The project,”FaceAccess : A Portable Face Recognition System,” is a portable face recognition system which cost the two students only $28.77 worth of materials to create.

According to Harding and Jubinski:

“We created a standalone face recognition system for access control. Users enroll in the system with the push of a button and can then log in with a different button. Face recognition uses an eigenface method. Initial testing indicates an 88% successful login rate with no false positives.”

“There are currently commercially available systems for face recognition, but they are bulky, expensive, and proprietary. Our goal was to create a portable low-cost system. Our design consists of an Atmel ATmega644 8-bit microcontroller, a C3088 camera module with an OmniVision OV6620 CMOS image sensor, Atmel’s AT45DB321D Serial Dataflash, a Varitronix MDLS16264 LCD module for output, a 9-volt battery, and a small wooden structure for chin support.”

Essentially the system, for those that don’t understand the technical aspects of the above (hand raised), works when FaceAccess is connected to a computer.  The computer learns the pattern-recognition system, after which it can retain the profiles of new users, and delete old users.   As a stand-alone system, FaceAccess can recognize up to 20 enrolled users.

For a more detailed explanation of the system and all that went into developing it, the creators have posted all information on FaceAccess here.

Would you attempt to create your own FaceAccess system or purchase one if made commercially available?  If so, what would you use the device for?

Make

Does this scenario seem familiar?  Your beloved music collection is in your iPod and your computer.  For some reason, your iTunes library is incomplete, corrupted, or empty.  Or maybe you reformatted your hard drive and lost all the data.  Whatever the reason, you want – you need – to transfer your iPod files to your computer.

Now anyone who has tried to do this would know that it is not the simple matter that it is when transferring files from the computer to the iPod.  Due to all sorts of copyright issues, transferring music from the iPod has not been made easy.

That’s where software like CopyTrans comes into the picture.  This nifty piece of software comes from WindSolutions, which was founded in 2004.  The latest version of CopyTrans is perfect for iPod users – all the different kinds – as it is iTunes 9 ready.  The interface is pretty (yeah, that matters to me) and intuitive.  Even technologically-challenged people will not have difficulty using this.

The software offers two modes of operation:

1. Smart Backup
2. Manual Backup.

Smart Backup is perfect for those who do not have much time or patience.  All you need to do is click on a single button and the software will transfer all your files  – songs, videos, etc. – to the computer.  It is also “smart” enough to detect existing files so that no duplicates are made, and only the missing files will be copied.  Manual Backup provides more flexibility for those who know exactly what they want to do and which files they want to manipulate.

How much will this set you back?  A mere $19.99.  There are other products available in the site – go check them out.

Remember the endlessly epic MacPaint? All through my childhood and adolescent Macintosh years, I tried to master its sheer brilliance by creating hideous black and white abstract art with titles like “Square Dancing in a Blender”. Having zero actual illustration talent, I wasn’t able to manage much else, but I was ever in awe of anyone who could actually draw anything more than a stick figure (in a blender).

For me, it was basically the only thing I could actually use on the Macintosh, which I first acquired hand-me-down when I was somewhere in the ballpark of 9 years old. For some years prior to that, my step-brother had been creating MacPaint artwork for me and faxing it to me for special occasions. (Remember the fax machine?) I spent hours I should’ve spent getting fresh air hunkered over my mouse, attempting to draw a straight line.

Nowadays I’ve moved on from Macs but I will always have a healthy appreciation for pixels neatly arranged in what was, as far as software goes, one of the greatest time-wasting tools ever invented. And so it is with great pleasure and fervent hope that you too fondly remember those grand, golden days in digital art that I present to you some pretty damn amazing MacPaint art…painted, of course, by those far more talented than me.

Preface: For those who don’t recall MacPaint, it was a bitmap-based paint program developed by Bill Atkinson of Macintosh’s original dev squad. It hit the streets standard with Macintosh in 1984, and was also available for purchase separately for a mere $195, or approximately $400 in today’s financial climate. MacPaint was so awesome it stayed on the market until 1998 – 10 years after its last version, 2.0, had been released.

Without further delay, the art:

The much vaulted Japanese girl woodcutting as created on MacPaint.

A near pointillist landscape as only MacPaint could present it.

A Macintosh on MacPaint; the nostalgia is almost palpable.

A river runs through MacPaint.

Now if you’ll pardon me, it’s time for me to wipe the tears of longing for defunct-software-for-even-more-defunct-hardware from my eyes.

Well, it’s here. Kinda. Everyone’s favorite program to download illegally, Adobe’s Creative Suite, is coming out in a CS5 flavor soon, and now there’s a teaser site to … tease you. April 12th is the big day, but don’t expect to find CS5 on the shelves come April 13th. Adobe is being pretty coy about how they’re bringing up CS5 on this site.

