Crave

Next time you're faced with the prospect of making a long drive late at night, you'll probably wish you had this new technology from Fujitsu Labs.

Fujitsu's new tech hopes to prevent this.

(Credit: TotalCarCrash.com)

The company is working on a steering wheel sensor system that detects when a driver begins to get drowsy or doze off. The sensors keep track of the driver's heart rate through his or her hands on the wheel while steering. As a person gets closer to falling asleep, the heart rate begins to regulate.

Once the system detects a driver getting ready to fall asleep, several things could happen: the windows could automatically roll down, the car's radio could be turned up, or there could be sensory feedback from the steering wheel to jolt someone awake.

The system isn't a finished product. Right now, it's still in the research and development phase, but the company hopes to have production models for consumer vehicles as well as commercial trucks ready by 2010.

Fujitsu isn't the only company looking to prevent unnecessary asleep-at-the-wheel accidents. Micron has been working on a camera system to monitor and protect drivers. And Delphi has been developing an eye-tracking system that measures the blink rate of a driver, which could indicate when a driver is getting drowsy.

The next time you stop to watch a big-screen advertisement, remember: it may be watching you back.

TruMedia provides retailers with a combination of iCapture video-capture hardware and Proactive Merchandising (PROM) software to build custom age-targeted advertising content to passers-by. How? Face detection. The software analyzes the video stream and--as we're increasingly seeing with consumer cameras and camcorders--can distinguish faces in a crowd.

It's been able to differentiate between adults and kids for a while, but the new development is the ability to identify seniors as well. As they're a distinct and significant marketing demographic, that's a nice capability. But also kind of a mixed blessing for the targetees; much as you probably don't want to be assaulted with Disney ads as you wander the mall, do you really want to be the reason it goes from Disney to Depends?

(Credit: Crave Asia)

We thought we'd seen it all with face, smile, and even blink detection. But Fujifilm surprised us once more (after face detection 2.0) with the "Couple Timer" in its new FinePix Z200fd.

Apparently, this feature is used in conjunction with face detection to gauge how close the two faces are in the frame. Depending on how intimate you are to the other subject, you can change the setting on the point-and-shoot from one heart to three. When the camera sees that the subjects are close enough, it will snap a shot automatically.

Also a new feature is the Group Timer. Once set, the shooter will wait for all the indicated faces (up to four) to be in the shot before it takes a picture.

Although the FinePix Z200fd is a slim shooter at only 19.8 millimeters thick, it also offers 5x optical zoom, a 10-megapixel sensor, and the usual features like image stabilization and automatic red-eye correction.

(Source: Crave Asia)

(Credit: Universal Detection Technology )

What happens in Vegas could be contagious; but don't worry, despite the recent ricin scare on the Strip, your chances of dying from exotic poison or a bio-engineered infection are pretty slim - even at the buffet.

Still, companies are betting their R&D budgets that the government will ante up to protect you from the toxin de jour. Their odds are good. Universal Detection Technology received a rush of orders for its ricin detection kit after a man was found in critical condition in a Las Vegas motel room with a case of suspected ricin poisoning.

"Although no direct links to terrorism has been yet drawn in this recent case in Las Vegas, it is important to note that hazardous materials in the hands of domestic terrorists can be a very serious threat," said UDT CEO Jacques Tizabi. His company stands "positioned to capitalize on opportunities related to Homeland Security."

Not long ago, super staph (AKA Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) replaced "flesh eating bacteria" in the public's imagination as the most gruesome of killer bugs. For that, UDT licensed and commercialized a technology designed to detect microbial buildup in closed-loop environments like the International Space Station. It's now marketed as the Microbial Event Monitor, a kind of smoke detector for airborne bacterias like super staph.

Let's get medieval. Salt Lake City based Idaho Technology (ITI) sells FDA approved kits that detect plague (Yersinia pestis) and Tularemia (rabbit fever). Both are classified by the CDC as Category A, bioterrorism national security risks. Relax, even the company admits it's highly unlikely you'll step in something and contract a naturally occurring dose of either. But ITI scored big when DOD selected its Joint Biological Agent Identification and Diagnostic System (JBAIDS) as "the" platform for I.D.ing pathogens associated with bioterrorism.

Next up ITI will seek FDA approval for a brucellosis detection kit. (It already has anthrax covered.)

