wealthy patrons often inserted themselves, their families or friends and business associates into crowd scenes.

Facial recognition technology could be used to identify some of these people from already known works and thus provide insight into personal, political and business relationships of the day. In other cases families in wealthy homes commissioned busts of relatives that were often sold when estates went bankrupt or families declined.

SceneTap Facial Recognition Coming to a Club Near You

Get ready, Bay Area clubbers: SceneTap is heading your way this weekend.

The facial recognition technology is being adopted by clubs and bars across the country to help customers get a sneak peek at the nightlife and crowds on a given night.

SceneTap is already being used in multiple cities: Austin, Texas; Bloomington, Ind.; Gainesville, Fla.; Athens, Ga.; and Madison, Wis. It was originally rolled out in 50 Chicago-area venues in 2011.

As of Friday, the technology will be in 25 bars in the San Francisco area as well.

How does it work? SceneTap uses special cameras places throughout a club or bar to tell users what kind of crowd is there, in real-time. Users download the SceneTap app for free, then can get clued into the demographics of any member bar’s crowd.

Don’t worry: The information isn’t shared with police, and the venue doesn’t even have access to the video footage. Cole Harper, the CEO of Texas-based SceneTap, insists that the technology is not any more intrusive on your privacy than showing the bouncer your ID.

"We've been privacy advocates from day one," Harper told NBC. "SceneTap helps increase foot traffic by matching up people with the scene for them. So if you're with a group looking to grab a drink at a table and have an audible conversation, you can find a place ahead of time that isn't too crowded. On the other hand, if you're looking for a busier atmosphere, SceneTap can help you find that scene, too."

Creepy Wall-mounted Robot Tracks Your Movements

G.I.A. (Gestural Interactive Automation) is your new creepy robot friend. Created by Daniel Jay Bertner, the GIA robot sculpture is anchored to a wall and tracks you around the room, using motion tracking software. It also uses facial recognition technology to interact with you and, worse yet, projects a video image of a human face on a sphere that responds with facial expressions.

When you enter GIA’s room, it tracks your movements and appears to be watching and following you from its perch… ready to strike? The projected facial video changes expression based on gestures or reactions it picks up from the audience.

Check out the video to see GIA in action.

Is Facial Recognition a Danger to Police?

Facial recognition is well-known for identifying the bad guys. But what if the bad guys start using the technology against us?

It's an issue that's especially sensitive for police officers. According to PoliceOne.com, people have taken to snapping pictures of cops, and using facial recognition programs to compile entire databases on police officers' identities. Facial recognition programs can identify images of an individual, and in the wrong hands, that information can be deadly.

Check out the video for more detail. In Australia, bad guys are showing up at police academy graduations to snap photos and add to their databases. And if a cadet or officer has ever posted a photo of herself online, chances are it's been captured and added to such a database--making undercover work impossible.

CV Dazzle Camouflages Users From Computer Vision Technology

Courtesy CV Dazzle

This is awesome. CV Dazzle is a form of “expressive interference” that camouflages people from the prying eyes of computer vision technology. It’s a special way of combining makeup and hair styling—or other modifications—with designs that have been known to thwart facial detection devices.

So far, CV Dazzle can be used wherever automated face recognition systems are used online, like Picasa, Flickr and Facebook. The creators want to provide even more ways to protect our privacy as computer vision becomes increasingly sophisticated. Perhaps that's why we'll start seeing hair and makeup like those above on the street.

Check out the CV-Facebook test video below.