Counting down to your first look at CS5

Join us online for the exclusive global launch of Adobe Creative Suite 5

Monday, April 12, 2010 at 8am PDT/ 11am EDT / 5pm CEST

So they start by saying it’s a “first look,” implying that it’s not going to be the full release. Then they call it a “launch,” which to me would imply that the product will be on the shelves that day. So what’s the real word?

Well, the rumor mill is saying that CS5 is going to be released in October, and this is just a teaser. Of course, that hasn’t stopped Twitter from going ape over the concept, with designers everywhere working themselves into a pixelated lather.

For me though, it’s not that big of a deal. I used to use Adobe InDesign and to a lesser extent Photoshop every day, but I’m not a designer, so it’s not that big of a deal. I find that most Adobe products crash hard on my MacBook Pro, so I try to use alternatives whenever possible. That doesn’t mean though that I wouldn’t take a free copy should one come my way (hint, hint Adobe).

Photoshop

A new “celebrate” tab on the Photoshop Facebook fan page lets users who love the software that much to change their profile picture to the 20th anniversary logo.

Adobe TV will air a special demonstration of Photoshop 1.0 on a rebuilt Mac.

Photoshop itself evolved out of a pixel imaging program called Display, created by Thomas Knoll in 1987. In 1988, Adobe licensed a version of the software that could manipulate digital images, and in 1990 the first version of Photoshop was born.

Of course, the best thing about having Photoshop is how many disasters it inspired. The more popular a piece of software becomes, the greater the number of unskilled people allowed to make an attempt at “professional” work.

The overall winner was the woZZon search engine application that gives access to a 60,000-strong database of geocoded venues and 90,000 unique events.

When used with Ovi Maps, it makes it easy to find local events, whether they’re huge stadium gigs or small, local shows.

The winning company wins £20,000, a place in the Ovi Store, plus ticket and travel to a Nokia developer event in Spring 2010 and one year’s membership to Forum Nokia Launchpad.

Runner-up apps were Little Spender, which tracks spending behaviour; Live Talkback that offers live audience interactivity tools; Virtual Scorer that uses advanced handset features and state-of-the-art motion detection for a virtual gaming environment; and MoviesNow that offers local film information.

Nokia intends to run similar competitions in other countries, with winners getting their apps in the local Ovi Stores.

It’s a good idea, but it does suggest that Nokia’s store is not nearly as popular as Apple’s app store. I can’t imagine Apple running anything similar, because so many developers are already creating apps for it.

Of course, running such schemes means that you’re more likely to get quality apps, rather than just quantity.

In fact, I paid for an earlier version, lost the registration number somewhere along the line during a hardware upgrade, emailed the company for a new one and received it, lost it again, then downloaded an updated version that required a new purchase anyway…

You get the picture.

I really am planning on paying for the software — it’s not expensive and it’s definitely one of my favourites.

Lemke Software, who makes the Mac-only GraphicConverter, don’t nag for registration, but instead gradually increase the amount of time that the splash screen appears every time you launch the software. It’s no big deal.

In December, though, they decided to get a little festive by displaying this Christmassy splash screen.

The Santa looks a little emaciated (yeah, I know, because people like me aren’t paying for his software).

I’m also not quite sure what the guy in the chair has plugged in to the back of his Mac. Looks like some kind of game controller.

Anyway, it’s quite a cool, seasonal shareware reminder. I might even get the credit card out for it.

I just love having the ability to mix together music and play around with it, but I’ve never invested in turntables which is why I love software-based mixers or the amazing Pacemaker.

Now, from the developers of noise.io, an amazing iPhone-based synth, comes Touch DJ, an amazing piece of software that lets you mix music without the need for headphones.

“How is that possible?” I can hear seasoned DJs muttering incredulously. Touch DJ uses some interesting technology to allow DJs to visualise the bass beat, which is generally what you use to beat match between songs. For those who need the audio feedback, simply plug in a stereo splitter.

Other features include a range of effects, pitch and tempo changing, vinyl spin and break, an onboard sampler, plus 25 dance tracks to practice with.

It’s not cheap ($19.99) but it is getting some good reviews. Check out the promo video below.

Touch DJ on iTunes

According to a recent study (for Microsoft, no less) downloaded software is eight times more carbon efficient than its boxed equivalent.

Some interesting UK-based statistics suggest that if the 16 million units of software sold last year had been downloaded instead, there’d be enough electricity saved to power 12,000 households for a year. Imagine what the stats in the US would be.

