Amaete Umanah - Chronicles of Tech Geek » Facebook

Facial Recognition on Facebook (Video)

Amaete Umanah — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:56:10 +0000

The Coke Zero Facial Profiler scans uploaded pictures with facial recognition software to find someone who looks like you, but isn’t. While it doesn’t do much besides play facial matchmaker, the application is being toted by CPB as an experiment in social networking, and I have to admit that it’s a great way to waste some time. Still, is it curiosity or just narcissism if you want to meet someone who looks like yourself? Check out the commercial for the Facial Profiler after the break and decide for yourself.

Typical facial recognition (FR) software uses key indicators on your face (nose width, eye spacing, etc) to create a dynamic profile of your features. The Coke version likely runs on the same sort of algorithms that protect Heathrow airport, and are becoming more common insecurity check points around the world. It says something about the advancement of this technology that it is now available as an advertising gimmick on Facebook. As trivial as the application may be, even this version of FR has a limited learning ability to better help it pair one face to another. Eventually higher resolution cameras and better artificial intelligence may allow FR to replace many uses of identification cards . In the next decade FR may synchronize with multimedia digital mobile interfaces to provide us with augmented reality information about the people we meet. The real world could become a physical version of Facebook.

Singularity Hub

Solar-Powered Bibles Heading to Haiti

Amaete Umanah — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:17:26 +0000

As international aid agencies rush food, water and medicine to Haiti’s earthquake victims, a U.S. faith-based group is sending Bibles to Haitians in their hour of need.

Not any Bible. These are solar-powered audible Bibles that can broadcast the holy scriptures in Haitian Creole to 300 people at a time.

Called the “Proclaimer,” the audio Bible delivers “digital quality” and is designed for “poor and illiterate people,” the Faith Comes By Hearing group said. It added 600 of the devices were already on their way to Haiti.

The Albuquerque-based organisation said it was responding to the Haitian crisis by “providing faith, hope and love through God’s Word in audio.”

With tens of thousands of Port-au-Prince residents living outdoors because their homes have collapsed or they fear aftershocks from Tuesday’s quake, the audio Bible can bring them “hope and comfort that comes from knowing God has not forgotten them through this tragedy,” the group said on its website.

How does the Proclaimer work?

An installed microchip contains Scriptures in the heart language; the chip will not erase or wear out from frequent playing.
The battery will play for 15 hours and can be recharged enough times to play the entire New Testament more than 1,000 times.
The Proclaimer has a built-in generator and solar panel to charge the battery.
The solar panel, in addition to charging the battery, will run the Proclaimer even without battery power as long as there is sunlight.
The sound is digital quality and loud enough to be heard clearly by groups as large as 300.

The Proclaimer was developed primarily as a playback device for poor and illiterate people who may not have any other source to hear God’s Word. Our goal is to use the Proclaimer in the majority of our FCBH programs worldwide.

Yahoo via Faith Comes by Hearing

Facebook’s 2010 Revenue Estimated at $710 Million

Amaete Umanah — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:46:47 +0000

Facebook recently passed 350 million usersworldwide, but the lingering question about the social network (and social media in general) is if it’s making any money. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the answer seems to be that at the least, revenue, if not profits, at social networking sites is starting to take off.

Using data from NYPPEX, the WSJ reports that Facebook’s estimated to generate $710 million in revenue next year. That would represent more than a 40 percent improvement from this year, where the social network is rumored to be bringing in about $500 million in revenue.

Elsewhere, NYPPEX estimates that LinkedIn will generate more than $200 million in revenue in 2010. The firm also says that four years from now, Facebook could be doing $1.9 billion sales, LinkedIn could be at better than $300 million and Twitter could be at $283 million (how exactly, they’re not sure either).

Of course, all of that is based on the social networking sites mentioned continuing to grow strongly both in terms of users and sales. That’s been anything but a given in the short history of social media, where we’ve seen sites rise and fall quickly. Nonetheless, the report does seem to support other research that indicates money is flowing into social media marketing at an increasing rate.

Source: Mashable