Facebook’s working on facial verification that’s ‘nearing human-level performance’
Identifying faces is a relatively simple task if you’re a human, but it’s been a long road for computers to do the same thing. Now Facebook says it’s developed a technology for verifying whether two people in side-by-side photos are the same that comes pretty close to replicating human abilities. That project is called DeepFace, and according to Facebook it’s 97.25 percent accurate, which is just shy the 97.5 percent humans have scored in the same standardized test. In order to pull off that feat, the technology maps out 3D facial features, then makes a flat model that’s filtered by color to characterize specific facial elements. Facebook also says it’s tapped into a pool of 4.4 million labeled faces from 4,030 different people on its network in order to help the system learn.
The research project isn’t immediately ending up on Facebook. Instead, the MIT Technology Review reports that Facebook’s released it ahead of presenting it at the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition this June, all in order to get feedback from the research community.
Facebook introduced facial recognition — that is, the actual capability to figure out who a person is in a photo — in late-2010. The feature was initially available only to US users before the company made it worldwide in 2011, drawing scrutiny in Germany and Ireland where privacy authorities claimed Facebook hadn’t given users warning or required consent. The feature also got its fair share of scrutiny from the US, including the ire of Senator Al Franken, who in 2012 grilled the company for not clearly warning users about it. [via TheVerge]
President Obama walks with Pope Francis. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP)
Obama also invited Francis to visit the U.S. next year.
Obama also invited Francis to visit the U.S. next year.
The meeting was widely expected to be a cordial occasion, but it was also thought that Francis could bring up some more prickly issues, such as the mandate that the Affordable Care Act cover sterilization, contraception, and abortion, and the growing trend in the U.S. to legalize gay marriages — all areas the church frowns upon.
"I bring greetings from my family," the president said to the Pope as the meeting got underway. "The last time I came here to meet your predecessor I was able to bring my wife and children."
Obama presented Francis with a custom-made seed chest featuring a variety of fruit and vegetable seeds used in the White House's garden. "These I think are carrots," he said, holding a pouch. "Each one has a different seed in it. The box is made from timber from the first cathedral to open in the United States in Baltimore."
The pope gave the president an encyclical. "I actually will probably read this in the Oval Office when I'm deeply frustrated. I'm sure it will give me strength and calm me down," the president said smiling.
In Italy, Obama's visit — which will also include talks with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and President Giorgio Napolitano — has been a topic of conversation all week. Italians say they have hopes that Obama's short stop in Italy will lead to positive changes in the country and beyond.
President Obama speaks with Pope Francis during a private audience on March 27 at the Vatican. (Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)
"The whole world is suffering, and when you have two great leaders meet to discuss the world's economic problems, you have to have hope it will make a difference," said Salvatore Mucci, a 44-year-old coffee bar worker.
Sandro Conti, 56, a commercial painter, said he hoped Thursday's summit would draw increased attention to the issues both men champion.
"If these leaders can't make people understand how much average people are suffering then it will be a sad day," he said.
Obama has repeatedly expressed admiration for Francis in the little more than a year since he was elected pontiff. Francis has said he is eager to meet Obama as well. And diplomats on both sides have said expectations are that Thursday's encounter will focus on shared priorities between the two leaders rather than on where they differ.
President Obama, left, meets with Pope Francis, during an exchange of gifts at the Vatican. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP)
Malaysian officials say satellites searching for debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 have spotted 122 possible objects in the Indian Ocean. (March 26) Video provided by APNewslook
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet is believed to be solely responsible for the flight being taken hundreds of miles off course and there is no evidence of a mechanical failure or hijacking by a passenger, according to an law enforcement official involved in the investigation.
A high-ranking officer attached to a special investigative branch of the Malaysia police force in Kuala Lumpur told USA TODAY on Wednesday that investigators are pressing relatives of the pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, for information on his behavior leading up to the March 8 flight.
The official could not speak on the record because he is not authorized to talk publicly on the investigation.