Quite apart from any environmental savings, downloading software leads to instant gratification, and we don’t even have to go out to the store or get up to answer the door when the delivery guy calls!

Have credit card, will download — that’s my motto.

Sadly, major software titles tend not to be available as downloads, even though updates are usually available via the Internet, despite the fact that it could save companies a lot of money, as well as getting more contact details at the time of purchase.

DownloadBuyer.com is one site hoping to provide a central repository of legally downloadable software, though there are plenty of other sites offering similar services.

Would you download software packages if they were available, or do you like having the box and DVD as backup?

So anyway, it’s their fifth year, and the guys at Mozilla threw a birthday party at the beginning of this week. The birthday bash was held at the Terra Space in San Francisco. Naturally, Mozilla employees were there, together with their guests and some other people – probably present on an invitation only basis. (Obviously I wasn’t one of those.)

While Mozilla is celebrating five years of the existence of Firefox, the truth is that this web browser can trace its roots to a couple of years earlier than that, when Mozilla itself was founded. That was way back in 1998.

So what are people saying about Mozilla? Naturally, fanatics are singing praises. To balance it out though, let me quote David Coursey, who says:

On its fifth birthday, Firefox must be considered both an incredible success and somewhat of a failure. The open source Web browser is a great product and quite an achievement, but has not tremendously advanced the cause of “free” software. … You might think Firefox would have encouraged a wave of open source development, but from the perspective of a typical business or home user, it has not happened.

He does have a point, doesn’t he? Then again, for many satisfied users, I think that Mozilla Firefox is doing just great.

Photo courtesy of Business Insider

Here are some of the best ideas on where and how to get your geek gear for dirt cheap.

Clearance sales and refurbished sales
Clearance sales – everyone knows that they can yield the best deals ever. Way back when Circuit City was still my premier choice, their clearance sales were a must for me. Today, you can still find all sorts of clearance sales at various stores, both online and offline. Mind you, these sales can give you the power to buy some of the most expensive brands out there.

How about refurbished units? You mean geeks use them? Heck yeah! Refurbished does not necessarily mean bad. Many of these items are actually units which have never been used but have been returned. Naturally, manufacturers cannot sell them for brand new. Guess who can benefit? YOU!

Online stores
Seriously, these are some of the best places to look right now. There are countless stores online from which you can find the lowest prices there are. Just to point you in the right direction, start with these tried and tested sites: Woot, TigerDirect, CostCo, and Alien Ware. You will not regret paying them a visit every so often.

Where do YOU get your best deals for geek gear?

In fairness, there’s a lot of technology behind GeoSynth, which will feed a huge range of geotagged photos into a Virtual Earth and PhotoSynth mashup.

Seems the idea is that if enough people take a picture of a particular location, PhotoSynth can build up a pretty realistic digitised version. Stitch thousands of these together and you have something a bit like Street View, except without Microsoft driving around taking photos itself.

“The system would take the best images from a location to create a single image of a specific landmark,” said a Virtual Earth tech specialist.

Sounds pretty cool if you like the whole concept of street-level views of locations. You’d probably get some locations (cities, famous landmarks) with a huge amount of photo data while others would be fairly limited, but then Google’s only really mapping large cities at the street level.

Being able to run a virtual tour of various landmarks just from photographs and without the need for any tags (apart from the geolocation data) is a great idea as this PhotoSynth video demonstrates.

1) Prevent theft of your laptop
2) Protect your information
3) Recover lost & stolen equipment
4) Protection 24/7 online and off
5) New TALKING help feature!
6) Google map / track feature

While all of those things are very important, I find myself being hooked on a series of images in my head…My laptop gets stolen. I report it. The thief can’t wait to try using it. He goes to the nearest free WiFi hotspot, turns the laptop on, and suddenly, this booming voice (Aslan’s voice in The Chronicles of Narnia) is heard. I haven’t come up with the perfect “You’re a thief, return my laptop” line yet but can you just imagine how hilarious it would be to actually witness something like this happening?

Joking aside, this kind of security measure is something that I think will become more widespread in the very near future. You can actually try out the Retriever for free for 90 days.

I know you’ve had the experience of looking for something for hours and hours and get frustrated that it’s no where to be found. I’ve had that recently when I was trying to look for a business card, a receipt & a few website snippets. Fortunately there’s a software tool that helps you “remember” everything, and easily pull that thing off for use as quickly as you need it. I came across Evernote as I was reading a few blogs today from industry friends.

Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible andsearchable at any time, from anywhere.

Play the video presentation at the Evernote website, if it’s as easy as it looks it may be the best tool for people like me.

