Face-On


I produce a website by way of pitching the idea to potential VCs.

(That's venture capitalists, incidentally, and not vicars.)

Because I think pictures make better menu-picks than numbers.

Have yet to ask these people's permission... but then I've eaten lots of his burgers over the years!

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Indian Takeaway

The Digi Yatra facial ID system is being rolled out at Indian airports and though it does not eliminate a boarding pass as reported by the Financial Times, it does eliminate the need to corroborate identities at the gate prior boarding. Users are required to upload a selfie, yet in one survey 30% of them did so without knowing what they were signing up for... which critics suggest is the means by which they could be tracked everywhere and anywhere by the government. My takeaway from this is that to implement a system that involves recognising other people whom you might know ideally involves uploads of the same kind to assemble a bespoke database. Whether it will happen in my lifetime, or indeed at all, is debatable. Unless.
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Digital Commoner

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Am not one to obsess over stats, but feedback from the Digital Commons is of special interest to one graduate of geography like myself, as it makes for a snapshot of a kind that prior the internet would barely have been possible. Looking then at a variety of papers and bearing in mind some have had a head start, it is interesting to note that pictures are still worth a thousand words. Of the half-dozen airframes I may have circulated by which means we might be elevated by super-sized drones, the one appearing here has proven by far the most popular... and the only one downloaded by commercial helicopter (and bizarrely, access platform) manufacturers. The runner-up meanwhile is a paper describing how people we might recognise might also be used as a means of secure access to computer systems. Yes, we all recognise Ronald McDonald, but would I recognise your grandmother? The spread around the world reflects our common cultures too. For instance in the US two downloads in San Fran and...
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AI or Ay Ay?

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Without the assistance of AI or good old-fashioned Google Lens, can you tell the two apart? Well they are in fact the same Yin Qi who heads up nascent facial ID company MEGVII: https://global.faceid.com/technology/face-recognition-liveness ... except that the portrait on the left is from Tatler magazine and that on the right the South China Morning Post. No prizes for guessing which features on the company website, however, and a relief knowing the guy is at least thirty-six and not fresh out of high-school. Good though that interest in identity theft (and faces) spans the globe.
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