The Boeing 777 was bound for Beijing when it vanished from civilian radar. Malaysia says satellite data indicate the plane veered west about an hour after takeoff and then flew south deep into the southern Indian Ocean.
The lack of places to land there and the amount of fuel needed to get there indicate the flight must have ended there and that there is no realistic hope the 239 people on board survived, according to Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein.
A French satellite scanning the Indian Ocean for remnants of a missing jetliner found a possible plane debris field containing 122 objects, he said, calling it "the most credible lead that we have."
The search resumed Wednesday after fierce winds and high waves forced crews to take a break Tuesday. A total of 12 planes and five ships from the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand were participating in the search.
The investigator, who has been on the case since the beginning, told USA TODAY police believe the pilot "deliberately" redirected the plane. He said of those on board the flight, only the captain possessed the experience and expertise to fly the plane.
The official said investigators have found no connection between Zaharie, 53, and any militant groups, and the 27-year-old co-pilot on the flight did not have the experience to manage such a diversion, they believe.
Zaharie was a firm supporter of the opposition party to the current ruling regime and his flight left the day that the party's leader, Anwar Ibrahim, was sentenced to five years in prison on sex crimes his supporters say are fraudulent. Zaharie was in the courtroom when the verdict was announced.
The official said there was nothing amiss in Zaharie's finances to suggest he did something drastic for money. And he refuted reports in British media that Zaharie received a phone call moments before the flight was to depart from a woman who used a false name to obtain a cellphone SIM card to make the call.
He said as far as investigators knew, he did not receive a phone call to his cellphone at that time.
The path of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean, Prime Minister Najib Razak said at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur.
PEARCE AIR FORCE BASE, Australia — Malaysia’s prime minister said Monday that further analysis of satellite data confirmed that the missing Malaysian airliner went down in the southern Indian Ocean. The announcement narrowed the search area but left many questions unanswered about why it flew to such a remote part of the world.
Experts had previously held out the possibility that the jet could have flown north instead, toward Central Asia, but the new data showed that it could have gone only south, said the prime minister, Najib Razak.
Mr. Najib appeared eager to bring closure to the families of the passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, two-thirds of whom are Chinese. The families have grown increasingly angry about the lack of clear information about the plane’s fate. The Boeing 777, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members onboard, was headed from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when it disappeared on March 8.
The aircraft’s last known position, according to the analysis, “is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites,” Mr. Najib said. “It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.”
The new analysis of the flight path, the prime minister said, came from Inmarsat, the British company that provided the satellite data, and from Britain’s air safety agency. The company had “used a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort,” he said.
Shortly before the prime minister spoke at 10 p.m. local time, Malaysia Airlines officials informed relatives of the missing passengers and crew gathered at a hotel near Kuala Lumpur, and sent text messages to those elsewhere.
The hunt for the missing plane has focused on the southern Indian Ocean area in recent days, and an Australian naval vessel searched there on Monday after a military surveillance aircraft spotted what was described as possible debris from the missing jetliner.
Mr. Najibsaid the Malaysian authorities would hold a news conference on Tuesday to give further details about the satellite data analysis and other developments in the search.
After a number of false sightings over more than two weeks of search efforts, Australian officials were cautious about what the crew members of a Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion aircraft spotted as they combed the search area Monday.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament that the crew reported seeing two objects, “a gray or green circular object” and “an orange rectangular object,” in the ocean about 1,550 miles southwest of Perth, in western Australia.
“We don’t know whether any of these objects are from MH370,” Mr. Abbott said. The objects in the water “could be flotsam,” he said.
Even so, he tenuous lead was treated in Australia as a significant development.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said that a naval survey ship, the Success, was on the scene and that the entire crew was looking for the objects. Andrew Thomas, a journalist with the Al Jazeera television news network who was aboard the Orion aircraft, said that the crew spotted four confirmed objects, that flares were dropped and that the Success was nearby.
Later on Monday, Australian authorities said all search aircraft had finished their missions for the day without making any further sightings.
The objects spotted by the Australian plane were different from the possible debris reportedly seen during the first search flights by two Chinese Air Force Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft on Monday.
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