If remembering passwords have become more than a chore, a torture for you, well… you may want to think about getting a password manager to help you out. I like my MacBook’s keychain program as it does wonders for me during my memory blackouts. But still, I cannot bring my Macbook with me always. I need something more portable and less bulky.

The Mandylion Password Manager is just that. Try it out at Thinkgeek’s website for about US$50.

• Manages up to 50 login records simultaneously
• Generates cryptographically strong passwords
• Complies with all DoD, Govt. & Industry Password Security Policies
• Multiple tamper-resistant features and lockout alarms
• Manages Root and Group passwords
• Cradle connection via USB
• Kit containing: token, a configuration cradle, Policy Master Configuration Software (Windows only)
• Device and software not Mac compatible (sorry)
• Dimensions: Approx. 2.5″ x 1.5″ x .375″ (65mm x 45mm x 10mm)
• Takes a CR2032 battery (replaceable)
• One-year warranty
• Windows Vista drivers are available for download

The original EeePC also came shipped with Linux (Xandros, in the case of Asus), and that added to the novelty of it. Linux enthusiasts were banking on the popularity of Linux-based netbooks, which could supposedly bring Linux closer to the common user (a.k.a. the 90+ percent of us who use Windows).

A lot of things had happened since then. A ton of other manufacturers have come out with their own netbooks. Most of these other brands ship their units with Linux pre-installed. Acer Aspire one has Linpus lite. The HP mini note had SUSE. Dell has an Ubuntu variant. And so forth. However, how big really is the effect of the netbook on the desktop (meaning non-server) market share of Linux? Has Linux gained a foothold on the mainstream market with the popularity of netbooks?

The netbook market was thought to make Linux an attractive option, given the limited resources and lower price. And because users buy netbooks mostly for light tasks that run on web browsers, it was thought that the choice of OS would not be a big issue. However, recent news says that this may not exactly be the case. According to MSI (as featured on LaptopMag), WIND netbooks preloaded with Linux had been returned four times more than those that came with Windows.

Our internal research has shown that the return of netbooks is higher than regular notebooks, but the main cause of that is Linux. People would love to pay $299 or $399 but they don’t know what they get until they open the box. They start playing around with Linux and start realizing that it’s not what they are used to. They don’t want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks.

LaptopMag went on to interview folks from Canonical (which publishes Ubuntu) and Canonical confirms this.

Well, when we touched base today with Gerry Carr, marketing manager at Canonical (the creator of the Ubuntu operating system) we learned that MSI’s research extends beyond its own products. See his comments below, but it seems Linux’ future on the netbook is bleaker than we thought.

“We don’t know what the XP return rates are. But I will say that the return rate is above normal for netbooks that offer open-source operating systems,” Carr echoed. Carr highlighted a few reasons why Ubuntu-running netbooks are returned more often. “Unclear selling is happening, typically online. The customer will get their netbook sent to their home and they imagine to find something like a Microsoft desktop, but they see a brown Ubuntu version. They are unwilling to learn it and they were expecting to have Windows.”

Has Microsoft gained the upper hand in this game? Windows XP was supposed to have been rendered obsolete last June, but Microsoft changed its mind, and decided to continue selling and supporting XP, but only bundled with low-cost and low-powered PCs, which is essentially the netbook market.

That definition includes a screen that’s less than 10.2 inches, 1GB of RAM or less, a hard drive with 80GB or less, and no touchscreen devices. You’ll also need a 1GHz or slower processor, although Via’s C7-M processors which run up to 1.6GHz are allowed, as will be Intel’s new Atom processor.

As for me, since my 701, I’ve bought two netbooks–the EeePC 900 and an HP mini note, both of which were Windows variants. The 900 came bundled with XP, and the mini note with Vista Business (since downgraded to XP). I do consider myself an advanced user, and I’m very much a multi-platform individual (running OS X, Windows and Linux on my various computers). But on my netbooks, I find it easier to maintain the same OS, and all my work tools run fine on Windows on these netbooks, too.

From what I’ve been reading in forums (such as the Eeeuser forums, which is a really great resource for Eee enthusiasts), some users buy Linux-preloaded netbooks and install Windows XP anyway.

Force of habit, maybe? Or really just out of convenience, perhaps (no Evernote or Nokia PC suite on Linux!)?

What could really help Linux gain a stronger foothold on the consumer market, then?

This problem has happened to me before, and the solution to get the downloads working again (in my case) was very easy – just had to delete one file, the “downloads.rdf” to be more specific, that is suppose to be located in the Profile folder of Firefox.