Now for the big guns, Ebola and Marburg: Wonks from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have developed virus-like particles (VLPs) that protect monkeys 100 percent against both Ebola and Marburg and they're scaling up production in hopes of beginning clinical trials in humans in a few years, according to Science Daily.

You are more likely to be eaten by a Nile crocodile than bleeding out your eyeballs from Ebola, but why take chances?

(Credit: CDC Public Health Image Library)

(Credit: Check Mate Semen Detection Kit)

High-tech can protect soldiers in the field, but it hasn't been much use against that age-old threat on the home front; and that's Jody, the 4-F opportunist of yore, who's busy bird-doggin' Snuffy's wife while he's 7000 miles away dodging RPGs.

Time was, the cuckold only began to suspect something amiss when he arrived home to find an off brand butt in the car ashtray or a different flavor of beer in the fridge. No more. Here are a few suggestions on how to keep an eye on things while the cat's away.

The USB Key Snoop is an innocuous-looking keylogger device that plugs into any keyboard and stores more than "128,000 keystrokes including e-mail, chat, IM, internet addresses and more". Data is stored inside the device as the keys are typed, according to the company. To check on who's been surfing philanderers.com, simply type-in a password and the Key Snoop shows who's been where. There's no software to install, just plug the Key Snoop into the USB port, then replug the keyboard and it's ready to record.

Here's another approach: A miniature 16 channel, water resistant, covert GPS tracking system to attach to your honey's car. It's motion activated and includes integrated GPS and cellular antennas, plus software for fast downloading and a flash memory to back-up the evidence. "What time did you say you were at the Laundromat?"

Remember, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Take precautions with this cigarette lighter-powered Anti GPS Tracking Device. Just plug it in and it's good-to-go. It knocks out GPS logging or GPS tracking systems that may be operating on your vehicle, making "it very hard for anyone to keep tabs on you", according to the manufacturer. It sells for under $100, but if it's a matter of principal you can build your own GPS jammer, here.

This service here is like having the NSA at your disposal. A Brit outfit called World Tracker reportedly uses cell tower data (or GPS, when available) to track the location of GSM cell phones and displays their location to within 150 feet on a Google Maps-based interface. The service hasn't reached the US yet and but it should work soon around Dependent housing in Germany. Upon activation, the cell phone owner receives a text message and is supposed to authorize the tracking, but there's got to be a way around that.

Finally, for $65 and change, "put an end to suspicions of infidelity and doubt with this Check Mate semen detection kit." It contains everything needed to detect semen on undergarments or clothing, for up to 2 years if "they haven't been washed" even if the stains are invisible. The test only takes five minutes, so they can't get far.

Please consult the post chaplain before deploying these assets.

(Credit: Drinkstuff)

In simpler times remote-controlled toys were just meant to have fun--like slot cars without tracks, in a reference for the geezers among us. Today, however, their uses are often more dubious: When they're not trying to cause a heart attack, they're used for spying or shocking and everything evil in between.

So we were relieved to find that there's at least one RC car with a purpose that's actually useful without being nefarious. The "Metal-Detect -Car" is true to its name, with built-in technology that can identify lost or hidden metallic objects while traversing "rough terrain," according to 7Gadgets. The car even has the approval of the London Science Museum, which would explain why its product description cites its off-road "tyres."

(Credit: Chinavasion)

It's not that we're paranoid or anything, but we're certain that covert surveillance cameras are everywhere in our midst. It doesn't help that we're keenly aware of all the pen cameras, pen camcorders, and even pen DVRs on Crave.

Finally, there's a writing instrument designed to fight back against the secret societies that threaten our privacy. The "Auto Detective Pen" from Chinavasion will supposedly start flashing like crazy if it detects wireless signals within a 10-meter radius that could be used to operate spy cams and other clandestine gadgetry. As Uber-Review says, it might not be wise to entrust a $16 pen from a Chinese wholesaler with the whole of our privacy, but we're running out of tin-foil hats.

MONTEREY, Calif.--Get ready for a new era in which your camera knows not just when you took a picture but who's in it, too.

Many cameras today can detect the faces of those being photographed, which is handy for guiding the camera to set its exposure, focus, and color balance properly. But the more difficult challenge of face recognition is more useful after the photo has been taken.

University of California-San Diego researchers have turned expression-recognition technology into an art exhibit showing the increasingly strained efforts by models to maintain a chipper smile for more than an hour. A buzzer goes off when a waning smile sends a monitor into the red zone.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

That's because of a concept called autotagging, one of a number of technologies that make digital photography qualitatively different from the film photography of the past.

