Govt. launches $1 billion face recognition project

"FACE recognition is 'now'," declared Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in a testimony before the US Senate in July.

It certainly seems that way. As part of an update to the national fingerprint database, the FBI has begun rolling out facial recognition to identify criminals.

It will form part of the bureau's long-awaited, $1 billion Next Generation Identification (NGI) programme, which will also add biometrics such as iris scans, DNA analysis and voice identification to the toolkit. A handful of states began uploading their photos as part of a pilot programme this February and it is expected to be rolled out nationwide by 2014. In addition to scanning mugshots for a match, FBI officials have indicated that they are keen to track a suspect by picking out their face in a crowd.

Another application would be the reverse: images of a person of interest from security cameras or public photos uploaded onto the internet could be compared against a national repository of images held by the FBI. An algorithm would perform an automatic search and return a list of potential hits for an officer to sort through and use as possible leads for an investigation.

Ideally, such technological advancements will allow law enforcement to identify criminals more accurately and lead to quicker arrests. But privacy advocates are worried by the broad scope of the FBI's plans. They are concerned that people with no criminal record who are caught on camera alongside a person of interest could end up in a federal database, or be subject to unwarranted surveillance.

The FBI's Jerome Pender told the Senate in July that the searchable photo database used in the pilot studies only includes mugshots of known criminals. But it's unclear from the NGI's privacy statement whether that will remain the case once the entire system is up and running or if civilian photos might be added, says attorney Jennifer Lynch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The FBI was unable to answer New Scientist's questions before the magazine went to press.

The FBI hasn't shared details of the algorithms it is using, but its technology could be very accurate if applied to photographs taken in controlled situations such as passport photos or police shots.

Tests in 2010 showed that the best algorithms can pick someone out in a pool of 1.6 million mugshots 92 per cent of the time. It's possible to match a mugshot to a photo of a person who isn't looking at the camera too. Algorithms such as one developed by Marios Savvides's lab at Carnegie Mellon can analyse features of a front and side view set of mugshots, create a 3D model of the face, rotate it as much as 70 degrees to match the angle of the face in the photo, and then match the new 2D image with a fairly high degree of accuracy. The most difficult faces to match are those in low light. Merging photos from visible and infrared spectra can sharpen these images, but infrared cameras are still very expensive.

Of course, it is easier to match up posed images and the FBI has already partnered with issuers of state drivers' licences for photo comparison. Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union urges caution: "Once you start plugging this into the FBI database, it becomes tantamount to a national photographic database."

New Scientist

The Signs of Thy Coming & The End of the Age

Earthquakes hit Kuril Islands

On Sunday, two earthquakes hit Kuril Islands in the Russian Far East. The first quake of 5.6 point magnitude on the Richter scale was recorded near the island of Paramushir, says seismological station in the city of Severo-Kurilsk. Glass-ware ringed in cupboards for ten seconds, and ceiling lamps rocked.

The second earthquake with a magnitude of 5.3 points in Richter scale took place in the deep-water Kurilo-Kamchatka trench. The epicenter was located 270 kilometers east of the city of Kurilsk on the island of Iturup.

There was no tsunami warning.

The Voice os Russia

Israel could send Iran back to Stone Age

British newspaper Sunday Times has exposed one of the "surprises" the Israel Defense Forces has in store in case of a military strike in Iran.

According to the Sunday morning report, the Jewish state could cripple the Islamic Republic's power grid with electromagnetic pulses as part of a concerted attack to halt Iran's military nuclear program, which could "send Iran back to the Stone Age."

The report, by Uzi Mahnaimi, claims that the possible use of such a weapon has been raised in several quarters as a debate rages among Israel’s politicians about whether a swift strike should be launched against Iran's nuclear facilities.

Bill Gertz, a veteran American defense specialist, is quoted as saying that US intelligence agencies have reported “growing concerns that Israel will conduct a strike on Iran using a high-altitude nuclear burst aimed at disrupting all electronics in the country."

The technology behind EMP, which is regarded as non-lethal, has been known for decades, the Sunday Times reports.

An electromagnetic pulse is an intense burst of gamma energy that reacts with the Earth’s magnetic field to produce a powerful current. This sets off a shockwave with the potential to “fry” electronic devices and circuits.

Although the potential of EMP was first noted as a side effect of high-altitude nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s, the report says, a pulse can also be produced by non-nuclear means such as a microwave generator.

Such a pulse could knock out the power grid and communications for transport, financial and emergency services.

The newspaper quotes Uzi Rubin, who helped develop Israel’s anti-missile defense shield, as saying that “the use of a nuclear device even for non-lethal use such as EMP is out of the question. There are methods to operate EMP from the ground.”