There might be other solutions to solve the “downloads in Firefox problem” – check this page on the Mozilla Knowledge Base for more information/solutions, such as reseting the download folder.

You can access the recently closed tabs list under the History menu. It gives you the option to re-open tabs you’ve closed while in a particular session. You can also open all recently closed tabs in a new tabbed window. When you close the browser, the list is cleared.

It won’t help if you have unsaved forms filled up when you close a tab, as the Recently Closed Tabs feature won’t bring these back (but FireFox 2′s session recovery feature will, though this only works if FF2 crashes and not when you close it normally). Still, this is a useful feature–a good way to revisit closed tabs, instead of having to dig through your browser history.

[via TUAW]

Everybody who’s experienced the fun of customizing Firefox to his or her liking has a favorite extension. Whether it’s the improved navigation and session-saving friendliness of TabMixPlus or the convenience of All-in-One Sidebar, I can’t imagine living without some of them. It’s empowering to tweak your browser as you see fit, but the price often comes in the form of slower performance and memory hogging. Though Firefox has long been accused of leaking memory, there are simple ways to reduce RAM usage and increase speed. Here are a few extensions and tips designed to lighten your load.

So how do we go about with duplicating a Firefox profile?

First, open up your source (the original one, where you want to copy the profile from) profile in Windows Explorer. Let’s assume you only use one profile on your system, which is automatically named by Firefox as default, and that you use Windows XP. Point Explorer to:

[Windows installation drive]:\Documents and Settings\[Your username]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

You might have to first enable viewing of hidden files and folders and system files at TOOLS – FOLDER OPTIONS – VIEW. Simply uncheck the boxes that say “Hide protected system files …” and select the radio button for “Show hidden files and folders.”

You will see at least one folder inside, with this format:

XXXXXXXX.default

where XXXXXXXX is an eight-character code for your Firefox installation on that particular machine.

This folder contains all your Firefox information, including bookmarks, history, extensions, form auto-fill, passwords, and cache. You can already ZIP/compress and copy this onto a USB flashdrive or any other recordable media, or transfer via the network. Remember that this folder could get very large if you have a large cache of temporary Internet files, so you might want to clear your browser’s cache first.

Then, in the destination computer, make sure you’ve already installed Firefox, and opened it up at least once, so that the application would automatically create a new default profile for you. Then open up Windows Explorer and then browse to:

[Windows installation drive]:\Documents and Settings\[Your username]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

where you will see a folder named

YYYYYYYY.default

where YYYYYYYY is the eight-character code for that firefox installation.

Simply copy or uncompress the folder containing the original profile into this \Profiles folder.

Now copy the YYYYYYYY string onto your clipboard (so you won’t forget), and then rename that folder as you please (i.e., YYYYYYYY.default.backup). Then rename XXXXXXXX.default into YYYYYYYY.default. Make sure Firefox is not running while you do this, or you’ll get file access conflict errors.

Now open up Firefox, and voila! Your original settings have been copied. Do check some of the options, though, as some extension and proxy settings may not have been transferred. But what’s important is that your new Firefox installation looks and feels like your old one. Now you can go and browse away to your favorite, bookmarked sites, not having to re-input all your URLs and passwords again.

Notifications like this appear in the top right of your screen using Growl

1. Find Out When Macs Log onto your Network

Using a combination of the open-source FTP client Cyberduck and Growl you can find out when other computers running Mac OS X log onto your computer. I use this when I’m in public areas, it’s just fun to see when someone is opening or starting up their computer.

Step 1. Download Cyberduck
Step 2. Open Cyberduck, and keep it running.
Step 3. Wait for someone to open their Mac and a Growl notification to appear in the top right corner.

2. Become notified when a new iTunes song Plays

Using GrowlTunes and iTunes, Growl will notify you of when the song changes and what song that it is changing to.

Step 1. Install GrowlTunes from the Growl Disk image (it’s bundled)
Step 2. Open iTunes and listen to music.

I think in the future, more developers will begin building Growl into their applications, or maybe Apple will incorporate a similar feature in Mac OS X: Leopard.

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• Disable the autoupdate feature in switchproxy (Note: This will cause you to lose the update link to pull from)
• Disable check for notification of switchproxy updates.

Also disabling User Agent switcher should improve performance slightly if you have that extension installed.

Here’s something for broadband people that will really speed Firefox up:

1.Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages MUCH faster now!

More Firefox Tips

• Firefox Optimization Tips
• Fix Firefox Slowdowns
• A Beginner’s Guide to Firefox
• Duplicating your Firefox Profile
• Recently Closed Tabs Feature on Firefox 2
• When Downloads stop Working