New Florence. New Renaissance.

NEC NeoFace

"That is precisely the kind of situation the VIP identification technology designed by is supposed to prevent.

The UK-based company already supplies similar software to security services to help identify terrorists and criminals. It works by analyzing footage of people's faces as they walk through a door, taking measurements to create a numerical code known as a "face template," and checking it against a database.

In the retail setting, the database of customers' faces is comprised of celebrities and valued customers, according to London's . If a face is a match, the program sends an alert to staff via computer, iPad or smartphone, providing details like dress size, favorite buys or shopping history.

The software works even when people are wearing sunglasses, hats and scarves. Recent tests have found that facial hair, aging, or changes in weight or hair color do not affect the accuracy of the system."

NPR

The facial recognition is also being used for various passport control, security applications

 

GMO as in Orange

Nice piece in New York Times on the race - and the concerns about gene modifcation - to save the orange from the rapid spread of "citrus greening"

"His quest to save the orange offers a close look at the daunting process of genetically modifying one well-loved organism — on a deadline. In the past several years, out of public view, he has considered DNA donors from all over the tree of life, including two vegetables, a virus and, briefly, a pig. A synthetic gene, manufactured in the laboratory, also emerged as a contender.

Trial trees that withstood the disease in his greenhouse later succumbed in the field. Concerns about public perception and potential delays in regulatory scrutiny put a damper on some promising leads. But intent on his mission, Mr. Kress shrugged off signs that national campaigns against genetically modified food were gaining traction.

Only in recent months has he begun to face the full magnitude of the gap between what science can achieve and what society might accept."

Key Technology Metrics for 2025

In researching technology forecasts for the book project I am working on, I came across this (unclassified) presentation by Dr. Mark Maybury, Chief Scientist of the US Air Force. I particularly like the slide below which summarizes trends in several key metrics of technology's march.

Click twice on graph to enlarge.

 

Spain's High Speed AVE trains

The unfortunate accident at Santiago de Compostela is focusing attention on Spain's high speed rail. The AVE network, with trains which go 300 km/h (186 mph) which allow you to travel between Madrid and Barcelona in less than 3 hours, represents an impressive engineering feat when you consider the spectrum of rail guages, power availability, terrain etc across that country

CNN

"Where the United States, like most of the world, has a standard track width of 4 feet, 8.5 inches, the Spain train was designed to run on both that gauge and on wider tracks that are used in much of Spain and Portugal, Harrod said.

"The wheels on this train actually move, so you can imagine the complexity that adds," he said.

Spain's high-speed AVE trains run on a different voltage than other trains in the country, so this train's electrical system was outfitted to adapt to multiple voltages and signal systems, and because parts of Northwest Spain have no electric wires, the train was designed with a diesel engine so it can run on both electric and nonelectric tracks."

Photo Credit

The Original Genius Bar

If research were measured on a spectrum from the practical (like making a laptop slimmer) to the theoretical (like studying the way matter moves in space), the institute (for Advanced Study in NJ) is as "close to the frontier as possible," says its new director, Dutch mathematical physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf. The atmosphere, free from practical constraints and flush with great minds--33 Nobel laureates have stopped through along with more than two-thirds of the winners of the Fields Medal, math's top honor since 1936--was designed to create the ideal conditions for discovery. And in many cases over the years, it has. In its prolific early history, physicists Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee discovered that nature is not symmetrical, mathematician John von Neumann created the prototype on which future computers were built, and historian and diplomat George Kennan developed the intellectual foundations of realist foreign policy.

Time (sub required)

Sea-Surface Physics

Last summer, NASA’s Global Hawk drones flew over two storms at 60,000 feet and dropped parachute-equipped devices that collected temperature, humidity and wind measurements. Ferek says that when this information was integrated into the model, intensity forecasts improved by about 25 to 40 percent. “Only by flying over with Global Hawks and getting data from 65,000 feet to the surface,” says Ferek, “did we begin to understand these missing physics.”

Txchnologist

Photo Credit - NASA on the drone paths through storms Leslie and Nadine

GPS-less navigation

The geolocation system, designed by Marcus Brubaker and colleagues at the Toyota Technological Institute in Chicago, uses two simple cameras mounted on the car that survey its surroundings as the vehicle drives along. Software uses this camera data to work out when the road curves or is straight and then compares the layout of the route and its intersections to a map of the area from OpenStreetMap, a crowdsourced mapping application.

As the cameras pass by an increasing number of streets, the system eliminates the locations on the map that don't match up until it has worked out exactly where it is. On average, this process is completed after just 20 seconds of driving.

This method may sound too simplistic to work on the exact grids of a metropolis like New York, but according to Brubaker, it can pick up on the small differences in the size of each city block to pinpoint location accurately – even in Manhattan.

New Scientist (sub required)

 

The CIA and Geoengineering

The Central Intelligence Agency is joining with the National Air and Space Administration, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to spend $630,000 studying a subset of potential global warming solutions.

Geoengineering, as a way of halting or delaying climate change, is a kind of mad science. One method involves putting sulfur particles into the air to reflect more sunlight, slowing the heating of Earth in much the same way that a gigantic volcanic eruption once cooled the world. Thing is, sulfur particles in the atmosphere also cause acid rain. Directly altering the climate to counteract another human-caused climate alteration is at the very least hubristic. Studying the implications of such geoengineering attempts is the first step toward actually attempting geoengineering, but it is also an important move if geoengineering is to be done responsibly. And it's a far better move than watching rogue individuals attempt scientifically unsound geoeningeering efforts on their own.

Popular Science

Video Analytics of Wineries

That's where our four-wheeler comes in. As we drive along, a camera takes five high-resolution pictures of the vines every second. Separately, a laser scanner is imaging the plants. Nuske and his colleagues work at night to ensure that the light stays constant in the photos, and will gather about a terabyte of data over the next few hours. Later, a machine vision system they developed will detect individual grapes among the foliage and calculate the number to within 5 per cent of the actual total – far better than a human can do. Placing these grapes on the laser scanner's 3D map of the field will reveal areas that look particularly thin, for instance, or which need pruning.

New Scientist (sub required)

Ball tracking technology

Hope you are enjoying the British Open

Technology like the FlightScope is making players better and certainly viewing much better.

From MAI Sports Technology

"EDH, founded in 1989 in South Africa began by manufacturing Doppler Radar systems for the defence industry, measuring the speed of projectiles. EDH remains prominent in the defence industry today, supplying radar systems to more than 20 countries around the world.

With years of experience in Doppler radar and phased array tracking technology, EDH realized the need and opportunity to provide its technology for applications in various sports. That is how FlightScope® came to be. With additional sports forthcoming, FlightScope® now has applications in cricket ball tracking, to measure bowling speed; in tennis scoring, in the form of a chair-umpire scoring system; and in golf radar tracking, to measure ball and clubhead parameters for every club in a player's bag.

FlightScope® is in use by top golf instructors, club fitters and equipment manufacturers around the globe. Committed to delivering a world-class product with exceptional after-sales support, in 2008 FlightScop® e relocated its headquarters to Orlando, Florida, a key location for much of the golf industry."

Photo Credit