recognition

KeyLemon logs you in to your computer by using your face. More than just a glorified Webcam tool, it regularly checks to make sure that it really is you using the computer. The latest version of the app also comes with a neat Firefox plug-in called LemonFox, for added protection when logging into Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Once installed, the program's Wizard will walk you through creating a profile of your face, and link it to your computer's log-in. From there, KeyLemon defaults to checking the Webcam every 10 seconds, although you can always bypass it with your … Read more

Image identification company PicScout is expanding its efforts to help people identify the rights holders of images they find online.

On Tuesday the company is set to add microstock site Dreamstime's more than 7 million images to its Image Exchange catalog. What this means is that users who have the company's Image Exchange Firefox add-on installed will be able to identify when one of those images (or the other 40 million or so that are in the catalog) winds up on Web sites and in places like Google's image search.

The add-on, which was introduced in October … Read more

After a trial release in July, Face.com on Wednesday launched Photo Tagger to the public. Photo Tagger is a free third-party application for Facebook that uses facial recognition technology to automatically tag photos of people.

Facebook users can use Photo Tagger to automatically tag their photos, it uses facial recognition software to tag all of the photos in an album. After selecting an album photo Tagger scans the photos, then batches them into groups by subject and suggests tags for them. When tags are confirmed, they are pushed live to Facebook, within the users privacy settings.

Photo Tagger also … Read more

Last week's Picasa software update from Google brought with it a neat trick--facial recognition. But it wasn't the first free consumer photo-editing software to find faces. In January, Apple unveiled the latest version of iLife, which included an updated version of iPhoto that could detect and recognize faces in your photos. And this time last year, Microsoft released an updated version of its Windows Live Photo Gallery desktop software that could find faces inside of photos, though it couldn't (and still can't) recognize who's in them.

So, how do these three stack up? To figure that out, we put them to the test. Using 500 sample photos on fresh installs of each program, we tracked around how long each of the tools took to process all the photos, as well as some notable hits and misses from each.

To be fair, our results may not scale, or match the experience you will have. For one, we're using a test bed of photos that's almost entirely 12-megapixel JPEG files, whereas some people may be shooting smaller or larger files that may be in different formats and contain large groups of people--something that can slow these programs down. You're also likely to have a whole lot more than 500 photos sitting around on your computer; we certainly do.

Note: Adobe's PhotoShop Elements software (for Windows | Mac), which also includes a facial recognition feature was not included in this roundup since it's a paid application. Technically iPhoto is as well, but we included it since it comes free on all Macs.

iPhoto

iPhoto is the only product of the bunch that's Mac-only. It comes bundled with all new Macs, but the latest version (which includes face detection) must be purchased as a software upgrade if you've got iPhoto '08 or lower. We've included it in this roundup as a free product since it comes bundled with all new Macs.

Face scanning in iPhoto happens automatically, but it's largely a manual process, requiring users to "train" the system to recognize certain faces. The program took around nine minutes to scan through our 500 test photos and when it was done it didn't offer up any suggestions of photos with faces in them.

Instead, users are required to click on a photo with a face in it and hope the program picked it up. If it has, users can simply type the name in--which will auto complete if the person is in your Mac address book. If someone's face was not found, but you can see it in the photo, you can manually contain the face inside of a box, then tag it with their name.

After you add names to just few photos, iPhoto's system begins to piece together others that look the same--although it doesn't learn as fast as it does for photos where it already found the faces. In my testing, it only took two photos to get it to offer up some more suggestions. If those suggestions are correct, continuing to add them was just a matter of a few clicks.

iPhoto's system for doing this isn't perfect though.… Read more

Line up the freeware photo manager/editor combos and you'll quickly realize that Google's Picasa stands out in its class. The latest version, Picasa 3.5 (Windows | Mac), is no exception, offering one huge new feature and a few little ones, to offer you more choices for organizing and sharing photos from your desktop.

Facial recognition is the big news here, and Google's team has handily translated the face-tagging feature that it had implemented in the online version, Picasa Web Albums, to the desktop app. You can even download tags you used online into Picasa 3.5.… Read more

Roughly a year after rolling out facial recognition on its Picasa Web Albums site, Google on Tuesday is introducing an updated version of its Picasa software (for Windows | Mac) that can recognize faces in photos stored on users' computers.

Just as it does on the Web, Picasa scans your photos for faces, then groups together photos of specific people. It's then your job to tell it who they are as well as confirm its guesses. If someone you're tagging is in your Google address book, you can also look them up very quickly with auto-complete. Otherwise, Google gives you the option to add them as someone new; this information then gets synced back up your Google address book.

The system worked very well for me, but it was slow going. I had to leave the program running overnight for it to finish processing my 3,700 or so photos for faces. It also had my processor humming, since it was doing all the work on my machine instead of Google's giant server farm.

That's not to say Google hasn't included a few things to help speed up the process. For one, if you've got photos that are both hosted online and on your hard drive--and that have already been scanned for faces, the Picasa software can grab that information and add it to your local library. This saves it from having to scan the same photos twice.

And for photos it thinks contain people you've verified as contacts, it gives you quick "yes" and "no" buttons that can add or reject name tags. Oftentimes, clicking "yes" adds a few more suggestions for photos of that person that the program feels is safe enough to recommend. There's also a way to group accept or group decline its suggestions, which saves time you would have otherwise spent clicking the buttons one at a time.… Read more

Edited 1.20pmPST to include quotes from Indiana BMV's Deputy Communications Director

Sometimes he was Eric Nicholson. Sometimes he was Vernon Eugene Lyons.

However, according to authorities in Indiana, his real name was George Helms and he assumed at least 10 different names in that state alone.

According to CBS2 Chicago, Helms walked into the Hobart, Ind., license branch to obtain an 11th ID. No one seems really sure why he would want an 11th license.

What Helms appears not to have known is that Indiana has invested in new facial recognition software.

Helms allegedly had all the correct … Read more

Remember the gender recognition system we saw at the Singapore-based CommunicAsia trade show last month? Well, those zany Japanese have a more creative way of implementing a somewhat similar face recognition software.

Putting a new spin on the phrase "service with a smile," employees of Keihin Electric Express Railway will need to check their smiles in every morning. The software will determine the quality of their smile, and display visual alerts if they don't look happy enough.

According to an article in the Mainichi Daily News, the software assigns smile values to various parts of the face. … Read more