Tags of descriptive data can be attached to digital photos, and they help people find and organize pictures. The only problem is that tagging your photos, today a laborious manual task, is like eating your vegetables. It's good for you but a lot of people don't like it.

With autotagging, the camera attaches tags as the pictures are taken. Today, cameras embed timestamps in photos, which makes it possible to sift through pictures by date. But be honest here--how reliably can you remember exactly when you took that picture of your darling daughter a year or two ago that you'd like to e-mail to her grandparents? Being able to screen for photos only of a particular person could dramatically speed up the search process.

Face recognition requires computational horsepower that is hard to fit into the confines of a digital camera, but one company likely to help make it a reality is Fotonation, which already supplies face-detection software for dozens of camera models from Samsung, Pentax, and others.

The computational challenge is reduced by the fact that most folks tend to photograph the same set of 25 or 30 people, Eric Zarakov, Fotonation's vice president of marketing, said in an interview here at the 6sight digital imaging conference. A camera could be "trained" to recognize just those particular people.

He wouldn't comment on whether Fotonation plans to sell such software to camera makers, but it sure looks likely. "We're looking at a lot of stuff. That would be a natural extension" of today's product lines, Zarakov said.

One camera maker willing to mention its interest in autotagging is Panasonic. "A lot of thought is going into how to tag photos so you can retrieve them at a moment's notice," said Alex Fried, national marketing manager for imaging at Panasonic's Consumer Electronics Co. But he wouldn't go into specifics: "There are things we have in the works that will help benefit consumers going forward."

And faces aren't the only aspect of autotagging that's likely to show up in cameras. Location, too, is another useful attribute that can be attached to photos through a process called geotagging. Geotagging can be used both to look for photos whose location you know and to figure out what exactly is in a photo you already have at hand.

Today, geotagging is generally a laborious manual task that requires geographic data to be merged with photos after the fact using a computer. But more power-efficient approaches will lead to in-camera GPS systems that will enable automatic geotagging, predicted Kanwar Chadha, founder of GPS chip designer SiRF Technology.

"A location stamp is much more important than a time stamp in most cases. A year down the road, you have no idea where those pictures were taken and no way to search for location," Chadha said.

Face recognition is an area of active research and some commercialization. Start-up Riya is working on technology to search through online photo albums to try to identify individuals. Polar Rose is trying to improve recognition by generating 3D models of faces. And 3VR wants to apply face recognition to what's become a highly lucrative market, security.

Software from University of California-San Diego researchers, shown here at the 6sight digital imaging conference, can identify facial expressions. This shot shows the nose-wrinkling detector in action, which Marian Stewart Bartlett believes could be useful for market researchers.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

At the 6sight conference, Marian Stewart Bartlett showed results of her research into not just face detection, but expression detection. Her work at the Machine Perception Lab at the University of California-San Diego lets a computer monitor 30 of the 46 codified components of facial expressions. That includes movements such as raised eyebrows and wrinkled noses.

In the demonstration, software tracked Stewart's face from a video camera and recorded expression parameters. Analyzing the data, the computer can draw conclusions about people. For example, when comparing a video of a man's face as he experienced actual pain from immersing his hand in cold water to another in which he faked the pain, people had about an even chance guessing which showed the authentic pain. The computer, though, had 72 percent accuracy, she said.

That level of sophistication is beyond a camera's abilities today, requiring a full-fledged computer run by people with Ph.D. degrees. But particularly given that Sony already has introduced a camera with smile detection, it's not hard to imagine a day when your photos could also some day be tagged "delighted" or "disgusted," too.

(Credit: Inscentinal)

Another member joins the anti-terrorism team: working bees.

Bees--or rather, bee tongues--are the olfactory key to the new "Vapor Detection Instrumentation" developed by a company called Inscentinel. The "instrument" detects explosives, cancer, drugs and pretty much anything else that stinks, according to the U.K. company.

Inscentinel uses Pavlovian principles to train the bees, the same way it's done with canines. For every successful sniff of contraband, the little guys are rewarded with food. The bees are taped to the "measurement device," and a camera alerts the operator when they stick their little tongues out in hunger.

So don't be alarmed if you see the yellow and black patrolling the airport. And don't bother calling PETA, because the "bees are happy undertaking their sniffing tasks and are comfortable throughout," Inscentinel claims. "After their working shift the bees are returned to their hive where they happily live out the rest of their lives."