Facial recognition systems have indeed advanced over the years, improving in both accuracy and efficiency. Facial recognition systems, like the ones made by Los Angeles startup TrueFace, are used to speed security checks over at the base entrances at the US Air Force. But because of the world changing drastically in only a few months’ time, not only are we heavily affected by this sudden change, but our systems as well.

… CEO Shaun Moore says he’s facing a new question: How good is TrueFace’s technology when people are wearing face masks?

“It’s something we don’t know yet because it’s not been deployed in that environment,” Moore says. His engineers are testing their technology on masked faces and are hurriedly gathering images of masked faces to tune their machine-learning algorithms for pandemic times.

In other words, some facial recognition systems are struggling to cope with the current times. Others, however, like those in Russia and China (because of their lighter privacy rules), as well as Japan (because they have a flu season, a time when people wear face masks), cope a bit better.

So how well are our facial recognition systems in scanning faces with face masks? Good, but far from perfect.

Check out Ars Technica for more details about this subject.

(Image Credit: teguhjatipras/ Pixabay)

With the Pentagon releasing some videos which contain “unidentified aerial phenomena”, the Japanese government is now preparing to deal with unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, in case they encounter one.

The Japanese Defense Ministry says its pilots have never encountered an unidentified flying object, The Japan Times reports, but authorities want to be prepared should it happen in the future. And while the new protocols are geared toward identifying military drones, they could also serve as guidance for first contact with hypothetical aliens.

More details about this over at Futurism.

What are your thoughts about this one?

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From 1995 to 2003, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft spent its time exploring Jupiter’s system. In these years, the aforementioned spacecraft was able to make 11 flybys over one of Jupiter’s icy moons: Europa.

On the 26th of September 1998, the spacecraft was able to take highly-detailed photos of Europa’s surface — photos that scientists now revisit as they prepare for future missions, such as the Europa Clipper, which is targeted to launch in 2023 or 2025.

"We've only seen a very small part of Europa's surface at this resolution," Cynthia Phillips, a planetary geologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and Europa project staff scientist working on future missions, said in a statement. "Europa Clipper will increase that immensely."

More details about this story over at Space.com.

(Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute)

You’ve probably heard of lots of people who got laid off from their jobs because there’s a new machine in town that could do more things than they could. This has been a sad trend throughout the years, as old as the Industrial Revolution, or perhaps older. And because robots are now slowly becoming an essential element in some services, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear more stories about people getting fired.

In many parts of the U.S., robots have been replacing workers over the last few decades. But to what extent, really? Some technologists have forecast that automation will lead to a future without work, while other observers have been more skeptical about such scenarios.

Now a study co-authored by an MIT professor puts firm numbers on the trend, finding a very real impact—although one that falls well short of a robot takeover. The study also finds that in the U.S., the impact of robots varies widely by industry and region, and may play a notable role in exacerbating income inequality.

More details about this over at TechXplore.

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Quantum computing has been a subject of interest for physicists and science enthusiasts alike, because of its massive potential to revolutionize basically all things that require computing like medicine and data transmission. Many companies now invest billions in this field in science, in hopes that one day they will be able to understand and harness the power of quantum computing. Now, it seems that even kids will have an opportunity to learn more about quantum computing.

With an eye toward the future, a group of researchers at Fermilab,a particle physics laboratory in Batavia, Ill., has worked with high-school teachers to develop a program to train their students in this emerging field.

This program, called "Quantum Computing as a High School Module," was developed in collaboration with young students in mind. But it's also a perfect diversion for science enthusiasts of any age who suddenly have a lot of time on their hands.

More details about this over at Live Science.

Amazing!

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The bad news is that students at The Julliard School didn't get to stage their spring performances live. The good news is that what they did instead is available to us all. Student musicians, actors, and dancers, along with some distinguished faculty and alumni, collaborated from their homes to produce Ravel's Bolero. Read how the performance came together here. -via Kottke

(Image credit: Dotty Teapot)

While the weather is warming up and dog grooming businesses are closed, some folks took a chance on removing their doggo's winter growth themselves. While they get points for self-reliance, the results are not quite as planned. Okay, these dog owners get more points for seeing the humor in their situation and sharing the pictures online.