Ynet

Ahmadinejad to address UN on Yom Kippur

WASHINGTON – A PR duel will be in two and a half weeks during the United Nations General Assembly discussions in New York between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Iranian leader is expected to address the GA on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, while Netanyahu will speak the next day after arriving in the United States.

According to diplomatic sources in New York, the Iranian issue will be at the top of the agenda of the GA's speakers, although there will be no votes during the 10-day assembly.

All Western leaders – including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Holland – are expected to speak. Their presence in New York will pave the way for discussions on the Iranian issue.

US President Barack Obama's address will open the GA on September 25, and the Iranian president's address is expected the next day.

Obama will not wait in New York to meet with Netanyahu, especially in light of his pressingelection campaign. The window of opportunities for a meeting between the American and Israeli leaders will thus open on September 28 in Washington.

In his address, Obama will be expected to demonstrate his leadership skills on the Iranian and Syrian issues, which will be at the focus of Western leaders' discussions.

Ynet

IMF chief Lagarde highlights perils of US fiscal cliff

Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Summit in Vladivostok, Russia, the head of the International Monetary Fund said the US tax increases and spending cuts that come into effect in the new year, were one of the largest risks to the global economy.

She also named the eurozone crisis and medium-term public financing, as the two other greatest risk factors.

Her comments came as jitters grew over China, the global engine of growth, as it said its factories ran last month at their slowest rate for three years. It is the latest sign of a deepening slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy.

Data published yesterday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed that industrial output increased 8.9pc in August from a year earlier. Compared with a 9.2pc gain in July, August’s rise undershot market forecasts for a 9.1pc rise and is the weakest since May 2009.

China’s factory sector has been hit by slowing new orders. Surveys of purchasing managers earlier this month showed heightened concerns about

new business, suggesting that manufacturers will run inventories down further before they can begin to turn production up again.

The data could spur speculation that China will further adjust policies soon to lift an economy mired in its softest period of growth in three years.

China’s economy expanded 7.6pc in the second quarter, the worst performance in three years and the sixth straight quarter of slower growth.

Urban fixed asset investments – a key measure of government spending on infrastructure – rose 20.2pc in the first eight months of 2012, compared with the same period the year before, the statistics bureau also said yesterday.

Retail sales, China’s main gauge of consumer spending, were 13.2pc higher in August year-on-year, slightly better than the 13.1pc increase recorded in July.

Chinese authorities have taken steps this year to boost growth by cutting interest rates twice in quick succession and slashing the amount of funds banks must keep in reserve to boost lending.

But a separate report yesterday showed that inflation accelerated, with consumer prices rising at a faster pace for the first time in five months, increasing to 2pc in August from July’s 30-month low of 1.8pc.

Those figures suggest that room to ease monetary policy to shore up growth may be narrowing. Dong Xian’an, economist with Peking First Advisory, said: “Inflation is coming back quickly. Together with rising home prices, it will limit the scope for further policy relaxation.”

President Hu Jintao reiterated on Saturday that China will work to balance “steady and robust growth, adjusting economic structure and managing inflation expectations.” He pledged to boost domestic demand and ensure “basic price stability”.

The Telegraph

Vietnam hit by new ‘highly-toxic’ bird flu

HANOI: A new highly-toxic strain of the potentially deadly bird flu virus has appeared in Vietnam and is spreading fast, according to state media reports.

The strain appeared to be a mutation of the H5N1 virus which swept through the country’s poultry flocks last year, forcing mass culls of birds in affected areas, according to agriculture officials.

The new virus “is quickly spreading and this is the big concern of the government”, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Diep Kinh Tan said, according to a Thursday report in the VietnamNet online newspaper.

Experts cited in the report said the new virus appeared in July and had spread through Vietnam’s northern and central regions in August.

Outbreaks have been detected in six provinces so far and some 180,000 birds have been culled, the Animal Health department said.

The Central Veterinary Diagnosis Centre said the virus appeared similar to the standard strains of bird flu but was more toxic.The centre will test how much protection existing vaccines for humans offer, the report said.

Some experts suggested that the new strain resulted from widespread smuggling of poultry from China into the northern parts of Vietnam.

According to the World Health Organisation, Vietnam has recorded one of the highest numbers of fatalities from bird flu in southeast Asia, with at least 59 deaths since 2003.

The avian influenza virus has killed more than 330 people around the world, and scientists fear it could mutate into a form readily transmissible between humans, with the potential to cause millions of deaths. — AFP

Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/09/09/vietnam-hit-by-new-highly-toxic-bird-flu/#ixzz264TtWf42