[LINK] Computer Crimes...

[Tim Lister]

On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 11:48, Chirgwin, Richard wrote:
> Urban myth development >as it happens< ... just how far have we got with
> facial recognition systems? 
> 
> RC

bugger all, and not likely anytime soon.  image recognition is one of
the "hard, unsolved & possibly unsolvable" problems of computer
graphics.

so anytime you start hearing claims that rely on image recognition, take
them with an extremely large pinch of salt.

of course, trivial tasks are often quoted, like recognising
number-plates on cars - i mean, you're looking for a rectangle of a
certain size at a particular height, and it only has letters and numbers
to read, so it ain't difficult.

but this is a long way from the sexy tasks that politicians, hollywood
and media hype love to rabbit on about.

facial recognition?  incoming missile detection?  troop movements?

don't make me laugh - NONE of these are even remotely successful, and
many of us don't believe they ever will be. (if your maths is up to
snuff, check out "NP completeness")

if you really want to detect people, use the oldest, most reliable
system ever devised - people!  people are good at image recognition,
especially with training, but this is not popular because it is
expensive, they have bad days, and it's not sexy enuff for the
politicians who want nasty, expensive, unreliable people replaced with
shiny, cheap, slave machines to do the job.

regards,

Tim Lister
South Sydney Greens
(02)9557 4050
webmaster at ssg.nsw.greens.org.au
http://ssg.nsw.greens.org.au
"Think Globally, Act Locally"