(Image credit: SoundOfOneHand)

The good news is that it's hair, and it will grow out eventually. And the dogs probably don't care nearly as much as their pictures might imply. Get a laugh at 52 dogs who had to endure home grooming at Bored Panda.

We may never know how people in the distant past regarded the concept of time, at least before they left evidence in the form of symbols and language. But once they developed those things, we can chart how the world not only saw time, but tried to measure it and understand it. Quanta magazine has a timeline of some of the highlights in that journey, as they pertain to culture, physics, timekeeping, and biology. While all timelines end with "now," we are sure to learn more about time and its nature in the "future." -via Damn Interesting

Technology and artificial intelligence has greatly improved throughout the years. But if there’s something that still has lots of room for improvement, it would be the AI’s ability to talk to humans. Chatbots and virtual assistants still suck at keeping conversations. But perhaps starting now, things will be different.

Now Facebook has open-sourced a new chatbot that it claims can talk about nearly anything in an engaging and interesting way. Blender could not only help virtual assistants resolve many of their shortcomings but also mark progress toward the greater ambition driving much of AI research: to replicate intelligence. “Dialogue is sort of an ‘AI complete’ problem,” says Stephen Roller, a research engineer at Facebook who co-led the project. “You would have to solve all of AI to solve dialogue, and if you solve dialogue, you’ve solved all of AI.”

More details about this story over at Technology Review.

(Image Credit: Facebook/ Technology Review)

Nowadays, it has been very easy to look for ways to lose or gain weight. Answers to many of your diet questions can be found at the tip of your fingers (or your thumbs, if you’re using a phone). But, as they always say, not everything that can be found in the Internet is true.

Nutritionists examine four trending diets, namely reverse dieting, GAPS, HCG, and IIFYM. Their conclusions? These diets are just fad diets which lack scientific evidence.

Details over at ScienceAlert.

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Compilations of news bloopers are added to YouTube's library all the time, but in the era of social distancing, a new difficulty factor had been added. Many correspondents are filing reports from their homes, which means technical glitches, lack of direction, and family members and pets popping up at the most awkward time. -via Digg

Make your desk more… intriguing with this banana lamp designed by Studio Job and produced by Seletti. With its golden peeling and its shining body, this banana lamp surely makes for an eye-catching desk. The lamp comes in three designs, namely Huey, Dewey, and Louie (the names of Donald Duck’s nephews).

Choose one to suit your mood, or grab all three if you like your bananas by the bunch. Each lamp sells for $295 over on Gessato, which is a whole lot of bananas if you ask me.

(Image Credit: Technabob)

In order to learn more about our organs such as the brain, as well as cancerous tumors, scientists have been trying to get detailed 3D views inside our bodies — views so detailed that they will be able to identify blood vessels and cell types. But doing this is far from easy, and it takes a lot of time.

Now, dramatic improvements to a 3D imaging technique can reveal the internal components of entire organs or even animals in a simple procedure, researchers report this week.

Scientists were able to take a peek inside a mouse’s brain using this new staining method, which could help in many scientific fields.

More details about this over at Science Magazine.

(Image Credit: RIKEN/ Creative Commons)

There are many things that cause distress to children. To name a few, some of them are hunger, fatigue, and loud noises (the same things that cause distress to adults, actually), while the two most common causes of distress in children are boredom and anxiety. Psychology Today offers alternative ways in addressing the causes of distress in children. They also provide examples that might help you identify if your child is bored or anxious. Check out the article over at the site to learn more details about this.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

Adam Hillman is an artist, but more humbly refers to himself as an "object arranger". Lately, the objects that he has been arranging into mosaics are colored paperclips. Here is his recreation of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night.